Carlee WrightTheatre 33’s summer series of new plays is coming back in person bigger than ever.
“We are expanding the festival,” said Executive Director Thomas Nabhan. “We have our regular 3×33 full productions, but are adding three pop-up readings of northwest playwrights.”
“A pop-up reading is a more traditional dramatized reading that has fewer rehearsals, but the same objective: To give playwrights a chance to hear their play, collaborate with our creative team, and see and respond with a talkback.”
The new play development company, in residence at Willamette University, helps Oregon and northwest playwrights develop their new scripts from initial workshop (lights, sound, props, set, costumes, and fully blocked with scripts in hand) to a world premiere full production.
Driving the expansion of the program is a common goal between Theatre 33 and Willamette University — “We want to be the center of new playwriting in the west,” said Tom. “We want this festival to become a regional destination festival.”
In previous years, the company has workshopped three shows a summer, but looking to nurture growth, assist more writers and make a larger impact on the arts community in Salem, expansion of its summer offerings was the obvious next step. Eventually, Thomas envisions having playwrights in residence on campus, working on plays and giving lectures, seminars and workshops. The community will be able to come see a play, hear a reading, take a workshop and engage their creative side.
“We feel there is an underserved niche of new play development,” said Thomas. “We are filling a void.”
Another extension of the expanded festival is Theatre 33’s high school playwriting course.
“We have students from all over the state from eight different high schools,” said Thomas. “The program is tuition-free thanks to Juan Young Trust.”
Youth involved with the program get to participate in a rehearsal, performance and talk back. The end goal for each student is to write a 10-minute play that will be read by Willamette University students in September.
Plays take place in Putnam Studio, M. Lee Pelton Theatre at Willamette University. Readings take place at different locations depending on the script. Admission is by donation. $10 recommended, but no one turned away! Click here to reserve. Learn more at theatre33.org
Here’s a look at the 3X33 Summer New Play Festival line-up —
Acts of Creation by Brianna Barrette
June 8 through 11, 2022
Thea is convinced she’s dying. Her wife Reed is convinced she’s not. Their daughters visit them for the family’s annual Mother’s Day celebration. “The one day we’re always all together.” Except last year. And every year after this one. How do they hold themselves together when they are falling apart?
7 Secrets of Teaching Online by Evelyn Jean Pine
July 13 through 17, 2022
March 2020: A pandemic rages. College campuses across America shut down. In a panic, five college professors – four of them untenured, under-compensated “freeway flyers” who make up the majority of college teachers – sign up for a course: “7 Secrets of Teaching Online.”
The class is relentlessly upbeat. Yet an imposter is unmasked, a career is destroyed, a lover is cast out, secrets are betrayed, a baby is born, families reunite, make-shift desks are littered with take-out boxes, and, of course, one lucky professor gets to sleep with the delivery person. Still, during this time of quarantine and disruption, these educators, by sharing their secrets, learn the power of human connection.
Lost in the Hills by Paul Lewis
August 10 through 14, 2022
Lost in the Hills is a new musical freely adapted from Zane Grey’s 1919 novel The Desert of Wheat.
In early 20th-century Washington state, a young Spokane woman, traveling to the rolling wheat lands of the Palouse, is haunted by the inescapable feeling that she has been there once before. While seeking to decipher the reason for that, she loses her heart to a troubled young agrarian and his radical sister, and soon must decide whether to return to the well-planned life she has always known—or lose herself forever in the scenic yet unforgiving hills. A story of loss, love, and the gravitational pull of the past, set against the backdrop of the battle for justice in the fields.
Pop-up Readings
More of You by Debbie Lamedman
2 p.m. June 18 and 19, 2022
Location TBA
As Evie mentally recovers from a life event that has shattered her, her husband Lumie delivers more news that is liable to drive her to the edge. In an attempt to save their marriage and better understand her husband and herself, Evie discovers unlikely support from an array of colorful characters, all attempting to help Evie recognize the love she has in her life, in all its forms, has been there all along.
Biosphere by Steve Lyons
4 p.m. July 23 and 2 p.m. July 24, 2022
At Capitol Auto Pavilion
Inspired by the true, dramatic story of Biosphere 2, a controversial environmental experiment in 1991-92. Four people are sealed in an airtight dome in the desert. For two years they must survive debilitating hunger and dwindling oxygen. But mostly, they must survive each other.
Light Keepers by Lindsay Partain
2 p.m. August 20 and 21, 2022
Location TBA
Carmen and Max live in a futuristic Oregon that is still very much like our own, but in a dimension where space is expanding at such a rate that stars have begun to disappear from the sky. The night before their last-first-day of high school, Carmen and Max go into the hills to look up at the last star in the sky and make a wish for change…
And change, it does. In a science-defying, history-making moment, a window to another world is opened where friends are still alive, where Carmen doesn’t exist, and where Max’s would-be twin, Maxine needs them all more than ever. They are each given the opportunity of a lifetime to see beyond the known reality, find hope, accept change, and see their skies full of stars.
This story originally ran in Press Play Salem issue 14 (Summer 2022)
The Instigator
