FUSION
Theatre Company is excited to announce
The Seven for this year's competition!
All
seats are nearly gone for all performances:
call the box office.
And remember: our audiences get to vote
for their favorite,
the esteemed Bob and Gail
Bosser Audience Choice Award.
2011
Jury Prize Winner
& Bob and Gail Bosser Audience Choice Award
"Formaldehyde" by
Richard Kalinoski, Oshkosh, WI
2011
Winners
"Playing with Fire" by Lyn Kidder, Ruidoso, NM
"Two Minutes of Heroism" by Matt Hanf, Elk Grove,
CA
"Neighborly Do's and Don'ts" by Brian Walker, Louisville,
KY
"And What a Damn Fine Morning It Is"
by Trace Crawford, Hillard, OH
"Water/A Shot in the Dark" by Christopher Kent, Gloucester,
MA
"Status Update" by Jamie Pachino, Los Angeles, CA
Finalists
"Crossing the Line" by Seth Freeman, Pacific Palisades,
CA
"Just Another Day in the White House Briefing Room"
by
Stephen Fruchtman, New Rochelle, NY
"The Family Plan" by Jacques Lamarre, Manchester,
CT
"Luke Meets Charlene at a Really Nice Bar"
by Christopher
Lockheardt, Andover, MA
"A Very Cold War" by Barbara Lindsay, Shoreline, WA
"Blest be the Tie That Binds"
by Susan Jackson, San
Francisco, CA
"Yes Yes Maybe" by Leah Harper, Gilroy, CA
"Beyond Grave" by Aimee Bruneau, Seattle, WA
"Game On" by Martin Rader, Hot Springs, NC
"Delivered" by Jeffrey Neuman, Denver, CO
"DWI (Driving While Innocent)" by
Dale
Dunn, Santa Fe, NM
"The Extraordinarily Mundane Adventures of Earth Boy"
by
Josh Hartwell, Denver, CO
"Expecting" by Milo Mowery, Tacoma, WA
"Green Satin Girls" by Larry Glaister, Santa Fe, NM
FUSION Theatre Company, New
Mexico's professional theatre company, is
proud to announce the finalist scripts for
their sixth annual new short works, festival,
The Seven: Tangled Webs.
The winning seven scripts will come from
these final twenty-one, and
the announcement will be made on Monday,
May 16th. The highest scoring playwright,
the Jury Award winner, will receive roundtrip
transport/lodging to attend the festival.
Additionally, each of these finalist scripts
will be considered for inclusion in a FUSION/Digital
Filmmaking Institute collaboration this coming
September that will fully produce one of
the scripts as a screenplay.
Congratulations!
The
Seven runs for one weekend only and always
sells out!
Don't delay!
All entries to FUSION's "The Seven" short
works contest are read "blind" (all
identifying information withheld from the judges),
ensuring a
level playing
field for all. The script quality was excellent this
year necessitating tough choices with these, our
additional...
Interviews
With 2011's Winners
1) How did you hear about “The
Seven”?
2) What was the impetus/basis/inspiration for writing the piece?
3) Is this play representational of your writing style? Is it similar to or
different from your other plays?
4) What is the role of the short work in your playwriting career?
5) What is your favorite play? Who is your favorite playwright?
6) What is your next playwriting venture?
7) Is there anything you would like to add?
R
Kalinoski
T
Crawford
C
Kent
M
Hanf
L
Kidder
J Pachino
B
Walker
click
on a playwright's photo to read his/her response!
FUSION
Headed to B'way for Third Successive Year!
FUSION Theatre Company
has learned that it has, for the third year in a
row, had a previous "The Seven" winner
selected for this year's (2011) OOB Festival! Executive
Director Dennis Gromelski is pleased to announce
that last year's Jury Prize Winner, Hiding
from Adults by
Greg Kalleres was selected
for inclusion in this summer's festival. Additionally,
for the third
year
in a row as well, FUSION has been invited to present
its work. Starring in the OOB production will
be our original performers Bruce Holmes and Riley
Teahan, joined by FUSION founder Jacqueline Reid.
Festival details are available at the OOB
web site. If your travel plans take
you to Manhattan this July, we hope to see you there
click to play a YouTube slideshow
of "The Seven:Tangled Webs" New Works
'11
The Seven, the 6th annual New
Works Festival from FUSION Theatre Company, featured
seven
short plays from around the country. This year's
theme, "Tangled Webs," provided
the audience with complex, often ironic, psychological dramas. Short one-acts,
ten to fifteen minutes long, are hard to write and sometimes hard to watch, as
a bevy of characters, plots, styles and themes burst one after another—the
whole is not always greater than the sum of the parts. I'm happy to say that
this year's festival was thoroughly enjoyable, often brilliant, theatre. Fusion@The
Cell did a fine job of creating an organic production that delved into our collective
American psyche, past and present.
Kudos to the production staff—including Dennis Gromelski as Coordinator,
Maria Lee Schmidt as Stage Manager, and Richard K. Hogle, Set & Lighting
Design—for establishing complete environments with great efficiency and
maximum metaphoric value for the diverse subject matter. The seven directors
established foregrounding rhythms and a masterful sense of rising and falling
action within each brief time frame. The cast, several of whom played multiple
roles, showed remarkable fluidity as well. The following gives a snapshot of
each play.
Jamie Pachino's Status Update played with our obsessions
about social media, particularly Facebook. A couple's
relationship pivots 180 degrees over the
issue of whether or not to "publish" their changed status online
after they've slept together. The play, directed by Josh Klein, puts the
dilemma of what is
public vs. what private literally center stage. In a summer where the sexual
peccadilloes of politicians occupy the headlines, the play ironically sends
up our cravings to be special in the internet age.
Water/A Shot in the Dark, written
by Christopher Kent, is a story of war buddies in
an episode of
friendly fire. The play hinges on the revelation
that one
soldier has accidentally (or not) shot the other. Director Laurie Thomas
did a fine job
of keeping the action taut, but the predictable outcome of the play is
a weak point in the script.
Playing with Fire, by the New Mexican playwright
Lyn Kidder, has the import of history behind it.
Set in Los Alamos at the end of WWII, the play explores
the
impact of the development of the atomic bomb on one couple. The man (played
with quiet tension by Ryan Jason Cook) is one of the physicists working
on the bomb
with Oppenheimer. His pregnant wife, well played by Kate Costello, symbolizes
the simple patriotism and belief in the nation's integrity that characterized
the times. Sound design (by Brent Stevens) and direction (Robb Sisneros)
added much to this intriguing play.
The fourth play, And What a Damn Fine Morning
It Is, is a hilarious send-up of consumerism in a neighborhood
where aspiration is gospel. There were
excellent comic turns by Paul Blott and Bruce Holmes as they escalate
their oneupmanship,
and director Aaron Worley's timing matched theirs. Playwright Trace
Crawford has his mischievous hand on our mercantile
pulse here.
The second act, opening with Two Minutes
of Heroism,
juxtaposes the desires and motives of a small community
of people who are all affected
by a
convenience store shooting. Nicely choreographed by director Jacqueline
Reid, the play's
idea is more profound than the limited interactions allow. Playwright
Matt Hanf
is hampered here by the requirement of brevity. It would be satisfying
if this concept could be developed at greater length where the characterizations
could
reach beyond stereotype.
Brian Walker's Neighborly Do's & Don'ts is
utterly original and madly comic as a woman kidnaps
a man who has stolen her girl scout cookies for three
years
running. The thief, played by Neil Faulconbridge with masterful
cunning and wonderful self-deprecation, reveals that
his addiction to the cookies developed during
a childhood of helping his sister sell the most cookies in their
town. Jen Grigg as the over-the-top neighbor seeking
vengeance and the economic direction of
Bruce Holmes made this short play a crowd pleaser.
Ending the sequence of plays was a dark story of
family dysfunction, Formaldehyde,
the jury [and Bob and Gail Bosser Audience Favorite]
prize winner in the festival. The longest play featured
and the
most complexly drawn, this story of an anger-addicted husband,
a desperate but passive
wife, and a gutsy daughter constantly took new and unexpected
turns. The cast—Bruce
Holmes, Wendy Scott, and Lauren Myers—were inspired in
this unpredictable drama well-directed by Jen Grigg.
The Seven played June 9-12, 2011 at The Cell Theater
at 700 1st St. NW in Albuquerque, NM. For more information
on this excellent
company
with
a history
of polished,
professional productions, go to www.fusionabq.org.
Marissa Greenberg, review,
June 21, 2008 (on-line),
Albuquerque Journal:
In Jen Silverman’s The Education of
Macoloco, Anessa teaches her son bizarre
trivia and the so-called “facts of life.”
But Anessa withholds the truth of Macoloco’s
paternity and, until the play’s conclusion,
of her inner life. Such silences befit the winner
of the Jury Prize of The Seven: Something
Left Unsaid, FUSION Theatre Company’s
New Works Festival.
Now in its third year, the festival received 417
short works from 41 states and 6 countries. The jury
reads submissions “blind” and chooses
7 for performance. This year’s winners suggest
a bright future for the international stage. In particular,
expect to hear again from Silverman. Silverman, who
graduated from Brown University in 2006 and begins
the MFA program at Iowa Playwrights Workshop this
fall, had 2 plays in the festival.
Like Macoloco, Silverman’s
Notes on Drowning (For the Man Who Cannot
Make the Journey) withholds essential information
until the end. The final revelation belittles mundane
suffering yet proves oddly life affirming. Strong
direction (Jen Grigg and Elizabeth Huffman) and solid
performances energize Silverman’s learned, witty
and affective scripts. Laurie Thomas gives an especially
impressive performance as Anessa, a physically and
emotionally demanding role.
Other plays invite the audience to deduce what is
left unsaid. The title of Craig Abernethy’s
That Day refers to September 11, 2001. Kirsten
and Toby (compellingly performed by Ravenna Fahey
and Michael Finnegan) never specify the date, but
as they describe an exhibition of photos taken in
the tragedy’s aftermath, the audience can fill
in the blank. Despite its intentional evasions, That
Day is rawly honest. Like the exhibited
photos, it demonstrates that art can render reality “too
real.”
Perhaps the most amusing play, Teddy
Knows Too Much by Matt Hanf (Jacqueline
Reid directs), also includes a profoundly disturbing
silence. A mustached
and uproarious John Hardman stars as 3-year-old Billy,
who surreptitiously torments his family in order
to
secure his parents’ attention. Mom and Dad
(Lou Clark and Bruce Holmes are hilarious) look
for simple
solutions to Billy’s behavior. First they give
him a stuffed teddy bear who becomes privy to all
Billy’s secrets and therefore must be silenced.
Teddy’s flushing is followed by medication.
In a final tableau, Hanf’s implicit commentary
on parenting in America ceases to evoke laughter.
What ought not go unsaid is that The Seven
is worth seeing.
With the inception in 2006 of our The Seven:
New Works Fest, FUSION Theatre Company has
been pleased to host a wonderful new way to fulfill
our mission of presenting fresh, new works of extraordinary
merit.
To view our previous "Seven" productions, click
here.
With an annual theme selected
by our patrons via on-line voting, FUSION Theatre
Company has seen exponential interest from talented
playwrights the world over. Our inaugural festival
in 2006, with the theme Games People Play,
drew over 70 submissions, from which the top seven
were selected by our artistic staff. They are always
professionally produced, acted and directed and
enthusiastically received by full houses.
