Young Playwrights Festival
Though festival coordinator Rolanda Brigham said enthusiastically in her opening-night speech that “everybody’s a winner,” only three plays have been awarded the privilege of a three-week run in the dead of winter, and they seem to have been chosen as much for their messages as for their literary merit. And Pegasus’s frequently perfunctory or bloated productions fail to tighten up the authors’ inchoate glibness or employ appropriate actors. Clearly this festival, now in its 11th year, is better than nothing, and Pegasus deserves some commendation for doing more for teen playwrights than any other company in town. But there’s still something condescending about its approach, better calculated to provide a great grant proposal than great theater.
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Still, a production as precise and intelligent as Zuccaro’s of Butterflies might have lifted Sansing’s play out of the realm of the ordinary. Unfortunately, Elizabeth Lucas’s direction is stilted, and–aside from Angela Rena Collins, who’s believable and sympathetic as the heartbroken teen–the cast seem underrehearsed, stumbling over the occasional word and delivering lines monotonously, as if they were in a staged reading rather than a full-blown professional production.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): Status Quo (Young Playwrights Festival) photo by Phil Kolmetz.
