On Stage Tonight - The New Works Festival

Tonight is the first night of the New Works Festival at Marshall University. I was at the first edition last year and enjoyed it a lot - it's a fresh and fun way to enjoy lots of short plays, and it's inexpensive, too!

Here's the rundown for tonight:

Marshall University’s second annual Robert Hinchman New Works Festival will be presented by Marshall University Theatre and the Marshall University College of Fine Arts.

The three-night festival will present both staged and unstaged readings of six new plays over three consecutive evenings, June 26-28, 2008. All readings will begin at 8:00 p.m. in the Francis Booth Experimental Theatre of the Joan C. Edwards Playhouse.

Each evening’s readings will be followed by a discussion/question and answer session with the playwright, director and cast. Participation is both welcome and encouraged.

Toonight four new one-act plays will be presented:

Lunch At the Fork n’ Finger by published playwright and Marshall University Theatre Alumni, Jonathan Joy - A one-act comedy about a man who returns to his boyhood home to find that his single mother has fallen in love with his old high school gym coach.

Things Get Done by Louisville, Ky., native Paul Deines - Brooklyn is burning. In the city, three men share drinks, make Molotov cocktails, and await the approaching mob. As the riot draws nearer, they wrestle with the ghosts of their pasts, and the collective past of a country born out of revolution.

Knight-Owl by well-known Huntington personality, Clint McElroy - When he stumbles upon the long-lost secret headquarters of Knight-Owl, a costumed crime-fighter from the 1940s, con-man Del Copperthwaite sees a money-making opportunity. Anticipating millions of dollars in endorsements, licensing deals and action figures, Del takes on the super-hero mantle of Knight-Owl, hampered only by his complete lack of talent, experience, morals, or honesty. What he does have is a quick wit, an even quicker tongue, and that strong sense of self-preservation that no scoundrel should be without.

Stealing Romance by T. Michael Murdock - Murdock is a Marshall University Alumni and a professional actor/director. This is a short play about finding love in the most unexpected of places. On a dark, rainy night, a man robbing a video store reunites with the woman he has loved since grade school, and is immediately locked in the store with her. Throughout the next few hours, he encounters feelings he thought were gone forever, the woman's jealous ex-boyfriend, and must face down not only his fear of lightning, but also of heartbreak.