Maine Playwrights Festival Schedule Announced

Acorn Productions, a non-profit organization dedicated to nurturing and developing the Southern Maine community of performing artists, announces the performance schedule for this year's twelfth annual Maine Playwrights Festival (MPF).

The authors whose works are featured in this year's event include a number of newcomers to the MPF as well as a number of returning playwrights, many of whom have had scripts included in multiple editions of the state's largest incubator for new plays by local playwrights. There are four different types of performances during the MPF, which takes place at the St. Lawrence Arts Center from April 25 to May 5, 2013. Theater-goers can choose between two different schedules of short plays, an evening of multiple interpretations of two-minute plays and monologues, a staged reading of a full-length play, and the fourth annual 24-Hour Portland Theater Project. Descriptions of all of this year's MPF plays appear below. Tickets are $15 for adults and $12 for students and seniors, and may be purchased at www.acorn-productions.org or by calling 854-0065. Festival passes allowing entry to all four components of the festival are also available.

As always, the 2013 MPF features two evenings of short plays that vary in length from 10 to 40 minutes. The first evening, entitled "Beating the Odds," features plays in which characters strive to forge relationships against obstacles that work against them. In the second evening "The Perils of Company," characters struggle with one another to achieve a measure of dominance in their relationship. "Take Two" is comprised of two different interpretations of 2-minute plays and monologues in which the creative team presents two different versions of each text by altering casting or acting choices. The finale of the festival is the 24-Hour Portland Theater Project, in which 6 playwright and directors work with two dozen actors to create original plays in just one day that all contain one shared line of dialogue, prop, and location. The MPF productions showcase the work of over 50 local theater professionals, attesting to the depth and breadth of Southern Maine's theatrical community.