Dayton Playhouse has sponsored FutureFest, a festival of new and unproduced plays for over twenty five years, put on by a community theater run entirely by volunteers. Each year in one weekend they showcase six new unproduced plays as chosen by the FF committee from the submissions entered that year. Each play is dramatized as either a staged reading or a full dramatization. Each play is a full length play and they do not limit the subject matter. They bring the playwrights to the festival for the weekend so you can mingle with them and we have talk back sessions with them after their show. Dayton Playhouse brings in adjudicators from around the country to pick the best play and give the playwrights a professional critique in front of the FF audience. It’s a play lover’s dream come true, and an opportunity a playwright can’t get anywhere else. FutureFest dates for 2015 will be July 17-19
Here are the plays that will be featured this year:
Blue Over You – by Dan Noonan
Where’s Mitzi? What happened to Mitzi?! Francis, an enchanting high school drama teacher, comes home to discover that his wife, Mitzi, is missing. Did she leave because of his infantile behavior, has she run off with the hunky maintenance man, or is something much darker at work here? Join this song-and-dance man as he tries to find Mitzi and woo her back.
Book of Hours – Thomas Klocke
Margins, decorative marginalia, marginalized people. Every connotation of the word is broached when one 14th century Manuscript Illuminator stands his ground for artistic integrity against the heavy handed censorship of the Church which commissioned the handmade BOOK OF HOURS devotional. To tell the story, the play crosses centuries and oceans, from the Biblical times of Abraham and his sons to contemporary gay street hustlers just trying to survive in the margins of an uncaring city.
Hail the Conquering Hero – Rich Amada
Tom Azuric is a radio humorist who has toiled for years in various stations around the country until he has finally made it to the biggest U.S. radio market of them all – New York City. However, judging from his demeanor, his family can sense that something is terribly wrong. Despite his professional success, Tom, it seems, has failed to fulfill a promise to his deceased mother, leaving him feeling terribly inadequate. That feeling, coupled with the pressure his
boss is putting on him to engage in some sleazy politics, is pushing Tom to the breaking point.
Return to Goodnight – Jared Robert Strange
Irene Deckard has lost her father, but she may also lose her mind fulfilling his final wishes, which involve bringing his remains from Montana all the way down to Goodnight, Texas, and in the company of her gay ex-husband Casper, no less. It’s all part of a promise they made to her father a long time ago, a promise that will bring them together for the first time in thirty years to face old demons, discover new truths, and maybe – just maybe – rekindle their long-dead friendship.
Smoke – Gloria Bond Clunie
In the drama SMOKE, country store owner Ora Rakestraw wants no parts of the mysterious Wallace Johnson when he descends upon her tiny southern town to organize tobacco workers. It’s the 1960’s— and though Kennedy orders the Surgeon General to investigate smoking— tobacco is king in Carolina. The Marlboro Man, Lucky Strikes, and Camels are Kool because they put food on the table for her customers. As promises are made and secrets revealed, love collides with small town politics in one hot, tumultuous summer!
The Consul, the Tramp, and America’s Sweetheart – John Morogiello
On the eve of World War II, Georg Gyssling, the nazi consul to Hollywood, confronts Mary Pickford, the silent film star and co-founder of United Artists, to stop production on Charlie Chaplin’s controversial first talkie, The Great Dictator. Gyssling succeeds until war is declared and the movie is needed to buck up the allies.
Casting requirements for the festival will be posted in advance of the June 1 and June 2 auditions. Check their Auditions page for details.
