The annual Seabury Playwrights’ Festival is bringing three professional mentors to Ohio University to judge two weeks of work by graduate students.
A year’s worth of work by Ohio University’s graduate playwrights will culminate in two weeks of readings and performances in the Seabury Quinn, Jr. Playwrights’ Festival, Tyler Whidden, a third-year graduate student studying playwriting, said.
Starting Wednesday, the playwriting program’s eight students will get a chance to share their work with audiences and professional theater artists. The festival will conclude Apr. 25.
First-year students will present readings of their plays. Second-years will hold staged readings with actors holding scripts in-hand. Two third-year students, in their final year, will present a fully staged show.
The festival will bring the director of new play development of the Goodman Theatre, Tanya Palmer, and two acclaimed playwrights, Laura Jacqmin and Kara Lee Corthron. Playwrights will have an opportunity to discuss their craft with the visiting mentors.
Whidden said students and mentors will talk about current trends in theater and learn how graduates can contribute to the development.
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Occupation: Dad, Whidden’s featured play, explores a modern redefinition of gender roles, as the main character loses his job and takes on the responsibility of staying home with his child.
Whidden’s own life parallels that of his character’s. His wife’s occupation as a doctor in relation to his as a theater artist shows how they redefined gender roles in his relationship, he said.
“I’m kind of in this world,” Whidden said.
Whidden was able to ask Brian Evans, an associate professor of performance, to be the director. He joined Evans in the casting process, offering his input on the actors who would portray his characters.
Evans was able to connect to the story on a personal level, having also experienced fatherhood as stay-at-home parent. Whidden said that mutual understanding brought about an ease to their work together.
“I’m fully around the idea that theater is very collaborative,” Whidden said.
Bait Shop by Ryan Patrick Dolan is the other featured play. The play follows a 42-year-old man who loses his best friend. Faced with a dilemma, he can either spend his life employed at a bait shop in Michigan or follow his ambitions. The decision becomes more complicated with a budding romance.
Bait Shop explores what makes people happy, Dolan, a third-year graduate student studying playwriting, said.
In his first and second year, Dolan directed readings himself. Now with a director and a dramaturg, Dolan said feedback was available on several levels.
“The playwright has last say on pretty much everything,” Dolan said. “I choose to be pretty hands-on.”
Dolan said the five performances of Bait Shop will offer an important learning experience.
“Seabury does two things,” Dolan said. “It allows professionals to give you feedback, but then you also have an audience in the room that is just as important.”
The way the audience reacts to the play will give Dolan an idea of its ability to engage an audience, he said.
The festival is not just an opportunity for those in the program, Whidden said.
“It is a great opportunity for students on campus to come and see some new work, which is a big deal,” Whidden said. “A lot of these plays go on and have lives after this. A lot of the writers go on and have lives after this.”
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