When Seth Gordon joined the staff of the Repertory Theater of St. Louis four years ago as associate artistic director, part of his job description included developing new plays, which was one of his specialties in his previous positions. At the Rep, his new play development has taken the form of the Ignite! Festival of New Plays.
In the festival, professional actors give public readings of new work, and the audience is encouraged to respond in discussions afterward. Their reactions are essential for developing the scripts, which after further revision may go on to full productions at the Rep or elsewhere.
Stephen Massicotte’s Ten Questions to Ask Your Biology Teacher About Evolution initiates the latest Ignite! Festival with a reading at 7:30 p.m. March 19. In the play, a high school biology teacher encourages her students to ask questions about their world. It’s a good way to challenge students to learn. But the teacher herself is challenged when one student asks questions that probe the very basis of her teachings and of the school’s science curriculum.
The other two plays in the festival have St. Louis connections. Laura Eason’s Every Reason to Hope and Believe, which Gordon will direct, concerns a statue of Dred Scott to be placed in front of the Old Courthouse. Emma, a successful fundraiser, and Nathan, a celebrated St. Louis African American artist, had failed to make their mixed-race marriage work, but they come back together to work professionally on this project, bringing with them issues both of their past and of the nation’s. Every Reason to Hope and Believe will be read at 3 p.m. March 23.
Georama—A Mostly True Story of the Forgotten John Banvard is a musical with a book by West Hyler and Matt Schatz, music and lyrics by Schatz, and additional music and lyrics by Jack Herrick. Playwright Hyler will direct the reading at 3 p.m. March 29. John Banvard was an artist who, in the mid-1800s, created the first georama, a 3,000-foot-long scrolled painting celebrating the beauty of the Mississippi River. Its great success introduced Banvard to a new life of wealth and fame and the problems associated with both, a theme that audiences and creators of drama love to explore.
One of last year’s Ignite! readings already has made it to a full production at the Rep’s Studio Theatre under Gordon’s direction. The playwright, Rebecca Gilman, is hardly a novice. Her play Spinning into Butter, about racial issues on a college campus, appeared on the Rep main stage several seasons ago. Boy Gets Girl, about a stalker, and The Sweetest Swing in Baseball, about an artist’s mid-career crisis, have been done by other St. Louis theaters.
Gilman sets Soups, Stews and Casseroles: 1976 in the small town of Monroe, Wis., where the cheese factory is the major employer. In 1976, Consolidated Foods buys the factory. Consolidated’s unknown plans for the future raise issues for families, neighbors, the factory’s union and the whole community. Those issues make good drama. Soups, Stews and Casseroles: 1976 continues in the Rep Studio through March 30.
Ignite! readings take place in the Sally S. Levy Opera Center at 210 Hazel Ave., directly behind the Rep’s home at the Loretto-Hilton Center. Tickets for the Festival are available at the Rep’s box office, by phone at 314.968.4925 and online at repstl.org/ignite.
by Bob Wilcox
