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Festival lets audience voice opinions of plays
■ Staged readings allow
playwrights chance to hear
critiques from viewers.
By Josh Nichols
Staff writer
Every famous play, movie, song
ami book was at one point a piece of art
in the making.
Even the rough drafts from the
most renowned playwrights, such as
Shakespeare, probably had to be pol
ished and improved.
Often times, an outside opinion
can help in the improvements, because
even if it’s wonderful, another reader
or onlooker might not think it is.
That is the purpose of Theatrix’s
season-ending presentation of the
“Festival of New Plays,” by Nebraska
New Playwrights.
The “Festival of New Plays” is put
on to present new, unproduced works
by local playwrights to the public.
A series of six staged readings will
be done Thursday, Friday and Saturday
nights in the Temple Building’s Studio
Theatre on 12th and R streets.
After each of the staged readings,
two each night, there will be an infor
mal response session that will give the
playwrights an opportunity to receive
feedback from the audience.
These presentations give attention
to the base element of theater - the
writing and rewriting of the original
scripts.
Tice Miller, professor of theater
arts and dance, said these readings
give attention to works in progress and
help writers decide what they need to
do, and what they might want to do,
with their scripts.
Miller directed the play “Sweet Tea
& Spirits,” which is one of the plays
being staged this weekend.
Written by Betty Buller
Whitehead, “Sweet Tea & Spirits” is
about a family who are presented with
the uncomfortable, awkward situation
of their aging father’s marrying anoth
er woman.
Please see PLAYWRIGHTS on 11