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Dustin Luca
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SALEM, MASS. – A festival for plays that run only 10 minutes promises to deliver audiences five military plays in the span of an hour, giving those at Salem State University an opportunity to hear stories of sacrifice and remembrance for Veteran’s Day weekend.
The sixth annual Veterans 10-Minute Play Festival will be held in the Rehearsal Room at the Sophia Gordon Center, 356 Lafayette St., from Friday, Nov. 8 to Sunday, Nov. 10. This event is free and open to the public (as space is limited, registration is recommended).
The festival will showcase the works of five playwrights with either direct or familial connections to the military, with one play originating from a mother and son duo in Marblehead, Mass. Overall, two of the productions come from veteran playwrights, while the other three have immediate family who were veterans.
“A 10-minute play is a particular style which explores a topic and characters with a clear beginning, middle and end,” said Julie Kiernan, an associate professor of theatre and speech communication who organizes the event, and who recently traveled to Bulgaria on a Fulbright award to teach theatre. “On each day, we perform all five plays, the unit of which takes an hour to watch, and after, we open things up and have a conversation with the audience, actors, director, and playwrights.”
The festival is “designed to cultivate a supportive environment of creative exploration in and around the varied experiences that surround the military,” said Karen Gahagan, director of the Center for Creative and Performing Arts.
Lauren Fogle Boyd and her 17-year-old son Benji, of Marblehead, represent the North Shore with their play Our Bones, Their Bones. The work explores two historical settings in one with a 26-year-old Ukrainian military officer retelling his time spent in bunkers held by German and Russian soldiers during World War II.
“As a historian, I’ve been very aware that despite the political and ideological differences between the current war in Ukraine and World War II, there are many parallels as well,” Fogle Boyd said. “Today's soldiers are using the same kinds of heavy artillery, crossing the same rivers and plains, and even sheltering in the same bunkers as the German and Russian armies did in the second World War.”
Writing the play with her son provided an opportunity to not just explore one example of a consequence of war, but to discover just how much exposition could be packed into a window only 10 minutes wide.
“I've worked as a dramaturg before, so creating a historical shell for the play was easy. The information is readily available. I chose an interview format to allow the soldier to speak for himself and express his unease about the Nazi echoes he’s confronted by,” Fogle Boyd said. “Then, Benji took over and shaped it into a dramatic piece, dispersing the data into dialogue and adding his own flair for detail and visual effects. In such a short format, every word counts, and you can't afford any waste or padding. We were surprised how much we could get across in 10 minutes – quite the learning experience.”
All five playwrights will be on hand at various points throughout the weekend to discuss their works after the performances. Friday and Saturday’s showtimes begin at 7:30 pm and will feature three playwrights after, while Sunday’s presentation runs at 2 pm and will be attended by all five.
Admission is free, but advance registration is strongly recommended. Visit the event page for more information.