Five directors have assembled casts for six new, unproduced plays to be staged in four days, in Aloha Performing Arts Company’s 22nd annual Original Play Festival. The festival will be presented at 7:30 nightly Aug. 19 through 22 at the Aloha Theatre in Kainaliu.
The festival opens Aug. 19 with “Bats,” a quirky comic murder mystery by Honolulu playwright Edward Pickard, directed by Felicity Johnson. Her cast consists of Mia Kriebl-Bruno, Aaron Getzinger, Rich Mears, Tim Bruno and Miles Lugo.
Annie Herring directs the Aug. 20 show, “The Past Tense of Hurt,” by Colorado playwright J. Jackson. This is an intense character study of two women who have a cathartic meeting of the minds on a fateful day. The women are portrayed by Janemarie Singer and Binti Bailey.
“Somebody Has to Die” on Aug. 21 is a classic slapstick whodunnit by Kona playwright Kitty Powell, who also directs. The cast members are Dan Hoff, Christina Boyko, Suzanne and Mark Murdock, Tim Bruno, Kat Sullivan, Arianna Rose, Sofia Ribeiro, Oliver Kreibl-Bruno and John Victor Ribeiro.
August 22 features a triple bill of short plays. First up is “The Recommendation,” a celestial comedy of the absurd by local writer Thomas Johnson, and directed by Paula K. Cornwell. The roles in the show, which include saints, God, Lucifer and Jesus, are performed by Steven and Shelene Grey, Lily Cho, Martin Dwyer, Rich Mears, Kazutoshi Maruta and Miles Lugo.
Robin O’Hara directs the final two shows of the festival. Second on the evening’s bill is “The Unsalable Thing,” by Mark Tjarks, of Oahu. This play centers around a self storage unit being lived in by a homeless person, and features cast members Rich Mears, Engel Edwards, David Bruce, Paula K. Cornwell and John Victor Ribeiro. The final show will be Gloria Blum’s moving comedy based on real events involving her Polish mother, “Ma’s Last Request.” This cast consists of Kitty Powell, Steven and Shelene Grey, Janemarie Singer, Kazutoshi Maruta and Sofia Ribeiro.
All plays will be presented at the Aloha Theatre in staged reading format, with simple technical presentation and actors holding scripts. Tickets are $5 per night, with a $1 discount in exchange for a previous night’s ticket stub. A complete festival pass may be purchased for $15. Tickets and passes are available online at apachawaii.org, by phone at 322-9924 weekdays 10 na.m. until 4 p.m., or at the theater box office beginning one hour prior to performance time.
After each night’s performance, the audience is encouraged to remain and take part in a brief discussion of the play with the actors, directors and in some cases, the playwrights. On Aug. 23 at 3 p.m., a free public potluck wrap celebration of the entire festival and all its participants will be held at the APAC Loft, across the street from the theater on the second floor of the building housing The Kings Daughters Thrift Store. This fellowship event will include informal talk story and the presentation of the “Opie,” a people’s choice award for best script of the festival. Other awards will be presented also, determined by on-site voting by anyone who witnessed all the readings.
For more information, call 322-9924.