IU playwrights seek Masters

Within the next couple of months, two IU Master of Fine Arts playwright students will have their original works performed to the benefit of the Bloomington community.\nJonathan Yukich, in his second year of the MFA program, has written and will also direct his work entitled "The Mime Crime." The play tells the story of a mime who commits a murder in broad daylight.\nJohn Drago is a third-year graduate student whose work, "Playing the Bones," was chosen as the second play to be presented by the IU Department of Theatre this season.\nThe plays will be performed at IU's Wells-Metz Theatre, as well as at the Bloomington Playwrights Project (BPP).\n"The Mime Crime" started production earlier this week and will open Sept. 19.\nOf "The Mime Crime" Yukich said, "the central action of the play concerns two police officers as they try to figure out why a mime has murdered a man by crushing his head into the sidewalk pavement; and how they never speak and they all look the same."\nWhile investigating the affair, the officers interview the victim's wife. An aloof mime expert is consulted as well as a nighttime heroine and harlot named Stormy. As the play progresses, flashbacks will occur that help to show the audience what caused the mime to mimic a murderer.\nThe play has all the elements of a murder mystery written by author Dashiell Hammett, or as portrayed by film legends Sidney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre. \n"The play's roots are definitely planted in the tradition of detective film noir, except that it is comical, attempting to parody the style in places. It does maintain that creepy, shadowy, spooky feel that underlies much of film noir," Yukich said.\nJohn Drago's "Playing the Bones"\nDrago's work, "Playing the Bones," is set in Appalachia and tells the story of an orphan girl searching for both the identity of her parents as well as herself.\nWhen asked about the play's theme, Drago said the play is "about the past being brought to light, the past being accepted and acknowledged and once you have accepted the past, you can move forward into the future."\nThe writing process of "Playing the Bones" started a year before Drago came to IU. The idea for the story came from visiting the Appalachian region and seeing several area graveyards and the associated tombstones. \nDrago said the inspiration for the story came out of realizing only of few of the region's natives and himself had ever laid eyes on those tombstones. Drago also stated that a second part of his inspiration came from his childhood. "I kind of grew up listening to these weird stories (from his father) about weird people with even weirder names," he said. "This was almost a way of me trying to sort through these family myths I had inherited."\nDrago said as a whole, the writing as been very fulfilling to him. He continues to do rewrites -- rewrites that hopefully will give the focus Director Dale McFadden says is still needed in particular scenes.\nIU Department of Theatre member Dale McFadden will direct Drago's work, opening Dec. 6 at the Wells-Metz Theatre. In 20 years of directing, McFadden said he has probably directed 20 to 25 new plays. A new play is work never before performed before an audience, and this is a rare happening, McFadden said. He went on to say the play "focuses on a central character whom the audience can identify with"