Players Theatre Short Play Festival Celebrated 10th Anniversary with a Twist

Although the theme for Be Bold Production's June Short Play Festival has been "NYC" for the past 10 years, it couldn't have been more poignant this year. The producer for the festival, Brenda Bell, held out as long as possible in hopes that maybe things could be "better enough" by June to host the festival live as planned in The Player's Theatre's blackbox with maybe some added social distancing and health measures. But as April ate into May and June began without much progress on the Covid-19 front, Bell made the executive decision to "give this Zoom thing" a try and make the summer's festival entirely remote and online.

Teaming up with her trusty marketing associate, Catie Carlton, Bell recruited Shino Frances (long time performer, supporter, and contributor to The Players Theatre) to assist with the technical undertaking of hosting a virtual LIVE festival. The process for submissions and selecting the top 15 plays remained the same but then the playwrights were informed that the live festival in the theatre would no longer be possible and instead they'd be hosting a reading of each of the plays via ZOOM, which would be live streamed over Facebook for all of their friends and families to see. Luckily, all 15 selected playwrights were ecstatically on board and dove right in with finding directors and assembling a cast.

Frances took the reins in organizing technical duties and hosting responsibilities. She enlisted her good friend and ZOOM expert Arisa Odaka to support and they both agree that things went even smoother than anticipated! This modified virtual festival consisted of each playwright's play being read once over the course of three nights (five plays a night). Cast members logged into ZOOM remotely from the comfort of their own homes and read their play as it was streamed live over Facebook. With Frances' positive and upbeat commentary between plays and a quick Q&A with the playwrights, it was clear everyone managed to adjust comfortably to this unique way of performing.

In the weeks leading up to the performances, Carlton filled the Be Bold Productions Facebook page with bios from the playwrights, directors, and actors. This gave everyone the chance to share and promote the event and encourage viewers. "We had a great turnout!" said Carlton, "I was pleasantly surprised to see how many people popped into the comments and showed their support."

Once performing, it was clear that the actors and their directors had taken the time to rehearse and adjust to the nuisances of trying to communicate (let alone, perform!) through an electronic device. Bell commented "what was really surprising is how the many of the playwrights took the circumstances and ran with them - adjusting the script a little to reflect the medium." For example, one director decide to have their actors perform the reading with their cameras off so it was just the sounds of them speaking. Behind the scenes, Frances, Carlton, and Bell were panicking thinking we were having an inevitable technology glitch only to learn it was all intentional and made the story that much more powerful. Another writer/director had their cast all use the same ZOOM background feature so that it appeared that they were all in the same room together!

"This was not just your average play reading," said Bell, "you could really feel the heart and emotion of the stories through these readings." which was her intent all along. Bell insisted that the "show must go on!" not just to keep to 10 year streak alive, but to give the playwrights the opportunity to hear their plays read out loud and to give the actors and directors something to sink their teeth into during this unprecedented dry spell.

To find a full list of the playwrights and to watch the videos of their readings, visit @BeBoldProductions on Facebook and see the videos listed there. Each playwright was also given right of first refusal to participate in 2021 SPF-NYC festival with their same play. It is Be Bold's greatest hope that things will be back to relatively normal functionality by then!

Be Bold Productions has also now opened up submissions for SPF-BOO! In October 2020. Again, they hope they can proceed with live performances as planned but at least now they are confident in the "new way" of performing, should it resort to that again. Playwrights can submit their haunting short plays at shortplaynyc.com.

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