Stage Left's Festivals

Stage Left produces several short-play festivals each season. They’re foundational to our mission, as they provide opportunities to explore new forms of storytelling and highlight new or historically excluded voices.
 

Most of our festivals are presented in traditional readers’ theater format and are a great
low-commitment way for you to get or stay involved in theater!

While the specifics vary from festival to festival and season to
season, each festival has a theme. Past festivals have included Fast &
Furious (one-minute plays), Empower (featuring female/femme voices),
Queer Voices (centering the LGBTQIA+ experience), and Leftovers (plays
written and produced in just 24 hours). 

Readers’ theater is a pared-down production in which actors read lines
from the script with little-to-no staging, props, costumes, or sets.
Often, a narrator will read stage directions to help the audience
visualize the playwright’s intent. Actors typically wear all black or
dark colors.

With no lines or blocking to memorize, your commitment level is much
lower than for a fully staged, full-length play. We’ll have a handful
of rehearsals over the course of a few weeks, and one weekend of
performances.

Because the plays themselves are short, it’s common for one actor to
appear in a few pieces, and a director may take on more than one, as
well.

Scripts for most of the festivals come from playwrights around the
world, with preference given to local talent. Writers can submit
multiple scripts for most festivals.

To find plays and participants, we typically put out submission forms for
scripts and directors about two months ahead of the festival. For
actors, we’ll usually hold auditions about a month before the
performance dates, and we also offer a form for those who can’t make
it in person (although you may have a better chance of being cast if
we get to see you!) Auditions will be cold readings from selected
scripts, and you should expect to read for multiple roles.

You can find submission forms on our website and social media. 

Leftovers is a different type of festival. The goal is a fully
memorized and staged play, going from conception to performance in
just 24 hours – the same amount of time it takes for “dinner” to
become “leftovers.”

For this one, we select directors and playwrights. Each director
chooses their own cast.

At a kick-off event on a Friday evening, we randomly pair directors
with playwrights and assign the team a prop that must inspire the
script in some way. The playwright then has 12 hours to turn in a
script for an 8-10 minute play, and the director and cast have another
12 hours to rehearse.

We ask that all cast members come to the kick-off so the playwright
can meet you and have conversations that may help guide them in their
writing process.

Questions about Stage Left’s festivals? Please contact Festival
Coordinator Adrienne Neal at adrienne110@gmail.com.