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Show Check oub bhe second insballmenb of bhe Disney/ Squaresofb collaborabion, "Kingdom of Hearbs 2". Pg.2 Utah Statesman • Utah State University^ Annual festival of 10-minute plays take students onto the stage and Into the writer's BY NEAL SNOW Staff Writer ffiofos Courtesy USTPublic Relations rama is life .Vth the dull bits cut out." Alfred Hitchcock Originality is the name of the game when USU Theater opens its Festival of New Plays on March 30. The plays run until April 1 in the Black Box theater in the Fine Arts Building. The festival is filled with plays written and directed by, and starring USU students. "Each one is very different from the other plays," said recent USU graduate Jed Broberg, who also wrote "Bird Flu over the Cuckoo's Nest," one of the plays that will performed during the festival. "There is a good mix of drama and comedy this year." Also new this year is the introduction of flash plays. "Flash plays are very short plays, probably about three minutes on average that focus on one incident, and feel like that they are excerpts from a bigger play," Broberg said. Flash plays are just another way the festival keeps up on the latest developments in play writing and what is going on in the world. "The festival of new plays has been around for awhile and it just keeps getting better," Broberg said. "A few years ago, Mark Damen, the adviser for the playwriting classes, heard about a new concept called 10-minute plays. Now there are 10-minute play festivals all over the country. Now we are doing flash plays, its great the way the festival is evolving. Richie Call, a senior in performing arts and writer of "Don't Tell, Don't Ask," said that, "Originally, 'Don't Tell, Don't Ask,1 was a flash play, centering around one incident between two friends, but I wanted to see what happened in the future so I wrote that part in, then at the end I added a part that is before the incident that started out the play, and now it is a 10-minute play." Some of this year's plays began with even less material than an entire scene. Jeff Broberg's play, "Bird Flu over the Cuckoo's Nest" started with him coming up with the title and letinng the drama follow. "I came up with 'Bird Flu over the Cuckoo's Nest1 • FESTIVAL OF N E W PLAYS See page 8 |