INTERVIEW: This summer, keep it brief with ‘Summer Shorts’ at 59E59
Photo: From left, James P. Rees and Christopher Dylan White star in The Bridge Play, part of Summer Shorts Series A at 59E59 Theaters. Photo courtesy of Carol Rosegg / Provided by Karen Greco PR with permission.
Summer Shorts is the annual festival of short plays at 59E59 Theaters in Midtown Manhattan. These tasty morsels offer brief, but effective portraits of drama, comedy and the mixture of both genres.
This year’s edition of the festival is focused on diversity, with three female playwrights and three male playwrights represented (ditto for the directors). There’s also a common theme for many of the works: How does a person connect to another person?
Summer Shorts, split into two series, runs in repertory through Aug. 25 at 59E59’s Theater B. Sarah Cronk is associate producer for the festival and is also directing The Bridge Play by Danielle Trzcinski, which is featured in Series A. In her producing responsibilities, she is helped by J.J. Kandel, producing artistic director; Stephen Willems, 2019 artistic associate; and Alex Ghaffari, 2019 artistic consultant.
“I’m really excited about the programming this year,” Cronk said in a recent phone interview. “We went through a lot of different materials, and I am happy and proud to report that we have full gender parity. We have three female playwrights, three male playwrights, same for directors. We have a lot of diversity in the mix, and I think the theme for this season I would say is about connection or people trying to connect. And we have contemporary pieces … in each series we have a period piece.”
Cronk and the team at Throughline Artists have an open-submission process, which means they receive a lot of materials. One of their stipulations is that the play has never been produced before, so these are all world premieres.
“I read through everything,” she said. “Stephen has read through everything, and we start the selection process from there. And we whittle it down to a smaller list of plays for consideration. In addition, we also take plays that agents submit, writers submit, also colleagues of the festival. We’re utilizing a lot of different avenues to pull good plays from playwrights we know are good, people we want to work with. Also, what we’ve done in past years and in this year as well, we’ll take someone who has worked a lot in the film industry or someone who is a TV writer. So, for instance, we have Sharr White. He wrote a play this year called Lucky. It’s in Series B, and he was showrunner for The Affair. He’s working on a new Netflix show, and so he wrote a beautiful piece this year.”
Other playwrights this year are Neil Labute, Nancy Bleemer, Nick Payne, Courtney Baron and Trzcinski.
“Danielle Trzcinski has done a lot of musical theater,” Cronk said of the writer. “She’s an up-and-coming playwright. … I read her play, and I immediately connected to it. I thought it was so funny. It’s very funny, and also it has a beautiful turn and reveal in it. It’s also very grounded and real. It’s not a fluff comedy.”
The Bridge Play, starring James P. Rees and Christopher Dylan White, has a simple, but powerful setup about two men meeting on the George Washington Bridge during a difficult time.
“I was really happy to get it into the programming,” Cronk said. “So this is my fourth season with Summer Shorts. [The first] two seasons I spent as an assistant director. Last season was my first season on the production team as assistant producer. Now I’m associate producer for the festival, so I had brought up to J.J., I was like, ‘I would love to direct a piece.’ I’ve directed smaller projects for film before. I’ve produced for film before, but this is my off-Broadway directorial debut of really being at the helm of a piece. And so I’m so grateful to J.J. that he gave me this opportunity because as soon as I read this piece, I was really, really excited about it.”
Once a play and playwright have been accepted into the festival, the staff members at Throughline help with the production elements. They have a design team that has been working on the festival for several years, and they craft scenery, sound, lighting and costumes.
“We have the designers work with the playwrights and the directors very early on in the process because the process is very short, so then by the time we get to tech, everyone knows what they need to do,” she said. “You get one day, one dress rehearsal, and then we’re up and running essentially.”
Cronk said she has grown to love the short play format, and Summer Shorts seems especially relevant given the changing dynamics of theater audiences. Here’s a festival that celebrates brevity and still delivers an emotional wallop within a set timeframe.
“I think there’s a shift that’s happening in the way we digest content,” Cronk said. “There’s so much great television out there, and I think, to be honest, modern audiences have a hard time sitting through three hours of King Lear. I mean, I love Shakespeare. I’m a Shakespeare buff, but I think what’s really nice about the short art form is that you really give people this really nice emotional arc. And there’s something for everybody in the evening. We try to program a diverse palette, and so we try to have dramatic pieces, comedic pieces, pieces the blend the two — something that is a nice sampling for each audience member. They’ll have something in the evening that they’ll connect to, and I think we’ve done a really great job this season. I feel really confident about our season. We have a strong lineup. I’m really happy with all of the plays.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Summer Shorts, which features Series A and Series B, continues through Aug. 25 at 59E59 Theaters in Midtown Manhattan. Click here for more information and tickets.
