BloomingPlays Series polishes new plays

The BloomingPlays Development Series staged a variety of playwrights selected from across the state to perform drafts of their featured plays Saturday and Sunday.

Audience members munched on cheese and crackers as they critiqued and asked questions about each play presented. Every play was followed by a session welcoming positive feedback where the audience could ask, “What about the play popped?”

Questions would be answered by the playwright, and the playwright could also ask the audience questions.

Josie Gingrich, who teamed with her mother in writing their play, “Things to Believe In,” said that after participating in the series last year, she enjoyed the interaction with the audience.

Playwrights took turns narrating the stage direction of other plays as volunteer actors read from the script.

“They are really different, but that is the cool thing to see how things evolve,” volunteer actress Erin Sullivan said.

The series began with Matt Anderson’s play, “Virginia’s Last Drive,” in which a vivacious elderly woman is stood up at her driving test appointment at the DMV.

Before tossing her car keys into a lake, she laughed as she said, “I don’t need a license to have fun.”

In “Folds of Favor,” written by Brenda Hiatt Barber, rather than hang gliding or climbing Mount Everest, an aging mother shocks her three daughters with adventurous endeavors that will keep her out of the retirement home called “Geezer Groves.”

Although the audience laughed out loud as the mother pitted her daughters against each other, four audience members suggested a different title for the play.

“There are painful things underlying the comedy, and maybe there could be more focus on the mother for the title,” junior Grace Ruegsegger said.

While some curb social anxiety by picturing everyone in their underwear, the main character of Gabe Gloden’s play, “How to Kill,” imagines murdering people in his mind.
Audience member Chad Rabinowitz said that actually freezing the scene so the character can physically kill someone and activate his thoughts would be interesting before zoning back to reality.

The back-to-back performances gave audience members the chance to see a play in its early stages while playwrights were able to take advantage of feedback before the BloomingPlays Festival next May.

“It gave me a chance to see where ends needed to be tightened,” Barber said.