FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 26, 2010
CONTACT
Alexander Platt (Director)
aplatt@elementaltheatre.org
Elemental’s Go.Go 5 – Five Years of New Plays in Providence
PROVIDENCE, RI – December 26, 2010
Every autumn, Elemental Theatre Collective commissions original works of theater from local playwrights, then casts them, rehearses them and premieres them by the end of January. The pieces are always written in response to a challenge: ETC draws random playwriting elements out of a hat, and the playwrights have to incorporate those elements into their plays, to be completed by a certain deadline. Elemental calls the resulting program of new work “The Go.Go Plays.”
For Go.Go 5, the fifth annual event, ETC decided to do something different.
Rather than commissioning particular playwrights to participate in the event, the company publicized the elements online, and put out a general call for play submissions. Forty-five days later, Elemental had received 31 new plays. Without knowing who had written them, the selection committee set to work, evaluating the pieces based on dramatic structure and conflict, language, character development, and creative use of the required elements.
Four plays were finally chosen: Wake by Jill Blevins, Baby Talk by George Brant, The Pickle Shop by Rob Grace, and A Brief History of the Earth and Everything In It (As Performed by Ms. LoPiccolo’s Third-Grade Drama Group from the William Jennings Bryan Elementary School in Springfield, Missouri) by Dave Rabinow.
ETC Artistic Director Alexander Platt is directing the evening of plays, and was thrilled with the selection process and the finalists. “We received a surprising number of good plays, and we wanted to do many more of them than we are able to produce in this round. When we finally narrowed down the finalists and looked at the names of the writers, we were delighted to find that we had two local playwrights (Grace and Rabinow), and two formerly local playwrights (Blevins and Brant).”
ETC has produced plays by Brant and Rabinow in previous festivals. This is Rob Grace’s first time collaborating with the group, while Jill Blevins has worked with the company as an actor and director, but never before as a playwright.
The cast features a stunning array of local talent. Many of the company are new to the Go.Go Plays. Gamm Resident Artist Casey Seymour-Kim* is working with Elemental for the first time, as is another Gamm regular, Amanda Ruggiero. Rae Mancini is joined onstage by Kevin Broccoli and Erin Olson, all frequent actors at Second Story. Bryce Johnson, a Junior at the JM Walsh School for the Performing and Visual Arts, is making his Elemental debut. Returning to the festival are Jed Hancock-Brainerd, Rebecca Noon and Chris Rosenquest (fresh from their Special Happy triumph). Rounding out the cast are ETC Resident Artists D’Arcy Dersham*, Dave Rabinow and Kelly Seigh, who between them have been seen in 11 previous Go.Go Plays.
Go.Go 5: The 5th Annual Go.Go Plays will be presented at 95 Empire Street (Home of Perishable Theatre), January 27 – February 13, Thursdays through Saturdays at 7:30 pm and Sunday matinees at 2:00 pm. Tickets are $15 General/$10 Student ID, with $10 Previews on January 27 and 28. Visit www.elementaltheatre.org to reserve tickets, or call (401) 447-3001.
*Members, Actors’ Equity Association
Awesome article!