For more than 40 years, the University of Iowa Department of Theatre Arts has presented an annual festival centered on producing, reading, and analyzing new scripts from the Iowa Playwrights Workshop. Iowa New Play Festival 2015 will take place at the UI Theatre Building May 4-9.
Preparing 10 new plays and presenting them in a single week is a monumental undertaking that is only possible through the utilization of UI Department of Theatre Arts’ wide-ranging resources in acting, directing, design, dramaturgy, stage management, and technical support. Through staged readings, workshops, and productions, the festival showcases the process of new play development.
TICKETS
Productions: $5 for non-students, free for UI students (with valid ID)
All readings are free and open to the public.
Festival Box Office Hours (UI Theatre Building): noon to 1:30 p.m., Monday-Tuesday, May 4-5.
Tickets also sold one hour prior to each production (or 30 minutes prior to each reading outside of Room 172).
Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to attend all University of Iowa sponsored events. If you are a person with a disability who requires a reasonable accommodation in order to participate in this program, contact the Department of Theatre Arts in advance at 319-335-2700.
New Play Festival 2015 will include four full productions and six readings. The schedule is below. Additional details about each performance are available on the Department of Theatre Arts website.
MONDAY, MAY 4
Reading Series: Hunting BigFoot
By Theresa Giacopasi
Directed by Madison Colquette
2 p.m. (Cosmo Catalano Acting Studio, Room 172)
There’s a new Bigfoot reality show in town, and it’s picking apart America’s Bigfoot myth with the help of Teddy Roosevelt, Dorothy Parker, PT Barnum, Elvis, Nixon, cryptozoologists, hoaxers, rednecks, yuppies, and more.
Production: Faculty Portrait
By Sean David DeMers
Directed by Ariel Francoeur
5:30 and 9 p.m. (Theatre B)
In Faculty Portrait, five people attempt to reconcile their grief a year after a shared traumatic event, but are surrounded by and trapped in the building where the event occurred. On the day a teacher is to be interviewed for a section of the school yearbook, memories surface and the characters discover that while they suffer alone, they can recover together.
Faculty Portrait contains adult language, suggested violence, the sound of gunshots, and the use of haze and electronic cigarettes.
TUESDAY, MAY 5
Reading Series: Right
By Sam Lahne
Directed by Ariel Francoeur
2 p.m. (Cosmo Catalano Acting Studio, Room 172)
Right is a darkly funny drama that grapples with larger questions of nationality, birthright, loss of homeland, and self-determination.
Right contains adult language and themes.
Production: Silo Tree
By Sam Collier
Directed by Nina Morrison
5:30 and 9 p.m. (David Thayer Theatre)
Lailah guides souls through her house to the world of the dead. Lou and Wiley meet up again after 10 years. The coywolves run in the night. Silo Tree is a pause on the bridge, a collection of lives in liminal space, and a memory that rolls forward as its surface is blown backward by the wind.
Silo Tree contains adult language and themes, violence, the use of haze, and strobe effects.
WEDNESDAY, MAY 6
Reading Series: Binary Star
By G. Flores
Directed by Lesley Geffinger
2 p.m. (Cosmo Catalano Acting Studio, Room 172)
Two women discover their connection to each other through family history.
Binary Star contains some strong language.
Reading Series: Undergraduate Playwrights
5:30 p.m. (Cosmo Catalano Acting Studio, Room 172)
Selected undergraduate playwrights will showcase their ten-minute plays and play excerpts as staged readings.
THURSDAY, MAY 7
Reading Series: Boom Boom Town
By Alysha Oravetz
Directed by Nina Morrison
2 p.m. (Cosmo Catalano Acting Studio, Room 172)
Hell has moved into town, in Williston, North Dakota, home of fracking of the Bakken Shale. A mix of individuals with questionable morals are interrupted in their daily lives, when two rivals come into town, with an ancient past.
Boom Boom Town contains explicit sexual language and content.
Production: TRICH
By Sarah Cho
Directed by Mario El Caponi Mendoza
5:30 and 9 p.m. (Theatre B)
Trich means hair.
Tillo means to pull.
Mania is an abnormal love for, or morbid impulse toward.
TRICH contains adult language and themes, strobe effects, the use of haze, and partial nudity.
FRIDAY, MAY 8
Reading Series: Meloman (a music lover)
By Michael Tisdale
Directed by Michael Tisdale
2 p.m. (Cosmo Catalano Acting Studio, Room 172)
A struggling musician enters into a Faustian agreement with a Russian "businessman."
Meloman contains violence and adult language and themes.
Production: Below the Pacific
By Ryan Oliveira
Directed by Marina Johnson
5:30 and 9 p.m. (David Thayer Theatre)
Two investigators, Doug (USA) and Kai (New Zealand), search the bottom of the sea in order to determine the disappearance of American Airlines Flight 13 over the Pacific Ocean. What they uncover is a missing stewardess—Doug's wife, Marina—who has been brought back to "life" by Takaroa, the Polynesian God of the sea…much to the chagrin of his mermaid ex-lover, Mei-Lei. Through music, magic, and a memorable jellyfish, Doug and Marina try to find each other and escape home to the surface…or disappear with the wreck forever.
Below the Pacific contains haze, violence, profanity, and sexually aggressive material.
SATURDAY, MAY 9
Reading Series: Cut & Run
By Eric Holmes
2 p.m. (Cosmo Catalano Acting Studio, Room 172)
Cut & Run is a gritty picaresque following Meesha, a willful Pakistani-immigrant, who runs away from her hapless husband in Staten Island. As she fights for survival in the harsh underworld of Manhattan, Meesha confronts the depths of her own resourcefulness in a dangerous cityscape.
Cut & Run contains strong language and adult themes.