By Bill Diem
A new form of theater is emigrating this year from Indiana to the Pine Theater in Curtis: the 10-minute play.
“My granddaughter in Indiana is very involved in a 10-minute play festival there every August,” said Ethel Wells, who is co-ordinating the project for the Pine at the Erickson Center. When she and her husband Jim drive to Indiana in August for the granddaughter’s birthday, they also get to go to her 10-munute play festival in Chesterton, and “we’ve always enjoyed it.”
The Erickson Center approved the project of presenting eight different short plays when Wells presented it, and work started in March with a workshop presented on Zoom by Erin Osgood, who works in theater in downstate.
Three of the local people who took part then wrote their first plays, which were among the 41 scripts entered for the festival from Michigan authors.
A panel of readers read all the plays, rated them, and the top 15 were chosen for a group discussion. In the end, eight were picked for production: five comedies and three dramas.
“We had a bias for comedies,” Wells said. “We’re geared toward family plays,” and those with profanity or violence were eliminated.
In Indiana, audience support has grown over 11 years so that it now requires putting on their packet of eight plays a total of eight times over three weekends. The Pine Festival anticipates producing its eight short plays twice, at 7 p.m. on Sept 19 and Sept. 20.
After the plays were chosen, Wells called for people interested in being directors. One author is directing his own play; another director has one and three directors are doing two each.
The next step is finding the cast.
“It’s a great opportunity for people who have never acted before but are interested,” Wells said. “We are encouraging novices; someone who wants to try.”
There are many fewer lines to remember in a play that lasts 10 minutes, compared to the 90-minutes of major theatrical productions.
Casting will take place at the Pines from 6-8 p.m. July 31 and August 1, and from 1-3 p.m. Saturday, August 2.
“You don’t have to sign up,” Wells said. “Just show up.”
There is a total of 25 roles in the eight plays, half for men and half for women, and there is one role for a girl 8-10 years old. Directors will set up individual rehearsal schedules for the actors in their plays.
Bill Diem wrote a play called “Bears at the Dump” that will be produced at the festival.
