72 Hour New Play Festival:  A Showcase of New Playwrights

If you had the opportunity to see the beginning works of the world’s upcoming famous playwrights, wouldn’t you want to be a part of the magic?  Virginia Tech’s MFA in creative writing program and the department of theatre arts have collaborated to make that possible with their “72 Hour New Play Festival”, a free event starting this weekend in the Performing Arts Building (PAB) on campus.

This festival is of utmost importance to MFA student playwrights.  “Young playwrights get to work with professional directors.  Plays don't really exist, alone, on the page.  They don't come to life until actors read the roles and directors participate in the shaping of the story,” said Edward Falco, professor of the MFA graduate workshops responsible for the works of the festival.

Students in graduate playwriting workshops will perform nine plays in either table reading or script-in-hand reading formats. Offered by the MFA program, Professor Fred D’Aguiar taught the workshops during fall semester 2007 and Professor Falco taught them during spring semester 2008.

This festival is a chance for the public to experience new, young talent.  “Anyone who's interested in new writers should come to festival and will be welcome, these are new young writers, most have never written plays before, so the possibilities of discovering a new voice in the theatre is exciting,” said Professor David Johnson, director of three of the plays in the festival.

The festival begins Saturday, April 26 at 7:00 p.m. in PAB 105.  Three plays will be showcased that night and each performance will be around a half an hour in length.  A performance will begin on Sunday at 2:00 p.m. in PAB 105 and will be followed by another in the same location at 2:30 p.m.  PAB 104 will hold the third Sunday performance at 3:00 p.m.  Monday, April 28 is the final day of the festival.  Playwrights will showcase three plays in PAB starting at 7:00 p.m.

The readings will be directed by faculty and graduate students in the Department of Theatre Arts and English, performed by Theatre Arts faculty and students.

Why would faculty members and students work so hard to hold a festival?  “The Theatre Arts faculty did it out of the goodness of their hearts and out of a genuine love for theatre and writing,” said Falco.

Falco emphasized how grateful he was to have the support of the Theatre Arts department.  “At an extremely busy time of the year, these actors and directors are taking on the time-consuming work of helping to develop a new play.  The MFA students are sincerely grateful to them, as is the English Department and the MFA faculty,” said Falco.

It is obvious that the Theatre and English departments have worked very hard to make this event possible.  “The theatre department is fully committed to new work, if the theatre is to be something greater than museum of old artifacts, it must have new blood coursing through its veins.  We urge the public to become part of the process,” said Johnson.