Acorn Productions Announces Maine Playwrights Festival Selections for Upcoming Season

Acorn Productions announces that the company has selected 5 full-length plays to be given dramatic readings in the Acorn Studio Theater as part of the process of choosing a featured play for this year's Maine Playwrights Festival. The scripts were chosen from the 17 pieces submitted this fall by Maine-based playwrights and address issues ranging from race relations to aging and military recruiting practices. 

The first script to be read is "Army of One," by Laura Emack, which follows the story of book smart high school senior Joan, who poses as a potential enlistee to expose hardball recruiting, but ends up responding to her country's call by a committed emissary she cannot dismiss. "Army of One" will be read on Friday, October 30. Two readings will take place in November: "Looking for Nadia," by Clare Melley Smith will be read on Friday, November 13, and "Solitary Dancers, by Jan Paetow, is brought to life on Friday, November 20. "Looking for Nadia" details what happens when Nadia, a woman with a long history of mental illness, suddenly drops off the planet and her college chum Margo embarks on a quest to find her. "Solitary Dancers" is a painful comedy about three middle-aged people and their eccentric approaches to the realization that they are mortal. The final two scripts selected by Acorn will be read in January. Friday, January 8, features "Trouble Deaf Heaven," by Gibson Faye-Leblanc, a play that takes place at an Oakland school for dropouts, where Lonny, a troubled inner-city youth, nears a performance as Hamlet by rethinking who he is and which roles he has the strength to play. The final piece will be read on Friday, January 15. "The Waiting Room," by Keith Powell Beyland, is a contemporary drama that examines how truth is often the first victim when race and violence are joined under the flaring media spotlight.

Playwright Laura Emack is a writer of fiction, non-fiction, and scripts whose work has been performed in New York City, Omaha, Nebraska, and throughout Maine. Laura is currently a resident of Prospect. Clare Melley Smith is a full-time playwright and member of both the Dramatists Guild and Actors Equity Association who splits her time between Cape Elizabeth and Columbia Falls. Jan Paetow has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New Jersey Council on the Arts, and the Spingold Foundation. She lives in Cape Newagen. Gibson Faye-Leblanc's poems and reviews have appeared in Boston Review, Guernica, The New Republic, and Verse Daily, among other publications. He resides in Portland, where currently teaches at the University of Southern Maine and is Executive Director of The Telling Room, a non-profit writing program in Portland, Maine. Keith Powell Beyland graduated with honors from the Dramatic Writing Program at New York University's Tisch School for the Arts. He makes his home in Portland.

The dramatic readings will take place over a series of Friday nights in October, November and January, featuring actors from Acorn's "Naked Shakespeare" Ensemble as well as students studying their craft in the Acorn Academy Academy. Audience members at the readings will be invited to stay for a "talkback" with the playwrights and Acorn staff members; comments provided during this session and via a written feedback form will be used to help Acorn select the play to be featured at the ninth annual Maine Playwrights Festival, scheduled to take place from April 16 to May 1, 2010 at the St. Lawrence Arts Center in Portland. All readings begin at 7:30 p.m.; admission is free with a $5 suggested donation.

The Maine Playwrights Festival (MPF), currently in its ninth year, serves as a creative incubator to assist playwrights with the development of new work. Each year, playwrights from all across the state submit their pieces for consideration by Acorn's reading committee. This year's edition of MPF will run over 3 weekends from April 16 to May 2, 2010, and features 3 rotating evenings of plays to be directed by Acorn's Producing Director Michael Levine, veteran actor and director Harlan Baker, and internationally-touring performing artist and educator Julie Goell. The full length play chosen through the reading process will be joined by an line-up of short 10 to 15 minute plays, and a third grouping of 3 or 4 one-act plays. Acorn is still accepting short plays and one-acts from playwrights; an application is available to download at the company's website www.acorn-productions.org.