TINY SHORTS was the official launch of the Eagle & Beaver Ensemble at the wonderful award winning theatre, The Union Theatre in Southwark, London.
We wanted to provide a platform for new writing and talent from North America (that's United States and Canada in case you were asking) - from playwrights to actors and everyone in between.
All the fantastic plays below were commissioned under the theme of "independence" or "freedom" to coincide with our night on July 1st which will be Canada Day (July 1st) and the weekend the United States would celebrate Independence Day (July 4th).
More than 100 plays were submitted and 8 made the cut.
Read all about the playwrights below. Check out the programme here
When Nancy throws logic to the wind and gathers her friends to create an unlikely national holiday, relationships are tested and unexpected discoveries abound.
FINDING AMELIA
by Amanda Petefish-Schrag
Amanda Petefish-Schrag is an Assistant Professor of Theatre at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa, where she teaches courses in performance and theatre history. Her professional credits include work as a puppeteer, playwright, director, actor, and mom to Celia and Eli. Her playwriting has been produced at theaters and festivals in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Kansas City, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, and Iowa City, and has been published by Playscripts,Inc. Amanda is a member of the Dramatists Guild.
DIRTY LAUNDRY
by Sarah Pitard
The artistic director of Chicago Rep Theatre has been accused of sexual harassment. His wife wants to believe he is innocent, but has her doubts. Ultimately, whose side will she take?
Sarah holds an MA in Writing for Stage and Broadcast Media from The Central School of Speech and Drama (CSSD) in London.
In 2017, Sarah’s play Full Tilt was Top 100 for the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting, and in 2016, the same play was one of five finalists for the Papatango New Writing Prize, as well as one of 11 finalists for the Bread & Roses Playwriting Award.
In 2015, Sarah’s one-act play Bird had a three-month run in New York as part of Theatre Three’s 18th Annual Festival of One-Act Plays. In 2014, she was the winner of The Arena Stage’s ‘Our War’ Monologue Competition, which was presented as part of the National Civil War Project in Washington D.C. for her monologue Mary/Marcus. Her radio play Plus One was the winner of the The Actors’ Guild UK’s Write Bites competition in 2013, and was later recorded by Wireless Theatre Company.
Her plays The Inappropriateness of Love and Freedom, Books, Flowers, and the Moon were performed in London in 2012 with Paradigm Theatre Company. She has also worked with and had short plays produced with The Pensive Federation, Origins Theatre, and Metamorph in the UK, and the Claremorris Theatre Festival in Ireland.
Sarah is represented by WGM Literary for her screenwriting.
OUR SPECIES IS SCREWED
by Evan Baughfman
Left off Noah’s Ark, two unicorns argue over their plight...and Scrabble.
Evan Baughfman is a middle school teacher and award-winning screenwriter whose stage plays have been produced across the U.S. His children's play, “R.O.M.3.O. and Julia” (Romeo and Juliet with robots) has been published in PLAYS Magazine. His play for young adults, “Lipstick and Heroics,” is available through YouthPLAYS. In addition, his middle grade play, "Percy Pangolin Wants to Go Viral," is published by Heuer Publishing. Heuer also published Evan's play, "A Taste of Amontillado"(an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado"). More about Evan’s writing can be found at www.evanbaughfman.com
BENCHED
by Len Cuthbert
A young lady runs to the rescue of an old boyfriend and remembers why he was benched the first time.
Len Cuthbert is the creator and director of a theatre company in Ontario, Canada. His plays have been seen by audiences in Canada, US and the UK. His short play, Short of 20 is part of a reading series in NYC this month. Len and his son developed it into a full length musical (Short of 30) and toured it locally in June 2018. You can read more about Len Cuthbert at www.LenCuthbert.com.
A couple's camping trip is interrupted by a succession of time travelers from the future with a personal interest in their actions.
INTERVENTIONS
by Greg Lam
Greg Lam is a playwright, screenwriter, and board game designer who lives in the Greater Boston area. He is the creator of the "Boston Podcast Players" podcast (bostonpodcastplayers.com) which presents excerpted readings of new full length plays by and interviews with Boston playwrights. His full-length play REPOSSESSED will receive its world premiere at Theatre Conspiracy in Fort Myers, FL in August 2018 after readings in Boston, Seattle, and Connecticut. Greg was a member of the 2016 Company One PlayLab for the development of Boston area playwrights. His works have been produced by Company One, Fresh Ink Theatre, Pork Filled Productions, The Depot, The Boston Theatre Marathon, The Pulp Stage, Ixion Theatre, The Best of All Possible Podcast, Aching Dogs Theatre Company, Malarkey Films, Argali Films, Suffolk University Theatre, Shadow Boxing Theatre, and others.
THE RED LIGHT
by David Williams
In a country under constant surveillance, Eva and Charly have entered into an illegal relationship, and today they must decide whether to escape as planned or give up their dreams forever.
David L. Williams is a graduate of the theatre department of Cornell University, where he was a four time award recipient in the Heerman’s-McCalmon Playwriting contest, and recently received his MFA in playwriting from the University of Nebraska. He has written more than twenty-five plays and musicals, and his work has been produced across the United States and internationally in Italy, Canada, Denmark, Norway, and Lithuania. His most recent productions include the world premiere of his full-length play The Starving at Barter Theatre. He lives in Bellefonte, PA with his wonderful wife Kathleen and his amazing son Samuel. www.playwrightdavid.com
GRAND CANYON
by Scott Stolnack
Sam arrives at the Grand Canyon, after driving 25 hours nonstop from Chicago, to scatter his mother's ashes.
Scott Stolnack grew up in a working-class neighborhood on Chicago's South Side. He has published fiction and non-fiction in various venues in the U.S., and his first full-length play, One Thing, was a 2018 semi-finalist for the Eugene O'Neill Center's National Playwrights Conference. He lives in Seattle.
AND THEN THERE WERE NONE
by Yilong Liu
An odd couple finds their friends getting murdered one by one.
Yilong Liu is a New York-based playwright. His work has been produced or developed at Stella Adler Studio of Acting, East West Players, Queens Theatre, FringeNYC, Kumu Kahua Theatre, New Ohio Theatre, CAATA, Living Room Theatre, MOJOAA Performing Arts, and others. Awards include Kennedy Center's Paul Stephen Lim Playwriting Award (The Book of Mountains and Seas), Paula Vogel Playwriting Award (June is The First Fall, 2nd Place), Po’okela Award for Best New Play (Joker), and an Asian Pacific American Friends of the Theatre Playwright Scholarship. He has been a semi-finalist for Bay Area Playwrights Festival and O'Neill Playwrights Conference, a finalist for The New Harmony Project, NYTW 2050 Fellowship, and Lark’s Van Lier New Voices Playwriting Fellowship. Currently, he is a Resident Playwright at The Flea Theatre and a Greenhouse Resident at SPACE on Ryder Farm. Yilong received a BA in Chinese Language and Literature from Beijing Normal University and an MFA in Playwriting from University of Hawai‘i. (www.YilongLiu.com)