Shotgun Theatre Festival

I’m so glad I decided to brave the cold weather Friday night and attend one of the “Performance” nights of the Shotgun Theatre Festival presented by the Gene Frankel Theatre --I had mentioned this festival in a previous post on January 7th. It was such an enjoyable experience; I went alone and had a great night! There were six original 10 minute works performed (everything from drama, suspense, and comedy). In between each play musician Michael Bryson performed as well. Those works were written and put together in a compressed time of about one day. I was really impressed with the writing and performance put together in such a short amount of time.


A little background on the festival – Thursday, January 8th and 15th directors and playwrights watched over 30 actors do cold reading and monologues in front of the audience. Playwrights randomly selected a director’s name and actors were randomly distributed to a director/playwright team. Overnight, the playwright wrote a ten minute play. January 9th, 10th, 16th, and 17th were the performance nights. The audience then voted for their two favorites, and those winning plays will perform tonight, Sunday January 18th at 7pm for the opportunity to win three free nights of rental at the Gene Frankel Theatre to produce a full length version of the mini play they created.

I enjoyed this experience so much; I would love to attend another festival like this in the near future. I was excited when one of the plays I voted for "Roomies" was selected to move on to the finals. I really think it’s a fantastic idea and a great way to showcase new talent in theatre. Support theatre and get your butts over to the final day of the festival tonight at 7pm at the Gene Frankel Theatre 24 Bond street, NYC (near Lafayette)– tickets for tonight are $20.

The Shotgun Theatre Festival was presented by Gail Thacker/The Gene Frankel Theatre, Jason Surratt, Diamondo Stratakos, and the City Actors Theatre Company. For more info on the Gene Frankel Theatre visit http://www.genefrankel.com/