Mendenhall Center Theater 14

What: Festival of One-Act Plays When: April 16-18, 22-25, 2009 at 8
p.m., and Sunday, April 19 at 2 p.m. Where: Theatre 14, Mendenhall
Center, Green St., Smith College, Northampton, Mass. Tickets: The four
plays will be shown in groups of two on alternating days; a total of 4
performances of each play. Special Ticket Packages Available: $8 general
public for one show ($10 for two performances), $5 students/seniors for
one ($7 for two performances) Call the box office to Reserve your
tickets: 413.585.ARTS Web site: www.smith.edu/smitharts

For Immediate Release: April 2009
Publicity Manager: Joan P. Maxson, Tel. 413.585.3222,
jmaxson@email.smith.edu
Ticket Information: tel. 413.585.ARTS (2787) or visit
www.smith.edu/smitharts

Festival of One-Act Plays at Smith will Feature Works by Nationally and
Internationally Acclaimed Authors and a Winner of the 2008 Young
Playwrights Inc. National Playwriting Competition

Northampton: This spring’s Festival of One-Act Plays at Smith College
showcases the directing talents of the most promising students in
Smith’s theatre program. The four plays chosen were written by
prize-winning playwrights from around the world, including one by Smith
College sophomore Lisa Meyers, which was a 2008 winner of the Young
Playwrights Inc. National Playwriting Competition founded by Stephen
Sondheim. Ms. Meyers’ play was produced in New York City this past
January.

The four plays will be shown in groups of two on alternating days, for
a total of 4 performances of each play. One performance (of two plays)
will run approximately an hour and a half. To give audiences the chance
to see all four plays special ticket pricing is available: $8 general
public for one performance, $10 for two; $5 students/seniors for one
performance, $7 for two. There will also be two dollar nights for
students: April 22 and 23. All performances will be in Theatre 14,
Mendenhall Center on Green St. in Northampton.

Respect for the Electric Field of Horses by Lisa Meyers ‘11 is
directed by Jane Jones ‘09. Ms Meyers describes her play as “a
quirky take on modern dating rituals, but if you scratch just below the
surface you’ll discover that it is also an intelligent exploration of
the intricacies of attraction, expectation, and love.” Her new play
was a 2008 winner of the Young Playwrights Inc. National Playwriting
Competition and she was also a two-time winner of The Blank Theatre
Young Playwrights Festival in Hollywood, CA, for Noël, and again for
Respect for the Electric Field of Horses. Ms.Meyers was a creative
writing graduate of the Orange County High School of the Arts in
California and is currently a theatre major at Smith

Jane Jones is a theatre major at Smith and she is minoring in African
Studies. While in high school in Culpeper, Virginia, Jane worked with
Live Arts, a theatre in Charlottesville VA, as an actor, producer, stage
manager, and camp counselor for their Summer Theatre Institute. She also
worked as a technician at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe for the past
five years.

The Gimmick is a memoir play by Obie award winner and Pulitzer Prize
nominee
Dael Orlandersmith, directed by Monique Robinson ’09. Set against the
backdrop of 1970’s Harlem, a “gimmick” is anything that helps one
survive. As a young girl growing up there, Alexis finds refuge from the
harsh reality of the streets in her love for language and words and in
her childhood friend Jimmy. Her dream of becoming a famous writer like
her idol James Baldwin is also nourished by Ms. Innis, the librarian she
befriends. Robinson says, “Orlandersmith notes that her plays are
influenced by jazz, rock and roll, and the blues, and, when I first
heard this script read out loud I got the chills. The language is so
electrifyingly rhythmic and expressive. Poetry on and off the page.”

Monique Robinson is a senior double majoring in Theatre and Government
at Smith College. During the fall of her junior year, Robinson enrolled
at Queen Mary University of London, where she studied Drama and
Politics. In the summer of 2008, Robinson will intern with the New
Perspective Theatre Company, in New York City (a theatre company
dedicated to promoting artistic works written and performed by women and
people of color to underrepresented audiences). She has had several
leading roles in Smith theatre productions.

Coser Y Cantar by Cuban-American playwright, journalist, and poet
Dolores Prida, directed by Sophie Ragone’09 is a bilingual play about
a Cuban-American woman living in New York City coping with the pressure
and desire to adapt and blend into her new world while remaining
nostalgic for a past that cannot be revisited. The cultural clash is
played out by “Ella,” a Latina immigrant and “She,” her
Americanized self, two halves of the same person. Ms. Prida, who is
recognized as one of the most important playwrights of contemporary
Latino theatre in the United States, says, “It’s about the
experience of being Hispanic in the United States, about people trying
to reconcile two cultures and two languages and two visions of the world
into a particular whole...” Ragone says, “the dialogue between the
two characters is equally in Spanish and English and Prida adeptly
injects humor into conflicts over what music to play or what magazines
to read… Ella longs for some flan, while She reaches for the granola…but
they come together over their mutual desire for change.”

Sophie Ragone is a Theatre / Spanish double major who spent her junior
year studying both subjects abroad in Puebla, Mexico. During the summer
of 2007 she collaborated with Professor Ellen Kaplan to translate a
series of plays from Spain and Argentina. While in Mexico, she acted as
the bruja in a Mexican children’s theater production of a Russian
folktale. Ms. Ragone has also appeared in and worked on many Smith
Theatre productions.

The Open Couple by Nobel Prize winning Italian playwright Dario Fo and
his wife Franca Rame, translated by Stuart Hood and Joe Farrell,
directed by Sydney Rainville-Thomson ’09 is a farcical comedy about a
philandering husband who encourages his wife to be unfaithful to him.
The Italian couple is well-known for their controversial political
theatre, dealing with issues of institutional corruption and social
justice for women and the working class, through farce, improvisational
theatre, and close connection with the audience. The Open Couple focuses
on a cultural phenomenon of the 1970s to investigate issues of sexism
and gender roles in marriage, as it tells the story of a couple who
decide to try an open marriage after the suicidal wife gets fed up with
her husband’s cheating. Rainville-Thomson says, “The play’s
farcical humor and 1970s setting aim to entertain the audience, while
raising timeless questions of persistent societal inequality and the
roles of men and women in relationship.”

Sydney Rainville-Thomson is an Architecture/Theatre double major at
Smith College. She spent her junior year studying architectural history
at the Sorbonne in Paris, France. While abroad she also attended French
atelier courses in sculpture and improvisation. During the summer of
2008, Ms. Rainville-Thomson worked for the Saint Augustine Amphitheatre
in Florida as a Publicity assistant. She has appeared in various Smith
College Theatre programs with credits ranging from Assistant Stage
Manger to Props Charge to Actress.

Respect for the Electric Field of Horses and The Gimmick will be shown
on April 16, 18, 22, 24 at 8 p.m. Coser Y Cantar and The Open Couple
will be shown on April 17, 23, 25 at 8 p.m. and on April 19 at 2 p.m.

Joan P. Maxson
Publicity Manager/Performing Arts
Smith College
(413) 585-3222
jmaxson@email.smith.edu