Duke Players is taking a chance on Friday, getting out of the theater and into the Devil's Krafthouse. Playhouse Shorts, their night of new student work curated by Valerie Muensterman, will be taking the stage from 7:00 to 8:30p on December 1 (right before karaoke.) Following the success of the new works event last spring, which took place on the small stage at The Landing in the Bryan Center, Muensterman has gathered a new collection of short, ten-minute plays by Duke students. Several of the short plays were initially generated as assignments for Professor Neal Bell's dramatic writing class. With only a week of intense rehearsal, actors working with student directors will bring the scripts to life for their premiere presentations before an audience tomorrow night. The actors will work script-in-hand, as often seen in professional workshop or staged reading productions of new work. This technique allows actors to focus on their characterization and relieves the pressure of being off-script, even when most of the dialogue is memorized.
"The whole idea is for the performers and the audience to relax and have fun, bring a party vibe to the process," according to Dierdre Shipman, director of theater for the department. "Performing is serious work and it's never easy to put yourself out there. We definitely want to encourage new student work and were thrilled that Valerie conceived Playhouse Shorts as low time committment, low stress way for folks to do that." Theater Studies is providing free snacks, including the ever-popular Krafthouse guacamole, and tables will be held near the stage for audience. Take a chance and join us!
Theater Studies