Theatre Odyssey's play festival returns to Sarasota

   Ten-minute play festivals have been popping up all across the country in recent years. They're popular with playwrights, theater companies and audiences.
   Playwrights appreciate the chance to be produced and get some money, theater companies like them because they can help develop new work and up-and-coming writers, and audiences like them because they generally make for really edifying and entertaining evenings of theater. And since the plays are short, audiences don't risk the boredom of a full-length show that they don't like. If you don't like one 10-minute play, you'll probably like the next one, and it's right around the corner.
 

"As Long as the Moon Shines"
Photo by Cliff Roles

 Locally, Theatre Odyssey's annual Ten-Minute Play Festival has become one of the most respected.The 10th annual festival is coming up this weekend. It runs today through Sunday at the FSU Center for the Performing Arts in Sarasota.
   This year's plays are "The Coward" by Dylan Jones, "Dancing Lessons" by Connie Schindewolf, "Dream On, Merry Mae" by Bernard Yanelli, "High School Reunion" by Arthur Keyser, "It's Time to Move On" by Ron Pantello, "The Locket" by Mark Leib, "Nimby" by Robert Kinast and "Why" by Marvin Albert.
   The plays get full productions from local theater professionals, and they're judged by a panel of theater experts. There's a cash prize for the winner. (Full disclosure: I am among the judges this year. The others are Summer Wallace, head of the theater department at Riverview High School and an adjunct professor of theater at New College of Florida, and Jim Sorensen, a prominent local actor who recently joined the staff of Florida Studio Theatre. The judges all volunteer their time.)
   The plays this year are about divided between comedies and dramas. There's also a bonus play. Theatre Odyssey hosts a student festival every year, and this year's winner, "As Long as the Moon Shines" by Julien Freij, a junior at St. Stephen's Episcopal School in Bradenton will be staged again this weekend. It won't be judged and it won't be eligible for the prize money, though.
   This year's festival has a couple of new elements. The opening night performance will be interpreted into American Sign Language, and 12-year-old violin prodigy Jenny Armor will perform during the intervals between plays between plays. 

   Shows are at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday at the Cook Theatre at the FSU Center for the Performing Arts, 5555 N. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota. Tickets are $20. Call 941-799-7224, or go to theatreodyssey.org.

Opening night delayed for Asolo Conservatory show in Sarasota

   There's been a bit of a change to the schedule of the upcoming show from the FSU/Asolo Conservatory for Actor Training in Sarasota.   The musical "(title of show)" was supposed to open Wednesday. But one of the actors is "very ill," a conservatory spokeswoman said, so opening night has been pushed back to this Friday, Feb. 20.
 

The cast of "(title of show)"

 The actor is apparently quite the trouper, though, because he's going on with the show Wednesday and Thursday. But the people at Asolo Conservatory are now calling those performances "previews," because the actors won't be in top form. He expects to be fine by Friday's opening night.
   Here's what that means for the ticket-buyer: Wednesday is a "pay what you can" show, and tickets for Thursday's performance are $27. Starting Friday, tickets go to the regular price of $29.
   It runs through March 8 at the Cook Theatre at the FSU Center for the Performing Arts, 5555 N. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota. Show times are 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, 8 p.m. Wednesday-Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday. Call 941-351-8000 or go asolorep.org.
   "(title of show)" is a quirky hit musical by Hunter Bell and Jeff Bowen. They wrote it in three weeks, and the plot is all about their writing a musical in three weeks. When the show moved to Off-Broadway and Broadway, the writers added segments about the show moving to Off-Broadway and Broadway.

Sarasota's Banyan Theater Company announces 2015 season

Tanner in "The Amish Project"

   Two years ago, Sarasota actor Katherine Michelle Tanner delivered one of the most amazing performances local theater goers have ever seen. The play was the American Stage production of Jessica Dickey's "The Amish Project," which is based on a mass murder in an Amish school in 2006. Tanner played all seven characters, male and female, from young victims to the killer's wife to townspeople only peripherally involved. No one who saw that performance will forget it.
   Those who missed it will have another chance. "The Amish Project," with Tanner reprising her roles, is part of the recently announced Banyan Theater Company season.
   Banyan produces shows only in the summer. "The Amish Project" is the second show of the Banyan's 14th season.
   All shows in the Banyan season are in the Jane B. Cook Theatre at the FSU Center for the Performing Arts in Sarasota. A three-show subscription costs $70, a two-show package is $52 and single tickets are $28.50. Go to banyantheatercompany.com for information and tickets.
  

    Here's the season schedule:
  

  "Art" by Yasmina Reza, translated by Christopher Hampton, June 25-July 12
   The winner of the 1998 Tony Award for Best Play and the 1996 Olivier Award for Best Comedy revolves around friends who argue over the artistic value of a painting.
   

   "The Amish Project" by Jessica Dickey, July 16-Aug. 2
    A devastating and beautiful play that gives an intriguing glimpse into Amish culture and compels the audience with our own capacity for forgiveness and condemnation.


   "My Old Lady" by Israel Horovitz, Aug. 6-23
   Horovitz (the father of Beastie Boy Ad-Rock) has written more good plays than most people have seen. This one, which was made into a movie starring Kevin Kline and Maggie Smith, is one of his best. It's about a financially struggling middle-aged man who inherits an apartment in Paris and finds that French law says the tenant can stay there until she dies. He has no choice but to move in with her.