The 2nd Annual Off Broad Street Short Play Festival Opens This Weekend

Gather by the Ghost Light will present their Annual Off Broad Street Short Play Festival this month at Le Chat Noir in Augusta, GA. Widely known for their immersive audio play adaptations on their podcast, Gather by the Ghost Light has also been producing stage plays in recent years with this being their 2nd year putting on the short play festival.

The line-up this year consists of eight 10-12 minute plays from a variety of genres, providing an assortment of unique stories throughout the night.

THE RIPPLE EFFECT by Arianna Rose gives us a comedic look at a couple experimenting with unorthodox fertilization techniques.

GROWN-UP STUFF by D.L. Siegel provides a moving story about parents who struggle with the fact that their young biracial daughter came home from school with a swastika drawn on her backpack only to discover that the child drew it herself.

HATE YOU TOO, IRENE by Bret Carson is a play with laughs and heart tugging moments about an old woman who has been holding a longtime grudge against her former paper boy for killing her dog, but discovers that things may be a little different than she remembers.

SCRIPTED by Mark Harvey Levine is a hard hitting comedy with a couple that wakes up to find a script sitting on their night stand - the script for the play they are currently in.

THE ISABEL SANCHEZ MEMORIAL ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PROUDLY PRESENTS ITS (FIRST) ANNUAL TALENT SHOW! by Katelin Wilcox gives a look at an recently gentrified elementary school. When a white mom introduces the idea of an annual talent show at the school, biases and resentment bubble to the surface when "doing something nice" starts to sound an awful lot like "taking over."

LIVING DOLL by David Golden provides a fun little spooky tale about a famous doll named Cookie that's part of a horror movie franchise. Pitching the latest installment of the series, the screenwriter finds he has a lot more to deal with than an enthusiastic studio exec.

SCHRÖDINGER'S GUN by Greg A. Smith is about a rookie white police officer undergoing a training exercise where he's told by a fellow black officer that IF there's a gun in his briefcase, he will shoot him while also telling him that there is no gun in the briefcase. As he slowly opens the case, the trainee is caught in a tense dilemma between trusting his fellow officer's word, and protecting his own life.

OH NO! I FLEW TO CLOSE TO THE SUN! by Rand Higbee is set in Rome 120 A.D. and lands the humor with every line. A prisoner is quite excited when he learns that he has been cast in the role of Icarus in a performance at the Colosseum. However, his enthusiasm quickly wanes when stage workers Sabina and Brutus gradually fill him in as to what exactly the role requires.

The show opens April 18th and runs through the 26th.