If you are a person who enjoys live theater but sometimes finds your attention wandering, the 10 Minute Play Festival at Bravo Theatre is especially for you. Of course, those will longer attention spans will also enjoy the variety of this production.
In this show, five directors (Deborah Elder, David Goldman, Linda Goman, Monnie King and Darlene Sherwood) and 12 actors stage eight short plays. The eight scripts were chosen by Bravo’s dedicated selection team from 443 submissions! While there are a few serious themes, many of the works are humorous.
Two of the plays are monologues: “Bootsie”with Peter King and “Shirley”with Donna Burroughs. While both are funny and well-acted, Burroughs as Shirley is exceptional. The title character is performing her first stand-up comedy act in the residents’ talent hour at a nursing home. The humor flirts with aging, disability and death and Burroughs’ performance will have you struggling to contain your laughter. Her ability to embody this character is a delight to experience, and this piece alone is (almost) worth the price of admission.
Shirley was directed by a novice director (Elder) and it wonderful to see her hone her skills with this short play. Short pieces like these seem tailor-made to provide a chance for newbies to try their hand and perhaps join the ranks of Lakeside’s acting and director pools. Rather than offer this opportunity to more actors, Bravo chose to use the same actors in multiple plays. While all the actors were quite good, these short plays would have been perfect to showcase new talent.
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