NEOMFA Playwrights Festival Opens 2/8 At convergence- continuum

convergence-continuum presents four world-premiere plays by local graduate-student playwrights at the 2018 NEOMFA Playwrights Festival. The Festival features two full-length plays by MFA candidates Katie Wallace, and Rob M.K. Daniels, and two ten-minute plays by grad students Jonathan Wlodarski and Adam Rounick. These plays are part of a three-year intensive program of study under playwright and Cleveland State University professor Mike Geither, and are co-produced by convergence-continuum and the Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts (NEOMFA) in Creative Writing consortium. This will be the seventh year convergence-continuum has mounted the Festival.

Feb 8, 9, 10, Thurs-Sat at 8 pm:

SEXLESS IN SEATTLE, a ten-minute play by Jonathan Wlodarski, is a lonely, lovelorn romp in a Seattle apartment. Directed by Clyde Simon.

MURDER AT THE PALACE THEATER by Robert M.K. Daniels, a comic, vaudeville murder mystery, is a satiric look at what people will go through for their art, and the cost of being famous. There are two sides to every coin; good and bad, light and dark, art and fame. And sometimes the price of fame can be murder. Directed by Beau Reinker.

Feb 15, 16, 17, Thurs-Sat at 8 pm:

RENDEZVOUS POINT, by Adam Rounick, is a ten-minute play about three professional criminals carrying out an elaborate heist. The only hitch is that two of them don't know the plan. Through playful back-and-forth banter and tangential diatribes, the clueless crooks race against the clock to salvage the scheme. Directed by Scott Zolkowski.

CONTRADICTIONARY LIES, by Katie Wallace, follows failed rocker Jimbo and his estranged wife Kelly as they sort through the remnants of their failed marriage. As nostalgia kicks up old emotions, Jimbo is visited by his guardian angel in the form of his idol, Kurt Cobain. Part dark comedy, part docudrama, this play channels It's a Wonderful Life for the grunge generation (minus the holidays) with amps up to eleven. Directed by David Munnell.

The 2018 NEOMFA Playwrights Festival opens Thursday, Feb. 8 and runs at 8 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays through Feb. 17 at the Liminis Theater, 2438 Scranton Rd., Cleveland, OH 44113 in the historic Tremont neighborhood.

Tickets are $10 general admission and $5 for students.

Tickets and information are available at convergence-continuum.org or 216-687-0074.

The Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing (NEOMFA) is a consortium of Cleveland State University, Kent State University, The University of Akron and Youngstown State University that allows students to take classes on four different campuses and earn a degree from a single unified writing program. Emerging writers may study in four genres - creative non-fiction, fiction, playwriting, and poetry - and take advantage of the resources offered on all four campuses. Since its inception in 2005, the NEOMFA has offered small-group workshops, open readings, summer travel fellowships, and high-profile visiting writers, in addition to career-preparing internships, competitive graduate funding, and a diverse Midwestern landscape that tempts the creative eye. The playwriting program is centered at Cleveland State University and includes providing MFA playwrights the opportunity to work with, and to have their works given full productions by, a professional theatre company during the NEOMFA Playwrights Festival.

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