Addressing the Scarcity of Roles for Women
Inaugurated in 2006, UMBC’s annual IN10 International Short Play Competition seeks to address the scarcity of strong roles for young women in contemporary American plays. By creating a national competition for 10-minute long plays that feature solid acting opportunities for young actresses, the Department of Theatre hopes to help commence a new era in contemporary American playwrighting. The national winner is awarded a cash prize and performances at the Festival. Additionally, each year the IN10 Festival commissions new works by noted American playwrights.
This year’s festival, which runs March 4 through 8 in the UMBC Theatre, features new theatrical works for young actresses and all audiences, including the winning play of UMBC’s IN10 International Short Play Competition, Confirmed Sighting by Patrick Gabridge.
Artistic Director Susan McCully has commissioned new works by renowned playwrights Lee Blessing, Kia Corthron and Caridad Svich:
Into You (Lee Blessing): Following her recent assault, a nursing student implicates her roommates in brutal game of crime and punishment when she exacts a secret revenge.
Trickle (Kia Corthron): Supply-side economics works its dramatic arch through the lives of five women in this cunning play about who gets bailed out and who is dumped upon.
Confirmed Sighting (Patrick Gabridge): A young professor searching for a rare bird in an Arkansas swamp finds an unlikely ally in a savvy local, but can she be trusted?
Stepping on Water (Caridad Svich): Lotti’s restlessness and yearning to escape her insular hometown takes poetic flight through her passionate longing for the beautiful Spanish girl next door.
The Festival features direction by Colette Searls and Jennifer L. Nelson, set design by Daniel Ettinger, sound design by Terry Cobb, dialect direction by Lynn Watson, light design by student Matthew Klein, and costume styling by students Christiane Markus and Ulrich Lindqvist.
A performance schedule and ticket information are available online.
(2/27/09)
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