Having
received 418 scripts from 37 states and
eight countries on our 2009 theme
That
One Thing
FUSION
Theatre Company is excited to announce
the winners in this year's competition!!!
Jury Prize
"Gun Metal Blue Bar" by K. Frithjof
Peterson,
Saginaw, MI
"Nothing" by Philip Dawkins, Chicago,
IL
"Laying Off" by James McLindon,
Northampton, MA
"Amy's Wish" by James Caputo, San
Diego, CA
"Canadian Tuxedo" by Nicole Pandolfo,
New York, NY
"Just One Thing" by Marcia Cebulska,
Topeka, KS
and a special shout out to
our first local winner:
"I-95 and Mass Pike" by Kyle Paoletta,
Albuquerque, NM
"The Seven" winning
scripts will receive a full-production.
The winner of the "Bob and Gail
Bosser Audience Choice Award"
is "Amy's Wish" by James
Caputo
PERFORMANCE DATES: June
18th-21st, 2009
Thursday-Saturday at 8:00 pm, Sunday at
2:00 and 6:00 pm
LOCATION:
The Cell Theatre
700 1st St. NW, Albuquerque, NM 87102
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
"The Best Medicine" by Mark Cornell, Chapel
Hill, NC
"Ten Million Pieces of My Heart" by Alex
Broun, Newton, Australia
"
McManus in the Chair" by
Peter Diseth, Albuquerque, NM
"84" by Jonathan James Norton, Dallas, TX
"Aside From That Mrs. Lincoln" by Tony Greenleaf,
Lyme, NH
"
Copier Jam" by Sarah Sander, Minneapolis,
MN
"The Numismatist" by Christie Perfetti, New York,
NY
"The Delivery" by Elizabeth Bove, London, England
"Coitus Hate-Us" by Hillary Rollins, Santa Monica,
CA
"Apples and Oranges" by Deborah C. Singer, Vancouver,
WA
"Snapshot" by Michael Carnick, Del Mar, CA
"Moline Dream, Iowa" by Aliza Einhorn, Brooklyn,
NY
"Hamlet in Hiding" by Rich Rubin, Portland, OR
"Faith in the Super Bowl" by Dean Lundquist, Singapore
Interviews
With Last 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?
J
Caputo
M
Cebulska
P
Dawkins
J
McLindon
N
Pandolfo
K
Paoletta
KF
Peterson
click
on a playwright's photo to read his/her response!
FUSION
WENT, FUSION PLAYED, FUSION TRIUMPHED!
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 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.
Theme
selections for next year’s The Seven will
be announced on our website very soon. Patrons can
cast a vote for their favorite overall theme that
will inspire the playwrights of
2010!
[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.
If you are a writer interested
in submitting a new work for adjudication, please
see our guidelines here.
We'd love to see your take on this year's theme: That
One Thing.
