Abingdon Celebrates 20th Season With 8/25 One-Act Play Festival

Abingdon Theatre Company-which has produced 77 new American plays in its 20-year history celebrates-its 2012-2013 Season with the inaugural ABINGDON BAY RIDGE ONE-ACT FESTIVAL, an evening of three world-premiere short plays, commissioned by Abingdon Theatre Company, by Kevin Armento, Bo List, and Jen Silverman, on Saturday, August 25 at 7:00pm at Christ Church Bay Ridge (7301 Ridge Boulevard) in Brooklyn.

The staged readings are to be directed by Abingdon's Artistic Director, Jan Buttram; Associate Artistic Director, Kim T. Sharp; and Director of Playwriting Outreach, Bara Swain. A panel of theatre professionals will choose the festival's outstanding script, naming one playwright as the winner of The Father Hamblin Festival Award and a cash prize.

Initial submissions were invited from playwrights who have had a history with Abingdon and who have shown talent and dedication to writing full-length and short plays. Treatments were submitted on a social theme: "All mankind struggles to balance personal needs with their responsibility to society." Abingdon staff members selected playwrights Kevin Armento, Bo List, and Jen Silverman to receive a commission and have their work premiere in the first-ever ABINGDON BAY RIDGE ONE-ACT FESTIVAL.

About the plays:
In Kevin Armento's PICK OF THE LITTER, Gero is stranded on lockdown at the San Diego Zoo's Panda Pavilion with his fiancé Reagan and his mother Ivonne, because three red river hog piglets have escaped their pen. Forced to wait on this hot August day, Gero plays peacemaker between the two women of his life. Will he himself escape?

In CANARY YELLOW by Bo List, Eugenia Larkin left her small, West Virginia town as soon as she could to escape the fate of uneducated women in the rural south and the legacy of a dangerous and dying coal industry. Twenty years later, a successful news journalist, Eugenia returns for the funeral of her two brothers from a mine collapse, but her family questions her motive for returning.

In Jen Silverman's MARVIN ON THE LOOSE, Hurricane Marvin is sweeping toward New York and 17-year-old Ragweed is ready to get out. Her grandmother, Sweet Old Thing, however, won't leave Queens. As floodwaters rise and neighbors flee, Sweet Old Thing begins planning a takeover of the neighborhood, co-opting everything from abandoned furniture, to pets, and even a baby who she claims to have "found."

Casting is to be announced.