This past week was a blur of new plays, energetic and talented students, wonderful conversations, and rain, and I'm planning on relaying ALL the great happenings first thing Monday, but for my eight week of the 52 Plays by Women challenge I wanted to highlight all the new work I witnessed over my days in Eugene, Oregon! I saw a total of eleven readings (not including the reading of my new work RED DAYS), seven out of the eleven were by female identifying writers! Over the week the student written readings I saw included:
- HOW SWEET THE SOUND by Eryn McVay
- TONY THE FANTASTIC FIREMAN LIVE! ONE SHOW ONLY! by Malia Wessel
- DUST IN THE STREETS by Ryan Han
- AGAIN! AGAIN! by Katherine Gee Perrone
- RORY'S STORY by Grace Heller
- SILVER SIXPENCE by Jessi Pitts
- when a whale falls by Jay Chavez
- PAWNS by Kevin Harris
- WHAT WE HAVE LEFT by Brett Bean
- PAINTING RICO by Isaac Newton
- DHEBBA by Sravya Tadepalli
The plays were such a wide variety, all created with so much heart. It was a joy to see and to have the chance to respond to.
In addition to catching student work presented at the festival, I had the opportunity to see a devised play from Portal Theatre called NO BELLES about female scientists that either won or were overlooked for the Nobel Prize. It was AMAZING, and created by some fantastic artists: Michael Phillips (artistic director of Portal Theatre), Kimberly Wilson, Jade Hobbs Strong, and Melissa Schenter. In performance all of the creators were present except Melissa, with Kira Batcheller taking up her role in the piece.
NO BELLES has toured through Canadian Fringe Festivals, as well as going to Edinburgh Fringe. The show still performs, I highly recommend checking it out if you get the chance.
What did you watch or see this week?