theatre nerds unite: the south carolina new play festival 2022!
things i love: folding audience seats. the anticipation of an actor-less stage. the lights going out and the audience clapping before a single word is spoken. the promise of real-time art. (you know, from a safe distance where the actors are on stage and not in the aisles; but we conquered that one this week, too.)
last week, the south carolina new play festival (full online program here) celebrated eight events over the course of three days in greenville, sc. (+ at least two more bookstore and coffee shop events that i was aware of!)
the whole thing was a beautiful melding of established theatres opening their doors all across town, and local actors getting to share the stage for readings with professional actors fresh from broadway and beyond. all from yet-to-be-produced productions! and we saw them here first!
the festival was a giant panoply of genre and talent—without the cross-theatre competition for selling out a friday nite show!
both patrons and the community at large got to share in actual real-live theatre: and all for FREE.
not only was a theatre festival so refreshing after the theatre-less pandemic, but something we theatre nerds have always known: the stage is a safe space with room for all.
now, i’m no reporter. i wasn’t asked to cover this event or give you a play-by-play (buh-dum-dum.)
but i am an artist, illustrator, and a “pre-published” author currently querying her middle grade novel. (which, no surprise, takes place amongst the performing arts.)
so, not to rub it in, but i’ll just go ahead & share some feelings from the events i was fortunate enough to attend last weekend.
sound like a fun plan? awesomesause. everybody jazz hands, and here we go…! :D
theatre event one: the 25th annual putnam county spelling bee at the warehouse theatre
(actually not a part of the sc new play festival, but i booked my ticket oddly enough for the night before the SCNPF events began; whattyagonnado?)
behold: brave hallie.
so i get to theatres early. maybe to revel in the magic ahead of time. maybe to get a parking spot. or to get some extra reading done in the lobby. you’ll never know.
what i do know is that when the house manager asked if i’d be willing to be an audience participant in the 25th annual putnam county spelling bee, i said “well, that’s out of character for me, so sure. let’s do it.”
^ so here were my instructions. don’t try to be a character. if they tell me to spell the word “cow,” and i know how to spell it, please do spell it correctly. and if i feel lost, the cast on stage will help. or tell me where to move so i don’t get kicked in the face during a dance break.
(bonus points if you correctly identified that i’d brought tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow to read while i waited in the lobby for the house to open, also while waiting for the show to start, and then pretended to read during intermission while actually eavesdropping on conversations happening around me. the book was v. absorbing and i carried around all weekend until i could say the end.) ;)
exhibit b[ee]: the set.
but let’s zoom in, shall we?
bzz bzz bzz… that’s me! hallie! one of the official spelling bee contestants! eep!
so yes, they called me up on stage.
yes, the first word i had to spell was indeed “cow.” (nailed it.)
i moved to the side for a dance break.
my second turn at the mic i was asked to spell “shauleighlee.” (no, i’m not gonna google and find the real spelling for you; that’s just what it sounded like.)
alas, i was disqualified, and handed over my contestant lanyard and took my seat where i could enjoy the rest of the show from the cushy seat i paid for and not in the spotlight on the benches on stage. ;)
the rest of the show was indeed delightful. the contestants were SO in character that i was a little jealous i didn’t get to put on a persona and tiffle with the judges myself. but i’m glad my role at least did not require any singing. that would have cleared out the theatre as well as the talented cast.
bonus joy one:
the (real-life) fourth grade classes the actors worked with for in-school programming last spring had drawn BEES that now decorated the theatre and hallways and lobby.
bonus joy two:
the fourth and final audience participant actually spelled his SECOND (nonsense) word correctly. so after a quick character-break (come on, you know that’s always the funniest part on SNL), the judges had to come up with a new (nonsense) word for him to spell. otherwise how could the guidance counselor serenade him before singing him off the stage and back to his seat? ;D yay live theatre and ad-libbing when things don’t go according to plan/script.
bonus joy three:
it’s not to late for you to see the show! maybe you’ll even get to be in it! runs through this weekend. link to the warehouse theatre ticket site HERE.
theatre event two: the scarlet letter, by kate hamill at the gunter theatre
see? don’t those six empty folding chairs just look magical already?
if your memory is working, you’ll know i got to hear from kate last month at my local independent bookstore for a theatre event. (full post about playwright/actress/chaos muppet HERE.) alas, kate is currently on her postponed 2020 honeymoon, living it up across italy, and wasn’t here for friday night’s reading. but the sold out house was ready to relish in her retelling of the classic american overly-assigned high school required-reading hawthorne novel.
(again, see that other blog post linked above for her philosophy on retellings and the impetus behind her version of the scarlet letter.)
my only critique: some of the minister’s “sermons” felt a little long. but that could have also been intentional. ;)
here are some great lines i wrote down in the dark.
(way more funny or poignant in context, i’m sure. but when you get to see the show someday, i bet these lines shall stick out to you as well.)
“sir, i cannot.”
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“my child has no father but a heavenly one”
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“this is our story.”
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“i am crying over the Lord’s judgement of my sins.”
“that’s a stupid reason.”
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“i hate the children.”
“you should lie down.”
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“why should she be blamed? she is not the only sinner in massachusetts. must she do penance for all of us forever?”
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“i hope you find peace.”
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“every coward has his reasons.”
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“you would deny me my confession?”
theatre event three: dodi & diana at the warehouse theatre
i didn’t take a picture of the stage here for two reasons…
it was at the same location and therefore had the same set as the 25th annual putnam county spelling bee (see theatre event one above). just with a velvet sheet draped over those bleachers.
the playwright was seated directly behind me and i didn’t want to be any more awkward than i already am. :)
okay: on to the play! WOOF. as in, this play would wreak emotional havoc on the two-person cast that would have to perform it eight times a week on (or off-) broadway!
a white collar finance guy and his arab rising-star actress wife are holed up in a paris hotel room. why? because his astrologist/psychic/advisor guy told them too.
why? because somehow he and his wife have a connection with princess diana & dodi fayed and something about the stars and planets aligning and some sort of convergence is about to happen on the anniversary of their tragic accident… and so there they are.
trapped in a fancy-pants hotel room. ordering room service. making out. arguing. making up and making out again. digging up old wounds. figuring out how they’re connected to dodi & diana. talking over arab prejudices in hollywood. trying to stay off their cell phones, and then… then discovering whether or not they’re even in each other’s futures.
so it was a “bottle episode” with a two-person cast. (i haven’t seen neil simon’s plaza suite with matthew broderick and sarah jessica parker currently running on broadway, but i imagine dodi & diana is like that; but way more tragic.)
this show was emotionally exhausting just as a staged reading (the actors were INTO IT. not just in their chairs reading from their script binders, but with physicality, too. i bet they could be off-book and fully-staged with blocking tomorrow if asked to perform!) so i cannot begin to imagine just how exhausting it would be to fully perform this piece. actors are athletes for sure. emotional ones, at that.
and because a fully-staged production would have had the paparazzi flashes outside the hotel room window, and the sounds of diana’s car crash (the overnight news from paris which, yes, sent me into a depression spiral when i was a teenager) … again: woof. i’m not sure i could have made it through a full-on performance without being as emotionally wrecked as the actors on stage.
my only critique: because the warehouse theatre is an intimate setting, there are no overhead hanging mics like were in the gunter theatre for the scarlet letter. so the girl reading the stage directions, and the actors in their more subdued/tender/emotional moments, were hard to hear.
here are some great lines i wrote down in the dark:
“[me being arab] is one little sliver of me and they act like it’s the whole thing.”
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“imagine trying to impress someone like her.”
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“he lived in her world; he was the outsider.”
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“i don’t want to die alone. i don’t want you to die first, either.”
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“get what you wished for?”
“maybe.”
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“thank you for loving me.”
“you’re easy to love.”
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“‘YSD’. thought it was so pretentious. like you were too stuck up to say you went to yale.”
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“what if we can become more than ourselves?”
theatre event four: from the mixed-up files of mrs. basil e. frankweiler at the greenville theatre
bonus: it was a musical!!
of all the new play events i marathoned, the musical had the largest stage. and the largest cast. and it was the one i could most see in my head. (but i have always loved a musical. and kid lit. so maybe i’m a smidge biased.)
& gosh, you guys. not only were the three central cast members (mrs. basil e. frankweiler herself, as well as the young brother and sister runaways!) for this one ridiculously broadway-pedigreed, but THE MUSIC! the music was incredible!!
the score was a happy blend of jazzy ditties high in show-tune energy and just waiting for the choreography. (please get the team who did matilda’s dance numbers!) even the met museum guards got a song, and by the time the cast was singing “so much more,” i knew that i’d be the first in line to buy the original broadway cast recording someday. (even if just for the piano music!)
i leaned over to my friend rachel, who’s a musician herself, and wondered aloud: “the pianist is totally into it. do you think he’s the composer?”
i looked at the program later, my friends, and indeed it was. adam ben-david. i doubt you’ll ever read this, sir, but gracious. you were not only into it, but it was awesome.
all the lyrics were ridiculously clever, too. (“baloney” is my new favorite song, btw. brilliant; peppy; hilarious.)
and because the two kid singer/actors were so terrific, i felt like i was at an out-of-town opening— the show runners testing it on crowds, waiting to see if it’d make its transfer to broadway in time for tony nominations.
i can already picture the set, too: projected screens and a select number of props moving across the stage as the two kids wander and sneak through the museum rooms and exhibits.
here were a few of the lines i wrote down in the dark:
“i’ve decided to run away from home, and i’ve chosen you as my accompaniment.”
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“but you’re not just anybody, are you?”
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“a royal murder? this [bed] is the perfect place to sleep! i hardly feel homesick at all!”
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“art is all i need.”
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“i don’t want to go home the same.”
also, if you’re wondering, yes, the musical is inspired by the newbery medal-winning book of the same title. and yes, if you missed the show, you should read the book. it’s two kids who run away to the big city to solve a mystery. they evade the metropolitan museum of art security team while they live there, trying to prove whether or not michelangelo sculptured the museum’s latest acquisition, the “angel” sculpture, sold at a ridiculously low amount to the museum by the collector mrs. basil e. frankweiler.