Playwrights Project debuts award-winning 'Outrage'

Another opening, another show. But this was not the case at the Bloomington Playwrights Project, 308 S. Washington St., where the world premiere of "Outrage" opened this weekend. This work runs weekends through Feb. 25.\nWritten by Manhattan playwright Itamar Moses, "Outrage" is the story of a university experiencing a power struggle after a sizeable monetary donation, and a graduate student who is caught between the opposing sides. The play also brings historical figures to life, reveal the difficult and oppressive progress in every era of human history. \nGraduate student Rick Fonté described the play as "an excuse to read a lot of Brecht and to let it pervade the way of looking at the show."\nProduced by the Bloomington Playwrights Project, "Outrage" was the winner of the 2000 Reva Shiner Full-Length Play Award. The small theater company is known for producing interesting and challenging works, Fonté said. "Outrage" is no exception.\n"I think this play really challenges the audience and doesn't forgive you if you don't become challenged," he said.\n"The BPP is the perfect home for this show," said Fonté, who has also directed at the TinFish Theatre in Chicago and is pursuing his MFA in directing here. "This is a piece of experimental theatre; it is inventive and not proven."\nArtistic director Richard Ford said the Bloomington Playwrights Project is expanding to accommodate more artists and more elaborate plays.\n"(The Playwrights Project) is spending more on our productions and trying to bring talented artists into Bloomington so that local artists and students have an opportunity to explore and grow in a new play context," Ford said.\nFord said the Bloomington Playwrights Project is a unique part of the community. \n"We try for variety from show to show, rather than stacking similar shows back to back," he said. "The BPP is the only place where the local Bloomington community and the IU community come together to create theatre. MFA students, local professionals, undergrads and local amateurs are all involved in important facets of 'Outrage.'"\nMost recently, the theater produced "Sunflower Town" and "Simplicity Itself," as well as "Merry Elementary," written by MFA playwriting candidate Angeline Larimer.\n"I do know that theatre is an increasingly rarified form, and that it's very, very hard to get new plays produced," Moses said. "But what scares me more is the idea that people, sometime soon, may not even care enough about theater to try and shut it down."\nAs a world premiere play, "Outrage" went through a competitive process to get produced.\n"One of the places I sent it was to the BPP, which administers an award called the Reva Shiner New Play Award ... as part of the prize, the BPP produces the play," Moses said.\nMoses, who is an MFA playwriting candidate attending New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, just finished a full-length play called "Bach at Leipzig" and is collaborating on a new musical about "farcical misadventures on Halloween night in a small town."\nThe audience of "Outrage" is pushed to accept the fact that it is watching a play, Fonté said.\n"The audience is pummeled by themes and images in this play that you don't get in pieces of realistic drama," he said.\nAs a playwright, Moses describes his writing, "not as directly and nakedly autobiographical … I usually start with an idea that captures my imagination, that I think is exciting, because it illuminates some small part of that complex web of history and memory and experience that surrounds us … The most basic experiences in the play are totally universal, which is, I hope, what will make it both accessible and, ultimately, scary."\nFord said the play requires the audience to pay attention.\n"It's a play about ideas, truth, history and perception. At various points in the play, it challenges the audience to make sense of what's happening," Ford said.\nMoses said he hopes the audience will be challenged not only to talk about the play, but to think about it as well.\n"I hope that people will leave the play discussing, and arguing about, the ideas it presents," Moses said. "It raises a lot of questions, I think, and doesn't provide and pat or simple answers. The play ideally challenges people to think as individuals, which is all too rare"