Wendy R. Williams's Theatre Column

Greetings Theater Lovers,

If you are in New York City during the late summer / early fall you are bombarded with Festival Madness. Plays are being produced everywhere, from off-Broadway to the counter top at your local dry cleaners.

From July 17 – August 6th, the Fifth Midtown International (is that an oxymoron?) Theater Festival took over 36th Street, showcasing forty plus plays and readings - www.midtownfestival.org. And no sooner was Midtown “dark” then the mammoth International Fringe Festival (August 11th – August 27th) with its over two hundred productions inhabited every conceivable space (and some inconceivable and un-air-conditioned) in lower Manhattan – www.fringe.org. And just to show how ubiquitous and “beyond the fringe” the International Fringe Festival has actually become, it is now being satirized by the International Cringe Festival (a really fun name) with plays such as The Best Little Crackhouse in Philly, starring Richard Pryor Junior. And this fall New York will again be treated to the New York Musical Theater Festival (September 10th through October 1st) premiering over thirty new musicals - www.nymf.org.

So what is the point of sweltering through all this festival madness? Well, it’s the chance to perhaps witness the birth of genius, to wade through the chaff and find another Urinetown (Fringe Festival 1999) or another Never Swim Alone (Fringe Festival 1999) or NYMF’s breakout successes: Altar Boyz (still playing at New World Stages) and The Great American Trailer Park Musical. Because all plays must be produced before the author, director or producer knows what they actually “have.” Just as many a home owner has designed their first home only to realize that you cannot sit on the toilet and simultaneously close the bathroom door, playwrights never know what they have created until they can see and hear it. And by attending these baby productions we actually become part of the creation process; because no play is actually a “play” until there is an audience. So Bravo to all of you who brave the over-heated streets of Manhattan, soldiering on with the goal of creating the next great American play!

Rock on!

Wendy