May

2

Foul Plays.

Posted by Christopher Waldrop

May 2, 2008 |

Working for a university often has unexpected benefits. Recently the Vanderbilt University Theatre Department put on twoneely.jpg short one-act plays, scheduled right in the middle of the day. They even invited people to bring their lunches. While the common theme of both plays was murder of a husband, they were also extremely different. Chocolate, by Frederick Stroppel, was a light, witty comedy, while Trifles by Pulitzer Prize winner Susan Glaspell was serious drama.

It wasn’t just a great way to spend lunch; it also reminded me that live theater isn’t extinct. In fact it’s thriving, even though it’s been driven out of its historical venue–Broadway in New York–and into regional theaters and companies all across the country.

One of the most ambitious projects in contemporary theater is 365 Days/365 Plays, which started November 13, 2002, when Suzan-Lori Parks wrote an entire play in one day…and decided to write an entire play every day for a year. That’s an insanely ambitious project, and four years later a festival was started around it with theaters across the country participating. And it’s still going.

 


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