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Clackamas County might not be the first place local theater patrons think of to see compelling, independently sourced original theater, but the Chapel Theatre Company Play Festival hopes to change that perception.
Twenty-five actors and 10 directors will descend on Milwaukie for CTCPF’s fourth iteration, and the third fully in person (the festival took a hiatus in 2022 to retool amid pandemic-era uncertainty from a hybrid digital festival to a fully in-person experience). Running through late January to Feb. 1 in two blocks at the namesake Chapel Theatre, CTCPF offers regional playwrights a chance to have 10 minute works of theirs staged for theater-going audiences outside Portland. Theatre director and dance instructor Corinn deTorres tells WW that diversity is key to the festival’s success.
“Oftentimes, plays will reflect on the current state of the world, so as the world changes, the stories do as well,” deTorres says.
The plays are all very different, but are chosen based on a rubric that judges whether they incorporate Chapel Theatre’s mission of respecting diversity and inclusion—if they tell relevant, socially conscious stories, how strong the writer’s voice is in the writing, whether the play is broadly considered “enjoyable,” among other factors. While a given script’s staging feasibility is an important consideration, Chapel embraces the creative challenge of the various settings, characters and stories. Once selected, the 10 plays are matched with actors and directors chosen via auditions.
The teams are a mix of both seasoned and emerging directors, actors and playwrights. They’re given a short preparative calendar once chosen: two weeks’ cast rehearsal and a week for technical rehearsals and runthroughs. This brief turnaround is by design.
“The short time frame still creates this rush and excitement amongst the teams to get their plays ready for an audience,” deTorres explains.
CTCPF is broken into two blocks on alternating days. Group A plays will be performed Jan. 22, 24 and 30 and Feb. 1. William Thomas Berk’s Just Another Day follows a time loop love story. Two kids conjure a supernatural, ageless and comedic deity during a slumber party in Pat Moran’s Bloody Larry. Susmita Pendurthi adapted Edwin Abbott Abbott’s 19th century novella Flatland into A Murder in Flatland, which is set in a two-dimensional world. Marla Norton’s End of Life Sex is about a man who answers a dying woman’s personal ad. An orca and a marine biologist converse in Marie MacMillan’s Short on Provisions.
Berk says he has been involved in every iteration of CTCPF, as both a playwright and director. Just Another Day (directed by Matthew Sunderland, a fellow playwright who wrote a Group B play) sees a couple stuck in a Groundhog Day-style time loop of repeating days, shown from the perspective of essentially anyone but Bill Murray. Berk says he comes back to each iteration of the festival because of what it means for local patrons and the Clackamas County theater community. As a resident of Milwaukie, he appreciates what the deTorreses are doing for the area.
“There is very little happening in the way of live theater in Milwaukie, but what little there is is astounding,” he says. “I am continually awestruck by what Ilya [deTorres, Chapel Theatre’s technical director] did to make that chapel into a functional theater. Ilya and Corinn have built a venue that is by artists, for artists…I have never had landlords or venue operators that were easier or more fun to work with.”
Group B plays, which show Jan. 23, 25, 29 and 31, also possess a similar range of genres and cultural influences. A married couple tells all in Sutherland’s Honey, I’m Home. Emily Smith’s Death and Decadence: The Brooding Bunch includes a “Gothic dance spaghetti ritual” and an Arctic trip. Becky Mayo tackles entertainment industry sexism with Full Frontal Nudity. A grown-up visits a child psychologist, sans child, in Bill Lynch’s Imagine That. Brody Gogatz imagines what might have happened if Shakespeare wrote a superhero story, with The Dark Knight Cometh.
“There’s so much new brilliant art coming out all the time,” Berk says. “Truly, the sky is the limit, as long as it’s a story that can be told in 10 minutes.”
Editor’s note: Laura Wheatman Hill was a volunteer member of the Chapel Theatre Company Play Festival’s selection board.
SEE IT: Chapel Theatre Company Play Festival at Chapel Theatre, 4107 SE Harrison St., Milwaukie, 971-350-9675, chapeltheatremilwaukie.com. 7:30 pm Thursday–Saturday, Jan. 22–24 and 29–31. 2 pm Saturday, Jan. 24, and Sunday, Feb 1. $23.31 general admission, $7.37 Arts for All patrons.
