Theatre Southwest’s Festival of Originals – a showcase of five one-act, 20-minute plays – typically receives hundreds and hundreds of submissions from all around the world. And yet, for the first time, four of the five plays featured this year are from playwrights in Houston.
Well, more accurately, the Greater Houston area. But still.
“That was not on purpose,” says Mimi Holloway, the artistic director of Theatre Southwest. “I just plain liked the Houston plays better. They made a nice eclectic variety and it just clicked, so – Houston, go team!”
The festival, known to many by its nickname FOO, is now in its 27th year, and Holloway has produced every edition. Looking back, she’s proud to say that she thinks “this is one of the more solidly written years,” with both new and returning playwrights turning in a rangy collection of plays that feature family drama, fairy tale characters, and even men wearing garters.
Houstonian Mindy Roll’s Two Couples, directed by Steve Carpentier, “is a light play” in which the titular couples – one younger and social media-obsessed, the other older and more settled – find themselves at the same restaurant, each celebrating a relationship milestone. Despite their apparent differences, it is revealed that they’re not as unalike as they seem.
This year’s FOO marks the second year Roll’s work has been selected for the festival, and Holloway notes that Two Couples features “the same type of writing” that made Roll’s The Matchmaker “a huge hit last year.”
“A lot of writers don’t have enough knowledge of the stage. They write more as if it’s literature. [Roll] has a very sound knowledge of how things will play [on stage],” says Holloway. “She also manages to see the ironies and the little complexities in life that make it interesting and that sometimes we overlook or forget are there.”
Like Roll, Fernando Dovalina is a FOO veteran. Following his retirement as the assistant managing editor for the Houston Chronicle in 2000, Dovalina turned his attention to playwriting. Since, Holloway says he has produced several powerful plays, including Bully, one of this year’s featured plays.
Directed by Holloway’s son, Justin Holloway, the play sees the father of a bullied girl confront her tormentor and his parents – with a gun.
“It is the hardest-hitting play,” says Holloway, adding that it’s “intense,” “very effective” and “mildly violent” with “beautifully written” dialogue.
Holloway says many of the plays submitted to the festival are not chosen because “they’re like an overgrown 10-minute play or a chop-downed longer play.” Dovalina, however, “has a great hold on” crafting a beginning, middle and end within the time constraint, which is one reason Bully is his third play in three years to make the festival.
“He goes in knowing he’s got 20 minutes, and he writes accordingly,” says Holloway.
For something completely different, look no further than At the Drop of a Hat by Priscilla Anderson of Friendswood, Texas. The fairy tale, directed by Pamela Pankratz, features a milliner who seeks out a wizard for help finding true love. Unfortunately, Holloway notes, he’s only “an okay wizard.”
“It works,” Holloway assures, “even if it’s not as she planned.”
Because the main character is a milliner, Holloway says there’s an added element that audiences should look out for: the hats.
“They have the best costumes and the best hats,” says Holloway. “Every time she comes in the door and something new has happened in her life, her hat always displays what that is.”
One play that’s less likely to get a HEA is Bloody Footprints by Londoner Michael Yale, the only non-Texan in the bunch. Directed by Shawn Havranek, the play is about a man who’s lost his memory after a head injury. As his wife tries to help him recall some of their pleasant memories, the arrival of their daughter throws everything into question.
“We discover that maybe some of the memories aren’t quite accurate,” says Holloway. “There’s more to it than meets the eye.”
The final play, directed by Ashley N. Peters, is Stephen R. Stewart’s Just for The Horror of It. Holloway says the Sugar Land, Texas-based writer’s play “is a pure comedy,” where a wife interviews a prostitute for the position of affair partner for her husband.
“She just figures that he’s not getting enough attention, and he needs some,” explains Holloway. “But everything again, surprisingly enough, doesn’t go quite that way as he has other interests.”
Though Holloway admits that after producing 27 festivals, she finds herself “getting tired,” the fresh talent, people and plays keep her interested. Not only that, she says, “we’re on a roll.”
Performances of The Festival of Originals are scheduled for July 26 through August 12 at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 3 p.m. Sunday, August 4, at Theatre Southwest, 8944-A Clarkcrest. For more information, visit tswhouston.com. $20-$22.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
