Metro Pulse/Backstage/Knoxville New Play Festival

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What:
The Knoxville New Play Festival featuring The Essential Existential

When:
March 7-23 at 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, with a 2 p.m. matinee on Sunday, March 17. Staged readings are held Saturdays at 2 p.m.

Where:
Black Box Theatre, 5213 Homberg

Cost:
$7/$9. Call 546-4280 for more info.

Tom Parkhill and the Tennessee Stage Company discover vibrant, virginal plays

by Paige M. Travis

Most plays produced here in Knoxville are time-tested, Mother-approved classics—sing-along musicals, standards in the dramatic canon and comfortably predictable comedies. This lot is all fine and good, of course; every city's theater collective produces its share of tried-and-true plays. But not every town has its own festival devoted to the works of playwrights you've never heard of and plays that have never been read aloud or produced by a cast.

Continuing through March 23, the Tennessee Stage Company's Knoxville New Play Festival features live stage readings of five new plays and the production of three short works. Artistic Director Tom Parkhill has made the production of new plays part of TSC's mission for its 13 years in existence.

"Originally we just did the leg work and got [new plays]," says Parkhill, "Then three years ago when we teamed up with the Co-op, we started doing national advertising." The call for submissions goes out to writers across the country via ads in writers magazines. Word has spread in the past three years, increasing submissions from 30 to 45 to more than 60 this year.

With these submissions, TSC creates a kind of bank from which to choose the plays that will be produced or read. Parkhill and a panel of readers cull through the plays and compare favorites (Parkhill's partial to the ones that make him laugh). From those selections come the stage readings, the format of which has changed since last year. Instead of wearing costumes and walking around the stage reading from scripts, the actors will simply sit in chairs behind music stands and read their lines. "It will be sort of like an old radio play," Parkhill says, leaving the stage directions to viewers' imaginations. Next year, TSC will choose from these plays which one to produce, as was the case with the three short works that make up The Essential Existential.

Last year Parkhill fell instantly in love with "Standing Up V & E," by Ed Simpson, but the play was too short to warrant a full night of theater. Luckily, two readings, "50/50" by Whitney Haring-Smith and "Blindly" by Knoxville-based playwright Susan Eraslan, fit in perfectly with the play's existential spirit. They are further complemented by the production site, the ever-sparse Black Box Theatre, home of New Play Festival co-producers the Actors Co-op.

"It's the perfect setting for three existential plays that take place in an elevator, an office in an imaginary city and nowhere," says Parkhill.

"Standing Up V & E" is the playwright's imagining of what Godot is doing while Samuel Beckett's characters Vladimir and Estragon are "Waiting for Godot." The character of Godot, played by Parkhill, is perpetually forgetful and can't remember that he's supposed to meet Vladimir and Estragon somewhere; he even has trouble figuring how people get in and out of his office. It's roll-in-the-floor-funny stuff, says Parkhill, while the other two plays are a bit darker. "50/50" finds two people trapped in an elevator, and "Blindly" takes place in complete darkness (though there will be a smidgen of light so audience members can see the actors).

New plays can be challenging for a company to produce and exciting for audiences to experience, plus it can be a learning experience for playwrights who aren't yet household names. Every one of the playwrights whose work is being read is flying into Knoxville to witness the reading of his or her play. Would a writer change his play upon seeing it read by a cast of actors?

"Yes, they almost always do," says Parkhill. "That's part of the purpose of the deal, that they will get a chance to hear the words said aloud and realize what sounded so good in their head and looked so good on paper does not work at all coming out of someone's mouth."

Playwright and poet Matthew Goldman, whose "Shades of Darkness, Shades of Light" launched the festival on March 1, flew in from his home in Rhode Island to see his play read. "Because plays, as they say, are meant to be played. When I'm writing I can visualize the characters and the stage and everything that happens, but at the same time, to see it actually go up..."

Goldman says his years as a poet have focused him on the language, which he's pretty confident about; he's still fine-tuning the timing of entrances and exits and action. "It's interesting for me to see [the play] be staged and see if the mechanics of it work and the interactions. Not just entrances and exits, but whether or not the language is effective in the sense of being apropos to the situation."

After the readings, playwrights and cast members will answer audience members' questions about their works. Here's a hint: Don't ask what inspired them or where they get their ideas. These kinds of questions don't help a writer improve his craft.

"Every discussion is different," Parkhill says. "We always try to remind everyone that we're not here to tear anyone down. This is the time to ask about moments in the play they didn't get. Sometimes they turn into a free-for-all."

Yes, new plays can be exciting all right. When was the last time a discussion of Cabaret turned into a lively debate? On second thought, maybe I don't want to know.