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Two Short Works Festivals

Short works festivals are a great way for theaters to advance their missions. In a single evening, a theater can give its audience exposure to multiple viewpoints on a theme, while simultaneously giving opportunities to numerous playwrights. This week, Buffalo United Artists and Subversive Theatre Collective open evenings of short works with just those purposes in mind.

BUA Takes Ten: GLBT Short Plays is an evening of 11 10-minute plays focused on gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgender experience. Playwright Donna Hoke approached BUA with the idea, and she and fellow playwright Matthew Crehan Higgins teamed up as co-curators. They were astonished when 174 submissions flooded in during the one-month submission window.

The 11 chosen works will be presented beginning Friday, June 22, for six performances, Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm., and Sundays at 7pm., at the BUA Theater (119 West Chippewa Street), staged by a team of 12 actors and directors. The selections represent a diverse array of experiences, and also of styles, from the deeply serious to the hilarious.

“Reading the submissions, we were struck by all that people could say within such a short time,” says Crehan Higgins. “These 11 snapshots of GLBT lives give our company of seven actors the opportunity to bring more than 40 characters to life each night.”

The BUA Takes 10 company includes directors Laura LaValley, Lisa Ludwig, Drew McCabe, Victoria Perez, and Jessica K. Rasp, along with actors Caitlin Coleman, Crehan Higgins, Perez, Marc Sacco, Jonathan Shuey, Alisse Sikes, and James Robert Steiner.

The featured plays are:

LAST AND ALWAYS

by Allan Baker (Austin, Texas)

SHINY PAIR OF COMPLICATIONS

by J. Stephen Brantley (New York City, New York)

THE TOP AND THE BOTTOM

by Stefan M. Brundage (Niagara Falls, New York)

INCIDENT ON CRESCENT ROAD

by Dave Carley (Toronto, Ontario)

LAST WORDS

by Jeff Carter (San Francisco, California)

ZOO STORY

by Rich Espey (Towson, Maryland)

M&M

by Matthew Crehan Higgans and Marc Sacco (Buffalo, New York)

WRITE THIS WAY

by Donna Hoke (Buffalo, New York)

TEN PICNICS

by Mark Harvey Levine (Pasadena, California)

STATUS UPDATE

by Thomas J. Misuraca (Tarazana, California)

HAPPY AND GAY

by Mary Steelsmith (Boise, Indiana)

Call 716-886-9239 for reservations.



sUBVERsIVE sHORTs 2012

While BUA Takes 10 is that company’s first foray into the world of short works, sUBVERsIVE sHORTs have been a popular part of Subversive Theatre Collective’s annual programming for five years. As the company wryly boasts, “Homeland Security beware! It’s time once again for sUBVERsIVE sHORTs! Subversive Theatre is proud to be home to the World’s only annual showcase of short new American political plays.”

Installment #6 of sUBVERsIVE sHORTs features 14 new plays from all across the nation, staged by nine directors, with over thirty actors.

The company promises that “this teeming smorgasbord of socially relevant protest theater takes on a veritably endless list of societal ills—from militarism to economic corruption, blind faith religiosity, alienation, exploitation, poverty, and even bad nutritional choices.”

With so many social ills from which to choose, Subversive organizes their festival into two evenings, an “A Night” and a “B Night”—playing on alternating nights.

This year’s directors are Chelsea Bath, Virginia Brannon, Kelly Beuth, Annise Celano, Christopher LaBanca, Michael Lodick, Kurt Schneiderman, Brianna Simmons, and Bob Van Valin.

The actors include Jack Agugliaro, Carol Alaimo, John Aramini, Holden Bath, Virginia Brannon, Jerrold Brown, Andre Colon, Erin Crowell, Hasheen DeBerry, Leo DiBello, Lauren Frank, Murry Galloway, Angel Izard, Brittany Kucala, Sara Jo Kukulka, Sean Marciniak, Eric Madia, James McLaughlin, Diane McNamara, Michael Morel, Jamie Lynn Nablo, Maura Nolan, Shayna Raichilson-Zadok, Danica Riddick, Lewis Sepulveda, P. J. Tighe, and Leanne Troutman.

sUBVERsIVE sHORTs runs June 21-July 15 with performances Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 8pm and Sundays at 6pm. All performances are at Subversive Theatre’s regular performance space, the Manny Fried Playhouse (255 Great Arrow Avenue on the third floor of the Great Arrow Building). For all Thursday shows, admission is “pay-what-you-can.”

The “A Night Line-up,” playing June 21, 23, 29, July 1, 5, 7, 13, 15:

ROCKET’S RED GLARE

by Jason Furlani (Brooklyn, New York)

THE QUALITY OF MERCY

by Christopher LaBanca (Buffalo, New York)

A SCENE FROM A FACTORY

by Howard Kingkade (Broken Neck, Missouri)

HARD CELL

by Donna Hoke (Buffalo, New York)

HE IS GONNA SEE STARS

by Lavinia Roberts (Queens, New York)

SELDOM IS HEARD

by Mary Steelsmith (Los Angeles, California)

COINTELPRO VISITS THE CHURCH BASEMENT LADIES

by Trace Crawford (Hilliard, Ohio)

The “B Night Line-up” playing June 22, 24, 28, 30, July 6, 8, 12, 14, 15:

A MATTER OF NATIONAL INTEREST

by Cary Pepper (San Francisco, California)

KINDERGARTEN PHILOSOPHY: COMMON CENTS

by Andrew Baer (Woodbridge, Virginia)

WATER/A SHOT IN THE DARK

by Christopher Kent (Southborough, Massachusetts)

TWO MINUTES OF HEROISM

by Matt Hanf (Elk Grove, California)

IT’S WHAT’S FOR DINNER

by Jonathan Graham (Richmond, Indiana)

THE RABBIT LESSON

by Christopher Kent (Southborough, Massachusetts)

ONE, THREE, TWO

by Michael Weems (Albuquerque, New Mexico)

On Sunday, July 15, both the A and B programs will be offered starting at 4pm. For more information, call 408-0499 or visit www.subversivetheatre.org.