Having
received 602 scripts from
43 states, 11 countries and 5 continents
on our 2010
theme
Hidden
Agendas
FUSION
Theatre Company is excited to announce
the winners in this year's competition!
Jury Prize
"Hiding
From Adults"
by Greg Kalleres, Brooklyn, NY
"Other Voices" by Walton Beacham, Nokomis, FL
"Blood" by Aliza Einhorn, Brooklyn, NY
"The Many Complications of Love" by Barbara Lindsay, Shoreline,
WA
"Emulsion" by C.D. Thomas, Denver, CO
"Storytime" by Angel L. Nuñez, Randolph, MA
"Parakeet Love" by Dale Dunn, Santa Fe, NM
"The Seven" winning
scripts receive a full, professional production.
Patrons during production week have
voted for the winner
of the
2010 "Bob
and Gail Bosser Audience Choice Award"
and the winner is......
"Hiding From Adults
by Greg Kalleres
Congratulations!
This weekend of performances will sell-out,
so advance reservations are highly recommended.
All entries to FUSION's "The Seven" 10-Minute
Play contest are read "blind" (all identifying
information withheld from the judges), ensuring a
level playing
field for all. The script quality was excellent this
year necessitating tough choices with these, our
additional...
Finalists
"Civil Disobedience" by Bara Swain, New York, NY
"Quid Pro Quo" by Quinn D. Eli, Haverford, PA
"Organic Meat Balls" by Damon Chua, Los Angeles, CA
"A Thousand Words" by Evan Sesek, Boise, ID
"I Thought I Liked Girls" by Nicole Pandolfo, New York, NY
"Suicide Pact" by Alice Shen, Ft. Worth, TX
"Pemberton" by Ron Pullins, Newburyport, MA
"And Clouds Made of Bones" by William Orem, Waltham, MA
"The Dreamers Upstairs" by Angela Henderson, Columbus, OH
"Jinxed" by K. Alexa Mavromatis, Providence, RI
"Pretty Good for a Monday" by Steve Barney, Fredrick, MD
"In The Fort" by Michael Bettencourt, Weehawken, NJ
"The Home Schooling of Jonathan Anderson" by Christopher Lewis, St. Johnsville,
NY
Interviews
With This Year's Winners
1) How did you hear about “The
Seven”?
2) What was the impetus/basis/inspiration for writing the piece?
3) Is this play representational of your writing style? Is it similar to or
different from your other plays?
4) What is the role of the short work in your playwriting career?
5) What is your favorite play? Who is your favorite playwright?
6) What is your next playwriting venture?
7) Is there anything you would like to add?
G
Kalleres
W
Beacham
A
Einhorn
B
Lindsay
CD
Thomas
A
Nuñez
D
Dunn
click
on a playwright's photo to read his/her response!
FUSION
WENT, FUSION PLAYED, FUSION TRIUMPHED!
This just in! FUSION Theatre Company
has learned that it has, for the second year in a
row, had two of its previous "The Seven" winners
selected for this year's (2010) OOB Festival! Executive
Director Dennis Gromelski is pleased to announce
that last year's Jury Prize Winner, Gun
Metal Blue Bar by K. Frithjof Peterson
and a 2007 winner, The Magician
and the Memory by Michael
Vukadinovich were selected for inclusion in this
summer's festival. Additionally, for the second year
in a row as well, FUSION has been invited to present
these works, making
us one of only two--and the only producer outside
NYC--to present two works. Festival details are available
at the OOB
web site. If your travel plans take
you to Manhattan this July, we hope to see you there!
Following its highly successful short
play festival The Seven, FUSION
Theatre Company hit the road to participate in the
Samuel French Off
Off Broadway Play Festival at the noted Playwrights
Horizons Theater located in the heart of Manhattan.
Amongst forty plays, selected by Samuel French out
of over seven hundred submissions, FUSION Theatre
Company presented Laying Off by
James McLindon (presented last month in The
Seven) and Jen Silverman’s The Education of Macoloco (2008
winner of The Seven’s
Audience and Jury Prizes). FUSION was the only theatre
company to present two works.
FUSION performances of
both plays garnered much positive feedback amongst
audience and Samuel French staff
regarding both the quality of playwriting and excellence
of performance. We are very proud to announce that
The Education of Macoloco was one of the six overall
winners of the festival and will be published in
the 34th Samuel French Off Off Broadway Collection.
Ms. Silverman will also receive a licensing contract
with Samuel French for her play. In the words of
Leon Embry, President and CEO of Samuel French, Inc., “her
[Ms. Silverman’s] words jump off the page…a
remarkable writer.”
FUSION Theatre Company’s
success underscores our dedication to discovering
talented playwrights,
nurturing their work, and presenting their work to
Albuquerque audiences within the professional context
of The Seven. We offer a unique opportunity to playwrights
as we present fully staged, fully produced productions
that go far beyond a “concert” reading
that is most often offered to writers. Playwrights
can see and hear their work play over several evenings
and gain an understanding of how a director and actors
interpret their work. Our visiting playwrights at
last June’s The Seven all commented on the
great value of this process to them as writers.
[a note from the webmaster....
You may be wondering, "So, where's the review for
the 2009 version of The Seven?" Beats us. Critic
was there, had a great time, but nothing published.
Unfortunately, as in too many cities in the US,
our afternoon daily has bit the dust and the morning
paper has gone from an eight-page Arts section
to four. Reviews of all arts have been cut drastically.
Never mind that many, many folks read the paper
ONLY for the arts coverage, when it's there. So,
we've included a slideshow below from the current
festival and we'll invite you to be your own critic.
For what it's worth, many patrons told us
what a terrific evening this was with excellent
writing and performances.]
click to play a YouTube slideshow
of "The Seven:
Just One Thing" New Works '09
Marissa Greenberg, review,
June 21, 2008 (on-line),
Albuquerque Journal:
In Jen Silverman’s The Education of
Macoloco, Anessa teaches her son bizarre
trivia and the so-called “facts of life.”
But Anessa withholds the truth of Macoloco’s
paternity and, until the play’s conclusion,
of her inner life. Such silences befit the winner
of the Jury Prize of The Seven: Something
Left Unsaid, FUSION Theatre Company’s
New Works Festival.
Now in its third year, the festival received 417
short works from 41 states and 6 countries. The jury
reads submissions “blind” and chooses
7 for performance. This year’s winners suggest
a bright future for the international stage. In particular,
expect to hear again from Silverman. Silverman, who
graduated from Brown University in 2006 and begins
the MFA program at Iowa Playwrights Workshop this
fall, had 2 plays in the festival.
Like Macoloco, Silverman’s
Notes on Drowning (For the Man Who Cannot
Make the Journey) withholds essential information
until the end. The final revelation belittles mundane
suffering yet proves oddly life affirming. Strong
direction (Jen Grigg and Elizabeth Huffman) and solid
performances energize Silverman’s learned, witty
and affective scripts. Laurie Thomas gives an especially
impressive performance as Anessa, a physically and
emotionally demanding role.
Other plays invite the audience to deduce what is
left unsaid. The title of Craig Abernethy’s
That Day refers to September 11, 2001. Kirsten
and Toby (compellingly performed by Ravenna Fahey
and Michael Finnegan) never specify the date, but
as they describe an exhibition of photos taken in
the tragedy’s aftermath, the audience can fill
in the blank. Despite its intentional evasions, That
Day is rawly honest. Like the exhibited
photos, it demonstrates that art can render reality “too
real.”
Perhaps the most amusing play, Teddy
Knows Too Much by Matt Hanf (Jacqueline
Reid directs), also includes a profoundly disturbing
silence. A mustached
and uproarious John Hardman stars as 3-year-old Billy,
who surreptitiously torments his family in order
to
secure his parents’ attention. Mom and Dad
(Lou Clark and Bruce Holmes are hilarious) look
for simple
solutions to Billy’s behavior. First they give
him a stuffed teddy bear who becomes privy to all
Billy’s secrets and therefore must be silenced.
Teddy’s flushing is followed by medication.
In a final tableau, Hanf’s implicit commentary
on parenting in America ceases to evoke laughter.
What ought not go unsaid is that The Seven
is worth seeing.
With the inception in 2006 of our The Seven:
New Works Fest, FUSION Theatre Company has
been pleased to host a wonderful new way to fulfill
our mission of presenting fresh, new works of extraordinary
merit.
To view our previous "Seven" productions, click
here.
With an annual theme selected
by our patrons via on-line voting, FUSION Theatre
Company has seen exponential interest from talented
playwrights the world over. Our inaugural festival
in 2006, with the theme Games People Play,
drew over 70 submissions, from which the top seven
were selected by our artistic staff. They were
professionally produced, acted and directed and
were enthusiastically received by full houses.
The word got out: the following
season, our patrons chose No Regrets as
the theme and over 350 playwrights from 39 states
and 6 countries responded. The caliber of the top
submissions was so spectacularly good, our staff
chose seven for the main fest, and produced another
seven for cabaret offerings.
For 2008, our patrons chose Something
Left Unsaid which provoked over 400 entries
from even more places!
Even greater things are planned for 2009, our patrons
having just selected our theme for this year: That
One Thing.
You'll want to make your reservations now; last
year's Festival, The Seven, was completely
sold out. Expect the unexpected as FUSION Theatre
Company selects a crop of diverse and intriguing
new works to be presented by the finest directors
and actors in New Mexico.
