Running the gamut from Afghanistan War veterans to wacky comedy, the University of Idaho Theatre Department’s 10-Minute Play Festival will showcase 12 plays written, directed and acted by UI students, according to David Lee-Painter, academic faculty with the Theatre Department.
He said the festival is about 10 years old, but they began using exclusively UI play writers three years ago.
The directors are doing the plays as part of a class, he said.
Millie Rose Schacher, director of the play “The Cougar,” said working on the play has been a good experience to learn directing basics and how to be a leader.
“A leader, a director, who can take control and yet be kind and open to suggestions and criticism,” she said.
Lee-Painter said the writers don’t participate as part of a class, but do it to gain experience.
“It just brings everybody together to collaborate,” Lee-Painter said.
He said there are benefits and challenges to working with living writers.
“It’s a different process working with a living play write in the room,” he said.
Many directors work with Shakespeare or other writers long dead, who aren’t here to give input, Lee-Painter said.
He said UI is one of two universities in the Northwest that offers a dramatic writing program, so opportunities like the 10-Minute Film Festival provide opportunities to develop new writers.
Schacher’s play, written by Joshua Jon Christensen, is about a woman, Renee, who encounters a bounty hunter looking to claim money from her deceased husband.
Renee’s young boyfriend, Tanner, intervenes.
“This is when the grand gun fight transpires,” Schacher said.
She said using prop guns was especially new and exciting for the cast. Nobody in the play had experience firing stage pistols.
“The guns are loud. Extremely so. It’s a bit jarring when we first fired one off,” she said. “The more I have them play around and use them, the more confident and sure of themselves the actors become.”
The festival runs at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday with six plays each night. Lee-Painter said each night will be about and hour and a half.
“I’m really proud of all of them,” he said. “I think anybody that comes will have a really good time.”
Kasen Christensen can be reached at [email protected]