SAT PLAYWRIGHTS FESTIVAL DEPARTMENT

The Overtime Theater is proud to host the San Antonio Playwrights' festival.

An evening of ten minute plays embracing some of the finest writing talent in San Antonio. Original music will also be provided by local musicians and art from San Antonio Fiber Artists will be featured in the Gallery.

Writers:

"Staying in Vegas" by Sheila Lynch Rinear

"Pluto" by Marshall S. Naylor

"The Gift" by Antoinette Winstead

"The Philosophy of Waiting" by Ben Tremillo

"My Friend Viva" by Patty Sandoval Sralla

"The Winner’s Tale" by Modrea Mitchell-Reichert

 

Directors:
David Rinear

John Poole

Kathleen Lovejoy

Chadd Green

 

Actors:

John Minton

Rita Crosby

Lindsey Van de Kirk

Lucia Villanueva

Bill Martin

Pamela Hardy

Robin Early

David Clingan

Kris Thomas

Bill Martin

John Poole

Martha Prentiss

Lucy Briggs

Sharon Scott

Nikki Young

 

 

 

REVIEW

Theater Review: What's staged in Vegas shines in S.A.

Web Posted: 01/21/2008 06:49 PM CST

Deborah Martin
Express-News Staff Writer

When the SAT Playwrights decided to revisit its annual festival of 10-minute plays after a three-year hiatus, the Overtime Theater seemed a natural venue.

The space's mission, as Overtime founder John Poole noted during Friday's performance, is to present works by writers who live "south of Austin and north of Laredo." The theater also typically takes a fairly bare-bones visual approach, a format that puts most of the attention on the writing, another factor that makes the Overtime an ideal spot for the Playfest.

This time around, the writers used the theme "Viva Las Vegas" as a starting point, so references to casinos, showgirls and Elvis Presley were expected. But what the writers did with those references was entirely their own, creating a refreshing evening of new work.

Each of the six pieces was well-cast and well-directed, with actors and crew serving the material well.

The evening begins with "A Winner's Tale," Modrea Mitchell-Reichert's smart piece about the aspirations of two women at different points in their lives. An aging showgirl (Robin Early) who admits her "kick's getting slower and harder to hold" shares her desire for a professional life beyond the Strip; fellow showgirl (Sharon Scott) pulls the young woman (Nikki Young) who is cleaning the gym where they're working out into the conversation, and she shares her own distinctly Vegas dreams. The piece managed to be both pragmatic and wistful.

Patty Sandoval Sralla's "My Friend Viva," in which a lonely nursing home resident (Lucy Briggs) entertains a friend (Martha Prentiss) who may or may not exist, was funny and engaging. Briggs and Prentiss have great chemistry, each turning in a frisky performance that mined every comic nugget from Sralla's words.

The evening took a menacing turn with Ben Tremillo's "The Philosophy of Waiting," in which a couple of guys (Poole and Bill Martin) discuss their viewpoints while "waiting for some very bad people who do some very bad things." The piece had a strong sense of foreboding.

Antoinette Winstead's "The Gift" is set backstage at a nightclub where a jazz singer (Early) receives a visitor (Kris Thomas). The young man is the son of a woman the singer was once close to, and he brings a gift that will change both their lives. Winstead packs a lot of subtext about race relations (the singer is white; her friend and the son are black) into a few lines about the man's wife, questioning the nature of the relationship between the two older women.

Marshall S. Naylor's "Pluto" is the only piece that moves to multiple locations and, perhaps as a consequence, it felt choppy, as if each scene had been sliced from a longer work. The play is about a community college science instructor (Martin) who is invited to speak on behalf of Pluto at a conference where astronomers will decide whether to downgrade it from planet status.

The evening ends with Sheila Lynch Rinear's "Staying in Vegas," a frothy, bittersweet piece in which a once homeless widow (Rita Crosby) who lucked into a fortune spends what would have been her wedding anniversary in Vegas, where she and her husband had married. While her stick-in-the-mud daughter (Lindsey Van de Kirk) is elsewhere, the widow is chatted up by an Elvis impersonator (a welcome return to the stage from John Minton), a conversation that might have long-term consequences. Crosby and Minton are an absolute delight together, ending things on a high note.

Final performances of the SAT Playwrights' Playfest are at 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday at the Overtime Theater, 1216 West Ave. Tickets cost $9. Call (210) 380-0326 for reservations.

dlmartin@**