Following seven years of highlighting plays from around the nation, this year’s The Humble Play: New Play Festival of Appalachia Ohio is focusing more on home.
Humble Play is a festival in which playwrights submit their new work to a committee who selects the plays that will be produced as staged readings in the festival.
This year, with the festival lacking an artistic director, the committee decided to look back at previous submissions that were selected, said Kelly Lawrence, project director of Humble Play and events coordinator at ARTS/West. All three plays that will run in the festival are by local playwrights.
“We’re so lucky to have such talented playwrights here,” Lawrence said. “This is an opportunity for Athens to shine.”
A former Athens High School student wrote the first play selected to be revisited this year. Rheal Radwany’s Romeo and Juliet: There Hasn’t Been a Rap Song Yet resembles the Shakespeare classic but has a modern twist — the actors often freestyle and beat box.
The production of this piece will feature members of the Athens High School Drama Club. The festival has created many first experiences for several of the students, such as Camila Benencia, a junior at AHS, who said she has never done a staged reading before.
The other works to be featured in this year’s Humble Play are Dignity by Celeste Parsons and Her Summer Fling by Merri Biechler. Dignity follows the struggles a brother and sister face when their father is at the end of his life. Her Summer Fling is a comedy about an older woman dating a younger man.
Parsons said the opportunity Humble Play gives to the playwright is invaluable to the growth of the play, especially the discussion held after each reading.
“When the play is read, it may be the first time the playwright has ever heard the words he or she has written, which can be helpful when it needs polishing later,” she said. “(The audience) can make a contribution to help make the play better... They can say what worked, what didn’t work.”
Parsons said just because it isn’t a full production doesn’t mean the play will not make an impact on the audience.
“It can be quite dramatic and moving just to have a well-trained cast read a play,” she said. “When all you’ve got is the words to listen to, that’s a whole different thing.”
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