Punk rock, dystopian epics, classical mythology and above all the confusion of adolescence, are mined for dark humor and pathos in "Growing Up and Selling Out," a collection of original student-written plays that make up the New Plays Festival 26.2. Presented by the Literary Arts Program and Brown/Trinity Repertory Consortium, the festival showcases the work of two second-year MFA playwrights - Ann Marie Healy GS and Gregory Moss GS - as well as a duo of one-act plays by undergraduates Chen Gu '08 and Brendan Pelsue '08. Each play will run twice at the Pell Chafee Performance Center.
Moss's "punkplay" focuses on two adolescent boys growing up in 1980s suburbia, experiencing life through punk rock. The play is about the covergence of personal and national history through the lens of a specific type of music, Moss said. It follows threads of American history, 1980s punk rock and one boy's high school education, he added. Moss described the play as funny, "noisy and colorful," adding that it draws extensively on pop culture and utilizes live music to create a "surreal journey" into the kids' lives.
Moss said his attraction to punk rock, which he grew up listening to, reflects a larger interest in sub-cultures, especially those that are supposed to be resistant to the mainstream. Similarly to his play, Moss said the music captures the feeling of adolescence - "undirected anger and horniness and energy."
Featuring actors Max Posner '11 and Sam Alper '11, the show is directed by Kerry Whigham and will run April 11 at 8 p.m. and April 12 at 2 p.m. Moss chose to cast only undergraduates because his play deals with youth extensively. Other plays in the festival feature undergraduate and graduate actors as well as members of the greater Providence community.
Although the cavernous Pell Chafee Performance Center may seem a daunting theatrical space, Moss praised set designer and Rhode Island School of Design alum Sara Ossana for creating a single, realistic boy's bedroom in the midst of the vast former bank space, mirroring the juxtaposition of the characters' personal histories with the larger national and global history unfolding around them.
Healy's play, "What Once We Felt," directed by Makaela Pollock GS, will run April 10 at 8 p.m. and April 13 at 2 p.m. Described on the Literary Arts Web site as "a terrifying and hilarious romp through the annals of genocide, suicide, infanticide and atrociously bad manners," the story follows Macy Blonsky, a writer in a dystopian society, trying to bring her work to fruition. Moss described Healy's work as a big, epic vision of the future that deals with people, largely women, at every class level.
Because the four plays share the same performance space, Moss's set is in front of Healy's, which also serves as a backdrop for the undergraduate pieces.
The one-act plays will be presented together as "Artifact: An Evening of One Acts," directed by Mia Rovegno GS. Running April 9 and 13 at 8 p.m., "Artifact" includes Gu's "Some of the Rooms" and Pelsue's "Diagram of a Kidnapping."
"Rooms" is an adaptation of the classical myth of Orestes, according to Moss. The Literary Arts Web site describes it as "a new play about some old mistakes," following the story of a man returning home to his grieving, fragmented family.
Pelsue said his play, "Diagram," which he has been revising since he wrote it last spring, centers on two adolescent boys walking in the woods. As they progress, they start acting out memories and fantasies. As these fantasies become stranger and more distant from the boys' lives, they also begin to refract them, he said.
These four works make up the second part of the 26th annual New Plays Festival. The first installment ran in early February and featured three plays by first-year MFA playwrights. In previous years the festival has featured works by celebrated playwrights Sarah Ruhl '97 MFA'01 and Nilo Cruz MFA '94.
This year's festival was overseen by Bonnie Metzgar, visiting associate professor of literary arts, in conjunction with playwriting coordinator Rick Dildine and other faculty and staff.
Free tickets can be reserved online at mf.students.brown.edu/boxoffice and can be picked up in the lobby of the Pell Chafee Performance Center, located at 87 Empire Street, 45 minutes prior to the performances.
