PORT ANGELES — A lot can happen in 10 minutes.
And thanks to a new collaboration among players and playwrights this weekend, plenty will take place in a set of 10-minute stories on the Little Theater stage at Peninsula College.
The Find Your Voice New Writers’ Theatre Festival opens tonight with eight of these short pieces, penned by local playwrights and starring students, professors and seasoned performers.
Find Your Voice, explains production manager John Manno, is the next generation of the Festival of Student Directed One-Act Plays, known as FOSDOAP.
With a few tweaks and twists, FOSDOAP has evolved into a celebration of writers and performers from the community. The theme this year is “What is your sanctuary?” and the responses have come from writers across the North Olympic Peninsula.
Manno and Peninsula College drama professor Lara Starcevich began seeking manuscripts for the festival last winter. Now, they have assembled a wildly diverse lineup of topics and performers.
Curtain times are 7:30 tonight and Saturday night and 2 p.m. Sunday for these short plays:
■ “Hypothetically Speaking” by Deborah Wiese, starring Tim Macausland and Lola Hassan-Adams;
■ “Unspoken Water” by Amy McIntyre, starring Bethany Bond and Edwin Anderson III;
■ “Betterment” by Colby Thomas, starring Anneliese Russell and Emma Sackett;
■ “Too Jung for Freud” by George Freek, starring Macausland, Stephanie Gooch, Amy Meyer and Marissa Wilson;
■ “Poisoned Pens and Palates” by Judith Glass Collins, starring Edwin Anderson III, Anna Unger and Starcevich;
■ “The Paupak Cliffs” by Nikkole Adams, starring Danny Willis, Chandler Wendeborn and David Pemberton;
■ “And Justice For All” by Andrew McInnes, starring Macausland, Gooch, Wendeborn and Janet Lucas;
■ “Agatha” by Jeremiah Paulsen, starring Ean Henninger, Lucy Bert and Ron Graham.
After rehearsal earlier this week, the actors, along with directors including Manno, Wilson, Sean Peck-Collier, Adams, Paulsen and Wendeborn, paused to discuss the whole production.
And Starcevich, the Find Your Voice festival’s artistic director, brought the house down with her invitation.
“If you want to be mentally challenged,” she began, “then you need to come out” to one of these performances.
What she meant to say was: The plays are thought-provoking and varied. Or as Bert puts it, “this is a veritable chocolate box of talent.”
Paulsen’s play “Agatha” is about a recently deceased cat and her last act of companionship to her owner: She managed to write a play on his typewriter. He decides to share it with the world.
“I have been involved with this festival before, but this time I wanted to write something special, something different . . . something that I would feel truly proud of,” Paulsen said. “I believe that I have accomplished those things and look forward to sharing it.”
Then there’s “The Paupak Cliffs,” which explores how people take their lives for granted.
“We’re becoming sedentary and bored with the way things are,” said playwright Adams. “Really, we are consciously choosing to be bored and unfulfilled.”
Her play is “ about living life to the fullest, and how so many have forgotten how.”
“Betterment” looks inside the life of Thornbill, “who has, quite possibly, the worst job in the world,” according to writer Colby Thomas.
“He has a supremely controlling boss and no solid goals. He tries to take a stand,” which leads to a confrontation with the boss.
Thomas wrote “Betterment” at a time in his life when he related closely to Thornbill. He’s since gotten away from that position. Yet Thornbill’s struggle, Thomas hopes, is one that will resonate with audience members.
Tickets to the Find Your Voice festival are $8 for general admission and $5 for seniors and students of schools other than Peninsula College; Peninsula College students get in free. All performances will be in the Little Theater on the main campus, 1502 E. Lauridsen Blvd.
This festival is just the start of the college’s Spring Arts Week. To find out about other free, public activities slated during the week, visit www.PenCol.edu or see Peninsula College’s Facebook page.
