AMERICAN THEATRE | A New-Play Fest Is Born in Greenville, S.C.

If you are taking the perfect components of all of the play festivals I’ve labored on, you would possibly get a way of the most recent. The South Carolina New Play Festival (SNPF) is a stunning mix of what got here earlier than, and a welcome begin to a brand new new-play competition after a time when all we’ve heard about have been competition postponements and closings (see: The Lark, Sundance, the Humana Festival).

Shelley Butler and West Hyler began SNPF in Greenville, S.C., and it had its inaugural run Aug. 12-14.  Shelley, the creative director, is a collaborator I’ve labored with steadily, so I wasn’t shocked to get a name from West, the competition’s govt creative director, to dramaturg for the competition. However, I used to be stunned to be requested to dramaturg all 4 readings. Was that even potential? 

West and I talked via the competition and the scheduling; the breadth of programming appeared to make it viable, and I used to be sympathetic to the economics of beginning up a competition from scratch and needing to stretch the assets. Frankly, many producers would skip hiring any dramaturgs in any respect. There have been two straight performs, one musical, and one play for younger audiences. One of the performs, Dodi & Diana by Kareem Fahmy, I’d already been engaged on. The musical, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E Frankweiler, could be primarily pre- and post-festival work, as the majority of rehearsal time could be devoted to actors studying music. Like most TYA items, Dragonsoul Offline by Samantha Miller had the advantage of being shorter. And Kate Hamill, playwright for The Scarlet Letter, could be away on her honeymoon, so aside from attending the primary read-through, I may focus my time on the rehearsals that have been making extra script adjustments. Taking a deep breath, I agreed to offer it a whirl.

Having lived in Louisville, I discovered August in Greenville to be not almost the sweaty swamp climate I had feared once I arrived. I’d had nice advance conferences with the playwrights—haven’t all of us gotten adept at forming relationships on Zoom?—and this initially felt like a super-sized model of the job I’d performed numerous instances earlier than, i.e., dramaturg for a studying of a brand new play as a part of a competition. 

Still, from the beginning, this felt a little bit completely different. It wasn’t my first in-person new-play competition post-pandemic (I’d produced the Her Words competition at Soulpepper in Toronto in October 2021, and labored as a dramaturg on the Denver New Play Summit in February 2022), however the inaugural yr of something has a particular sense of pleasure: Is this for actual? How does this work? How is it the identical or completely different from the others? 

West and Shelley had spent months assembly with the humanities leaders and supporters of Greenville to create a city-wide occasion. Most of the new-play festivals I’d labored on had been housed in (and produced by) a single year-round theatrical establishment, however SNPF was completely different. As West put it, “When Shelley and I discovered Greenville, and realized the city had six performing arts venues all located downtown on Main Street within a mile of each other, we knew it was the perfect place to produce a city-wide new play festival.” So the competition was happening at 5 completely different venues throughout city, who’d all agreed to donate house and share assets. I can’t think about the herculean effort it took to discover a week within the calendar the place all 4 firms (the Peace Center, with two areas, together with the Warehouse, South Carolina Children’s Theatre, and Centre Stage) had house to donate to a start-up effort. But they did it, and other people at each theatre went out of their technique to inform me how thrilled they have been that this competition was occurring. Dramaturg sizzling tip: Striking up foyer conversations can usually show helpful!

It helped that the competition got down to be a mix of native and nationwide expertise. Unlike the Humana Festival, which used to rely primarily on out-of-town actors, or the Pacific Playwrights Festival, which depends on native Southern California actors, SNPF was precisely half and half; out of a full competition forged of 24, 12 actors have been native and 12 from out of city. This balanced proportion felt seamless as I walked backwards and forwards throughout Greenville to the varied rehearsals and noticed unified ensembles in all of the completely different theatres.

Another tenet of the competition is accessibility, and SNPF supplied free reserved tickets to all of the readings. There have been paid occasions: two lessons and a closing night time Broadway cabaret with Kelli Barrett and Jarrod Spector, and assured seats for donors. But of the 1,300 tickets, over 75 p.c have been free and accessible to the general public. All occasions have been remarkably properly attended; as a producer, I can inform you that performances with free admission usually have a 35-50 p.c no-show price. I reminded West of this reality steadily via the week as he fearful about occasions promoting out. It turned out he was proper to be involved: For SNPF readings, the attrition price total was a mere 12 p.c, and the ready lists simply lined that distinction to create enthusiastic full homes. I did a little bit digging to determine why. 

Greenville, which has a inhabitants of round 70,000, is clearly very happy with its arts neighborhood—one SNPF board member proudly declared to me that Greenville has extra stay performing arts levels than film theatres. The small downtown space boasts artwork galleries, cute outlets, a nightclub, a few comedy bars, and a scavenger hunt to search out the hidden mice sculptures. Public artwork traces the road, and greater than half of the shop home windows boast theatre posters promoting upcoming productions (and never simply SNPF). 

I discovered that Greenville additionally has a penchant for festivals. Artisphere is a Greenville competition in May that options a whole bunch of artists. There’s the Euphoria meals and wine competition, which goals to offer guests a “taste of all the things that make the Upstate so enchanting,” and which takes the same strategy to SNPF by bringing in culinary expertise from New York and L.A. to pair with native cooks and eating places. Fall for Greenville pairs meals with music. Indie Craft Parade, the Greenville Country Music Fest, and the Craft Beer Festival are only a few extra examples of the way the city clearly revels in its spectacular inhabitants progress over the previous few years. With all its levels, a theatre competition nearly appears inevitable.

There’s a little bit little bit of magic in being on the proper time and the proper place, and the Upstate (the area within the westernmost a part of South Carolina) was ripe for a performing arts-oriented competition as a solution to the Spoleto Festival in Charleston. Travis Ballenger, a producer with Lia Vollack Productions and native to the realm, was excited sufficient to make the journey out when he heard about it, and was moved by the competition and its potential for the longer term. He advised me, “The South Carolina New Play Festival brought to the South some of the most exciting theatre artists we have. Greenville, S.C., has always valued the arts immensely, and to match that passion with the national reach of SNPF is the work arts organizations should do.” 

In the lovely swag baggage that SNPF put collectively for the artists was a T-shirt from native designer Billiam Jeans which says, “Leave Brooklyn, move to Greenville.” I imagine anybody who wasn’t native was tempted by the concept. 

The partnerships with different organizations made a distinction to me too. Before the final studying, I attended a gathering with Dr. Gail Wilson Awan, SNPF board member and CEO of the Urban League, to debate their potential funding of the competition’s first fee, and was amazed at her funding in not solely funding however discussing why and the way that partnership may serve each the neighborhood and the artist. It was clear not solely that Greenville helps the humanities and artists, however that additionally they help locals. If SNPF was to fee an artist to inform their tales, Wilson Awan argued, it needed to be performed in a method that might make investments locally, not simply examine the neighborhood. 

Even although the competition was produced on the identical shoestring of restricted assets and constraints we’re all working beneath, I by no means felt any trace of shortage. In the tip, what made it particular for me was the very method during which it embraced variety in all its varieties. Not solely was it each native and nationwide artists, nevertheless it additionally employed 50 p.c actors of coloration; the SNPF board is 30 p.c individuals of coloration. Some artists had spectacular, prolonged résumés; some have been fairly inexperienced. I roamed the lobbies earlier than and after the reveals, putting up conversations and eavesdropping, and located audiences to be a mixture of arts fanatics, some who’d by no means attended a play studying earlier than and others who have been veterans of the shape. Now that we’ve confirmed the idea, I hope to see my business pals from the new-play competition circuit there subsequent yr. The mixture of musicals, straight performs, TYAs, and cabarets felt in contrast to any comparable competition I’d attended or labored on beforehand. I’m already wanting ahead to subsequent yr’s SNPF, slated for August 10-13, 2023.

The method the South Carolina New Play Festival took over town of Greenville with shows at six completely different theatres felt like a miniature model of Edinburgh Fringe, and jogged my memory of an adage I can’t cease repeating to myself and different theatre professionals on the market: A rising tide lifts all boats.

Kimberly Colburn (she/her) is is the producer of latest work at Soulpepper Theatre in Toronto, was beforehand literary director of South Coast Rep, the place she was co-director of PPF and led the theatre’s CrossRoads initiative. Prior to that she literary supervisor at Actors Theatre of Louisville. She has dramaturged and produced dozens of productions, workshops and readings. www.theatrekimberly.com

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