The UNM Dramatic Writing Program is presenting Words Afire: The Edmund New Works Festival Friday.
The festival, which is the result of more than 100 students' labor in writing, directing, scenic design, costuming and lighting, will run every weekend until Dec. 2 and consists of 12 short works, three full-length pieces, two concert readings and a radio show.
The Festival will be at UNM's Theatre X, the Riverside Theatre, the Outpost Performance Space and The National Hispanic Cultural Center.
Here is a list of the following events beginning with this week's performances.
l Week One
"Bon Fires" is three short works at Theatre X. "Mama's Boy" by Jason Nious is the story of a truly soulful soul food cafÇ. "Tale" by Jason Witter, is a strictly adult-themed take on some fairy-tale standards. "Hot Days" by Maria Johnson is a comedic road trip to a desert land where there are real men are women.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
"Wild Fires" is three short works at the Riverside Theatre. "Boy from Ohio" by Curtis Child features the last day in the life of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. "Soak from the Bottom Up" by Riti Sachdeva is a character study featuring a West Indies woman relocated into Bayou country. "Kitty Kitty Kitty" by David Landry is a story featuring the world's first talking house cat.
l Week Two (Nov. 14-18)
"Brush Fires" is four short works at Theatre X. "A Beautiful Day for a Sunday Drive" by Barbara Schmider is a tale in which two families mourn their wartime losses when a young girl commits an incomprehensible act. "Glimpses" by Crystal Jo Massoth shows the unseen forces lurking behind any relationship. "Unbalanced" by Lea Atherton features a script that faces the question: "What do you do when grandma's a kleptomaniac?" "Prospect Angel" by Steven Pinzone is a fast-paced punk rock song of a play about boys going ga-ga for girls.
"Back Fires" is two medium-length works at the Riverside Theatre that features "I Go to Pieces" by Dusty McGowan, a tale of an idealistic paparazzo losing his professional innocence and "Bubba" by David Velarde, which tells the story of a terminally ill Apache who wishes to prolong his life through not-so-traditional means.
"Gas" is a full-length work by Elizabeth Kay Otero playing at the National Hispanic Cultural Center. The play, set in Las Vegas, N.M., investigates a cross-cultural romance in a gas station populated with a legion of slightly tweaked characters.
At Theatre X, the two full-length works given concert readings are "King Herald" by David Landry, in which Hamlet's successor wreaks comedic havoc with Danish politics, and "The True North" by Kevin Paul, which is a story of a family outing gone bad after a crash landing at the North Pole.
l Week Three (Nov.28-Dec 2)
"Windchill" is a full-length work by Howie Kaibel at Theatre X. The play is a comedy drama in which the past returns to haunt the present and one family hashes it out within the confines of an ice fishing house in Minnesota.
"33 on 66" is a full-length work by Susan Erikson at the Riverside Theatre. The play features nearly three dozen short plays strung together in a frenzy of theater action.
"Green Chile Stew" is a full-length radio comedy show to be recorded at the Outpost Performance Space. Perhaps the most unique event of the festival, the show promises to deliver cold irony and unpolitical humor with no topic too taboo. The show is written by several students in the writing program and directed by Joe Pesce of the Riverside Repertory Ensemble.
Tickets for the shows at the National Hispanic Cultural Center are free. For more ticket and pricing information, contact the venue of the show: Outpost Performance Space at 268-0044, Riverside Theatre at 254-8393 and Theatre X at 277-4569.
Staff Report
