Humana Festival 2009: The Complete Plays

by Adrien-Alice Hansel (Editor), Amy Wegener (Editor), Marc Masterson (Foreword)

Humana Festival 2009: The Complete Plays brings together all ten scripts from the 2009 Humana Festival of New American Plays, the 33rd annual cycle of world premiere productions staged at Actors Theatre of Louisville. The seven full-length plays and three ten-minute plays represent an exceptional array of work by some of the most exciting new voices in American theater, from a mother-daughter comedy with a lethal twist ( On The Porch One Crisp Spring Morning ), to a family drama about a bullying patriarch on the verge of unveiling his biography ( Absalom ), to a gripping drama about three strangers confined to a hotel room ( The Hard Weather Boating Party ). This unique compilation is a must-have for any theater aficionado's bookshelf.

Includes the plays 3:59 a drag race for two actors by Marco Ramirez, Absalom by Zoe Kazan, Ameriville by UNIVERSES, Brink! by Lydia Diamond, Kristoffer Diaz, Greg Kotis, Deborah Zoe Laufer, Peter Sinn Nachtrieb, and Deborah Stein, The Hard Weather Boating Party by Naomi Wallace, On The Porch One Crisp Spring Morning by Alex Dremann, Roanoke by Michael Lew, Slasher by Allison Moore, Under Construction by Charles L. Mee, Wild A Celebration of Wendell Berry adapted by Marc Masterson and Adrien-Alice Hansel

400 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[Michelle Hill · Rating 3 out of 5]

On the Porch One Crisp Spring Morning-Alex Dremann-F/F Duo. Very short, wouldn’t really require much cutting at all. A mother and daughter reveal to each other that they are both CIA agents who have been sent to kill each other. This is not what I’d call “good”, but it would be something to give a F/F Duo that keeps reading and rejecting other scripts.

Absalom-Zoe Kazan-M/F Duo, M/M Duo, very dramatic. This is a really great play, but would be a difficult cut—very similar to August: Osage County in that it is about a family and their problems spanning generations. I think there may be a M/F Duo (adults, around the same age) or a M/M Duo (aging father/adult son) in here…but it will take some work trying to find it. Interesting and well written.

Roanoke-Michael Lew-Male HI. Very, very funny. A group of historical reinactors at a Colonial Williamsburg-like place, talking about their jobs. Not a hard cut, but a difficult to block and conceptualize last scene. Should be given to someone who is very talented and has done HI before.

Wild Blessings: A Celebration of Wendell Berry-Marc Masterson and Adrien-Alice Hansel. Will not work. The poetry of Wendell Berry is used to make a reader’s theatre-type piece that has very little coherent story or dramatic structure. A reader’s theatre piece or potentially material for a college POI.

Under Construction-Charles Mee. Will not work. There is a ton of great writing and material in this play that will be rich for a college DI, Duo or POI material (potentially around the theme of “how it used to be versus how it is now.”) For high school, a plot and any sort of structure would require creative-to-the-point-of-illegal cutting.

Slasher-Allison Moore. Female HI—very, very dark humor. Male/Female or Female/Female Duo (very maybe, very dark). A film director is trying to make a slasher movie and the mother of his female star goes a little nuts and tries to bomb the set. Turns out, the director is actually a murderer who kills the mother bomber. This certainly shouldn’t be given to all students…but if you have someone in your lab who says something like, “I want a church bombing piece…” this might be just the ticket. Again, extremely dark humor and a tough cutting.

3:59am: a drag race for two actors-Marco Ramirez. Male/Male Duo. Two actors have a drag race and narrate the entire time—building to a pretty exciting climax. In order for this to work, both of the performers would have to be very physical and excellent at tech. The blocking work is extensive but the cutting would be simple.

Ameriville-Universes-Male/Male Duo or (possibly) Male DI. A “collection” play (lots of short scenes) about post-Katrina New Orleans. If a male DI, the actor must be black. If a M/M Duo, one actor could be black and one Hispanic (or both black) but really no other combinations will work. The cutting would be extremely difficult and would require a performer with a great deal of skill to pull off, but this could be remarkable. Also a great source of material for college DI, Duo or POI.

The Hard Weather Boating Party-Naomi Wallace-M/M Duo. In the first act, three actors are plotting to kill their boss. In the second, they have returned to a motel room after botching the job. The actual killing scene doesn’t appear in the script, so the only setting for the duo would be a motel room. I didn’t find this play extraordinarily compelling or interesting, but it would be a good thing to have M/M Duos read (and cutting out one of the three characters shouldn’t be difficult).

Brink-Diamond/Diaz/Kotis/Laufer/Nachtrieb/Stein-Duo or HI (gender doesn’t matter). This is another vignette play, loosely about the transition from adolescence to adulthood. There is a lot of material in this play, but no clear through line, climax or unifying story. It would require creative cutting but some of the material might be good for a novice HIer/very young Duo. There are scenes about bar mitzvahs, first love, death, periods, etc.