The University of Idaho Argonaut

Theater festival celebrates new writers

Theater productions by older playwrights like Shakespeare are common and popular. Rarely are plays that are still in a gestation period being performed.
The University of Idaho Department of Theatre and Film’s Festival of New Works is devoted to today’s playwrights and their new works.
“Our commitment to producing new work is a commitment to a writer, rather than a particular script,” said Robert Caisley, festival organizer, professional playwright and UI professor of dramatic writing.
Caisley said the majority of plays presented on academic and professional stages around the country have received the benefit of dozens of productions.

“Classics weren’t always classics,” Caisley said.
The festival focuses on plays that have not had revisions and have not had the benefits of hundreds of productions.
“… The unique thrill of producing new plays is that they are not yet road-tested,” Caisley said.
The Department of Theatre and Film had been producing a series of one-page plays for the DNA Festival.
The initiation of the MFA in Dramatic Writing changed this.
“The need arose to offer the playwriting students opportunities to meet professional playwrights and have their own longer plays brought to life on stage,” Caisley said.

Caisley said the writers featured in the festival are all at different stages of their careers — from emerging student voices to established professionals.
UI students Luis Guerrero and Ulrike Rosser wrote two of the four plays in the festival.
Richard Warren, a professional playwright, wrote the second play to be shown, “Trio with Flute.”
Warren will be visiting campus and conducting workshops about directing and writing for UI students.
While on campus he will also attend rehearsals with the director and cast, attend directing and playwriting classes, and meet with theater students to discuss the profession from their own unique perspective.
Jere Hodgin, associate professor of theater, is directing “Ward 57,” a play that poses the question: how do we honor sacrifices made by soldiers asked to fight in an unpopular war?

Hodgin first encountered the play as a guest director in Missoula.
“I followed it through the re-writes,” Hodgin said. “Thematically, I’m deeply interested (in the play).”
Jessica Goldberg, a professional playwright currently working in Hollywood, is also part of what made Hodgin so fascinated with the play.
The festival was the first to contact her about the production, which makes this play about as new as possible.
“Something happens that is unique and magical when you give yourself over to a play,” Hodgin said.
Caisley said that there is both value and distinction in live theater.

“Live theater has been around at least 2,500 years,” Caisley said. “It has withstood the test of time and will continue to be sought out and valued by audiences because of the truly unique live exchange that occurs between the art and the observer of the art.”
Caisley said that people should consider that even Shakespeare was once a new voice in an emerging and vibrant theater.
“That’s why arts communities need to support new plays and new playwrights,” Caisley said. “That’s what theater history has basically been about — people coming up with new and exciting ways to tell old stories of what it means to be human.”