What’s Playing at the Theater? That’s Your Call
Just off production of a well-received presentation of The Laramie Project and The Laramie Project Ten Years Later: An Epilogue, by the White Plains Performing Arts Center (WPPAC) Conservatory Theatre, WPPAC has decided to bring a similar experience encouraging audience discussion to its Main Stage line-up next season.
There is one open slot and theater-goers are asked to visit WPPAC’s Facebook page to vote from a selection of six plays. Each play delves into an element of American society portraying some of the more difficult truths of life.
In an interview, Matthew Nicholson, WPPAC’s Education Coordinator and Assistant to the Artistic Director said: “We deliberately selected plays dealing with weighty issues to encourage audience participation and ownership. We were very impressed by the discussions that came from the student audiences during The Laramie Project performances.”
The Laramie Project deals with bullying and hate crimes. Written by Moises Kaufman and the Tectonic Theater Project, the play is based on live interviews with residents of Laramie, Wyoming, following the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard, an openly gay college student.
“In a turnabout from the regular theater experience where you are asked to turn off your cell phones, for certain performances we are creating a Tweet Section, usually in the back rows, and we are encouraging the audience to tweet live during the show. Using [Twitter], the audience can interact within itself and actors in the cast to get a backstage perspective,” Nicholson explained.
The six plays on the ballot, from which only one will be selected, include The 39 Steps, a theatrical comedy based on Hitchcock’s horror film of the same name; God of Carnage, a play about two sets of parents who meet to discuss the attack on the playground of one of their children on the other; Master Class, a play portraying the life of opera diva Maria Callas through her own recollections; Red, a biographical drama about the abstract expressionist painter Mark Rothko; Steel Magnolias, a comedy drama about the bond between a group of women who meet regularly at a local beauty shop; and Wit, a one-act play about a terminally ill and dying English professor. To cast your vote visit facebook.com/WPPAC. Then stay tuned to find out which play wins and participate in a new interactive theater experience.
