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First Annual Philadelphia One-Minute Play Festival Kicks Off Today

By: Jul. 29, 2013
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InterAct Theatre Company and the New York based company, The One-Minute Play Festival (OMPF) today announce their joint presentation of the First Philadelphia One-Minute Play Festival, to be performed tonight, July 29th-31st 2013 at 8:00 PM EST. Following sold-out performances in a dozen other cities, this festival serves as the culmination of a yearlong collaboration between the two companies after engaging in community and consensus building workshop sessions with local artists since August of 2012.

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"Spending an entire year getting to know this artistic community before we began working together held great significance in our collaborations" says Dominic D'Andrea, OMPF's Founder and Artistic Director. "Though this is the fist time OMPF has been in Philly, this year's work has been deeply informed by conversations of place, art, citizenship, and community. The result may be an accurate barometer of where these groups of artists are in relationship to the wider world. I can't wait to see what comes up in the work. "

Tickets to The First Philadelphia One-Minute Play Festival are $20 and will be available by calling the InterAct Theatre Box Office at 215-568-8079 starting July 1st, 2013.

The First Philadelphia One-Minute Play Festival will feature over 70 brand new One-Minute Plays by close to 50 playwrights by Philadelphia's growing pool of exceptional contemporary writers; among them are some of the most important artistic voices in the nation.

Artists will be working on this emerging short form to explore the relationship of the individual voice to the zeitgeist of a specific region. The writers have several weeks to complete scripts, with the only stipulation being that they can be performed in one minute.

Playwrights are selected by invitation and asked to engage in OMPF's playmaking approach. Playwrights are encouraged to write about anything they are passionate about, and, as emerging themes or ideas become apparent, the plays are grouped into "clumps" to reflect those elements. Teams of directors and actors work to stage each clump of plays. And the result: 70+ fully mounted plays, all staged with 4 chairs.

"We are thrilled to be partnering with OMPF to showcase nearly 50 Philadelphia area playwrights in what promises to be an enormously fun and diverse evening of 70+ plays! This is certainly the first and biggest collection of local talent to be featured in one event EVER, as it involves over 30 actors and 8 directors, along with the playwrights. I think it's fair to say there will be something for literally everyone in this fast-moving, packed evening of live theatre!" according to InterAct's Producing Artistic Director, Seth Rozin, who has been working with D'Andrea on the Philly OMPF for the past several months.

This Festival will feature work commissioned by: Ian August, P. Seth Bauer, Barbara Bellman, BJ Burton, Joe Byers, Jim Christy, Joy Cutler, WIllaim DiCanzio, Paula Diehl, Madi DiStefano, Alex Dremann, Quinn Eli, Jeremy Gable, Jacqueline Goldfinger, Brian Grace-Duff, Katharine Clark Gray, Lindsay Harris-Friel, Warren Hoffman, Michael Hollinger, Ken Kaissar, Arden Kass, Sharon Kling, Julia Lopez, Sarah Mantell, Kathryn Peterson, David Robson, Jackie Ruggiero, John Stanton, Samuel Toll, Walt Vail, Nick Wardigo, David Strattan White, Douglas Williams, A. Zell Williams, Kimmika Williams-Witherspoon, Robin Rodriguez, Mark Costello, Bill D'Agostino, Annie Such, Sara Madden, Chris Davis, Kate Brennan, Elizabeth Scanlon, Wally Zialcita, and Seth Rozin.

Directed by: Daniel Student, Suzana Berger, Seth Reichgott, Liam Castellan, Mike Durkin, MeghAnn Williams, & Tina Brock.
Curated by OMPF Producing Director, Dominic D'Andrea

"I'm thrilled to announce that we have so many Philly writers joining us this year", says D'Andrea, "we've been able to engage some of the brightest and most imaginative minds working in the City of Brotherly Love!"


The One-­Minute Play Festival (OMPF) is an NYC-based theatre company, founded by producing artistic director Dominic D'Andrea. OMPF works in partnership with theatres and organizations in cities across the country who share missions devoted to new plays and/or a community-specific focus. In each city, OMPF creates a locally sourced playwright-focused community event, with the goal of promoting the spirit of radical inclusion by representing local playwrights of different age, gender, race, cultures, and points of career.

The work attempts to reflect the theatrical landscape of local artistic communities by creating a dialogue between the collective consciousness and the individual voice; and by giving a voice, through theater, to the current collective conscious found in a specific region.

OMPF works with partnering organizations to identify programs or initiatives in each community to support with the proceeds from the work. The goal is to find ways give directly back to the artists in each community. Supported programs have ranged from educational programming, youth poetry projects, teaching artists working in prisons, playwright residencies and memberships, and community arts workshops.

OMPF has partnered with theaters in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, New Brunswick, Trenton, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Boston, Miami, Minneapolis, and New York. Current and past partnerships include: Primary Stages, Victory Gardens Theatre, Cornerstone Theatre Company, INTAR Theatre, Playwrights' Foundation, Actor's Express, InterAct Theatre, Mixed Blood, Passage Theatre, Boston Playwrights' Theatre, Passage Theatre, and others.

Some notable contributors to OMPF have included: David Henry Hwang, Neil LaBute, Tina Howe, Donald Margulies, Nilaja Sun, Lydia Diamond, Phillip Kan Gotanda, Michael John Garces, Kristoffer Diaz, Rajiv Joseph, Sam Hunter, Jose Rivera, Lisa Loomer, Craig Lucas, Greg Kotis, Michael John Garces, along with over 500 famous and emerging writers. For more information, visit www.oneminuteplayfestival.com.



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