Victory Gardens presents the Chicago One-Minute Play Festival
Victory Gardens presents The Chicago One-Minute Play Festival as a benefit for the Victory Gardens Fresh Squeezed series. The event will be held in the Zacek-McVay Theater at the Victory Gardens Biograph Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln Avenue in Lincoln Park on May 15 and 16, 2011, at 7:30pm.
Approximately 90, one-minute plays by about 45 or so established and emerging playwrights will be commissioned for the two-night only event. A One-Minute Play is a form of theatre that looks at the ten-minute play form and structure, and distills it down to the most immediate story-telling event or core emotional content. The evening promises to be as quick as it is epic in its scope.
The One-Minute Play Festival was created in New York in 2007 by Dominic D'Andrea to promote the spirit of radical inclusion for writers of different age, gender, race, culture and point of career. The One-Minute play challenges the playwrights to expertly craft a theatrical moment. It requires a new sensibility to work in this deceptively small form. The Chicago One-Minute Play Festival will include working Chicago playwrights, including Gloria Bond Clunie, Kristoffer Diaz, Laura Jacqmin, Joel Drake Johnson and Tanya Saracho. Approximately 45 playwrights are expected to participate. Additional playwrights will be announced soon.
"The sixty-second 'nano plays' have been very successful in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New Brunswick, NJ and New York, where there is now an annual festival. Fresh Squeezed is thrilled to be working with Dominic to challenge our playwrights in this new form. More importantly, its going to be badass to have this many artists we admire working on one project, including a ton of writers we have never played with," says Fresh Squeezed Producer Will Rogers.
The Chicago One-Minute Play Festival facilitates a true community of playwrights, actors, directors, and community-at-large to participate in the challenge and creation of progressive short-form theatre. The festival is a true community-based event, and has a sense of both local and national position.
Playwrights who have participated in the One-Minute Play Festival in other cities include: Mike Daisey, Jason Grote, Qui Nguyen, Andrea Thome, Caridad Svich , Kristoffer Diaz, Crystal Skillman, Michael Golmaco and Tanya Saracho.
Performances are at the Victory Gardens Biograph Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln Avenue, in the heart of Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood. Tickets are $15 and are available through the Victory Gardens Box Office, 773.871.3000 (tty: 773.871.0682), or visit www.victorygardens.org.