Interview: Steve Stolee of the 9th TEN-MINUTE PLAY FESTIVAL at Island Theatre

After a two-year COVID hiatus, Island Theatre's 9th Ten-Minute Play Festival is back for four performances! BWW was fortunate to speak to Steve Stoole, managing director of the Festival and the director of one of the plays, to find out more about the Ten-Minute Play Festival and what audiences can expect.

Can you tell us a little bit about the Ten-Minute Play Festival?
Island Theatre Bainbridge started in 1994, as an alternative community theatre to create more opportunities for adult thespians, and has evolved to provide three main program
components: Island Theatre at the Library, a bi-monthly series of staged readings; Island Theatre at Your House (YoHo), alternate monthly open play readings with potluck dinner hosted in private homes; and in 2012 we added the Ten Minute Play Festival to engage local playwrights in creating original works for our audience in an annual festival of fully staged performances. It was an experiment at the time, but when we put out the call for
submissions and received over 50 entries, we know that we had a good idea. We have produced a festival every year since then, except for 2020 and 2021 during the pandemic shut down. The Festival is back onstage this summer now in its ninth iteration. The enterprise is all volunteer and partly supported by grants from the City of Bainbridge Island Cultural Fund and One Call For All. Ten plays are selected by a panel of
theatre professional judges and all ten are presented at each of the four shows (Thurs-Saturday, 7:30; Sat. Matinee 3:00). Each play has its own director and there are 26 local actors cast to play the roles in ten plays that range from science fiction to bawdy comedy; from political satire to poignant relationship drama.

What play are you directing? What can we expect from the
play?

I will be directing "Nacirema's Revenge" by Henry Bacon, who grew up on Bainbridge and got his interest in theatre while in Bainbridge High School, and now has a career in Hollywood. The play is a farcical satire on the cultural divide that currently bedevils our country. It is designed for laughs, as we grapple with the absurdity that has become our daily news. Expect the unexpected!

What is your favorite part about the ten-minute play festival?
My favorite part would be the showcasing of the immense talent and creativity that we enjoy in our Kitsap County and seeing the execution of ideas from the page all the way to the stage in the great swirling energy that makes these things happen.

What is something you hope audiences take away from this
experience?
I hope audiences will experience surprise and delight in the depth and variety of artistic expression that their friends and neighbors are capable of, and that a certain some of them will be inspired to their own creations, theatrical or otherwise.

Don't miss your chance to see Island Theatre's Ten-Minute Play Festival! Admission is FREE! Performances are August 18-20 at Bainbridge Pavilion Cinema #3. Performances are at 7:30 pm on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday with an additional 3 pm performance on Saturday. For more information and to reserve seats, please visit the theatre's website.

PHOTO CREDIT: Steve Stolee