Nantucket Short Play Festival
stages winners
BY MARLI GUZZETTA
Nantucket Theatrical Productions' Short Play Festival offers island theatergoers the opportunity to stay connected to offoff Broadway (and off-island) theater talent. After soliciting submissions from around the country, NTP has chosen to perform the one-act plays of three very different playwrights. It's about as diverse a group of writers as you're apt to get.

Pam Murphy, left, and Greg Bourbeau get their polyamorous insemination on as Mrs. and Mr. Jones in the short play "The Baby Photographer," written by Nikos Vlachos. The one-act play is part of the Short Play Festival, hosted by Nantucket Theatrical Productions. Joining this comedy of errors on the winner's podium are Barbara Lindsay's "My Boyfriend's Wife" and Jim Gordon's "What if Van Gogh had Listened?"

In no particular order, the winning playwrights and plays are: Barbara Lindsay's "My Boyfriend's Wife," Jim Gordon's "What if Van Gogh Had Listened?" and Nikos Vlachos' "The Baby Photographer." Theatre Workshop of Nantucket is providing the stage for the festival, which begins this week.

"MY BOYFRIEND'S WIFE" BY BARBARA LINDSAY, DIRECTED BY GRACE NOYES

"It's a short play about a woman who goes to the cemetery to have a conversation with her rival, which is her boyfriend's late wife," synopsized playwright Barbara Lindsay. "She feels that the dead wife is still inside her relationship with her boyfriend, and she wants to have him to herself." Lindsay allows the wife to manifest in a literal sense, though she never explains if the wife manifests as a ghost or as a figment of the girlfriend's imagination.

Lindsay wrote it about three years ago, when she was dating a widower, so the play is somewhat autobiographical. "I was his first girlfriend after his wife died, and I think he just wasn't ready," remembered Lindsay, who, at 55, is recently married (not to the widower, though they're still friends) and "deliriously happy."

"It's a conversation between two people who have something in common," said Grace Noyes, who is directing the 12-minute piece for the festival. "The woman who comes to the cemetery discovers things about herself and about the woman who preceded her."

Other than that, Noyes didn't reveal much more about the plot, except that the deceased wife comes off as much older than her living peer, even though both are in their 40s.

"You need two good actresses, because there really isn't action. It's a conversation that gets emotional, and you have to have people who can put themselves in this situation and draw the audience in," said Noyes, who is directing two sets of casts for the production. For the festival's first run this weekend, Susan McGinnis will play the girlfriend, while Vicky Goss will play the wife. For the second weekend, Annie Breeding will play the girlfriend, while Pam Murphy will play the wife.

"My Boyfriend's Wife" saw its debut in 2005 at Theatre at First in Somerville, Mass.

Lindsay, who describes herself as a "fifth generation Californian living in Seattle," also won the NY Drama League's 1989 Playwrighting Competition with her first fulllength play, "Free," which premiered in London in 1991. She's seen her work produced more than 90 times, worldwide; her most recent, fulllength play, "I-2195," won the Women's Playwrighting Award at University of Missouri in St. Louis and was produced there in 2005.

"WHAT IF VAN GOGH HAD LISTENED?" BY JIM GORDON DIRECTED BY FRANK MORRAL

What if Van Gogh had to deal with the modern constraints put on talent - namely, the pressure to sell out? So goes the short play "What if Van Gogh Had Listened?" in which Van Gogh is met while painting in a field by a pushy marketing agent who has big plans.

"At the play's center is an absurdity: an unsuccessful painter (Van Gogh) being advised by a 'marketer' on how to paint so his paintings will sell. The clash is between 'art' and 'artistic vision,' on the one hand, and supposed 'mass appeal' and 'commercial cliche,' on the other. In that clash lies the comedy," said Frank Morral, who is directing Christy Kickham and Dwight Beman as Van Gogh and the marketing agent, respectively.

"It just seemed to pop into my head, as more of a sketch than a play. I thought it was an interesting concept," said the playwright, Jim Gordon - a retired insurance salesman who reincarnated himself as a writer in 2001. Art is a common theme in his work; his most recent full-length play, "Fake" (which was produced off Broadway in 2006), relates a fight between a conservative and a liberal who disagree over the meaning of a piece of artwork in a gallery, until the artist of the piece comes in and notices that the piece is hung upside down.

Gordon, who comes from a family of writers, described his version of Van Gogh as "a wild man." He said he drew on his experiences in corporate life to sketch the talent agent, who has already snagged Monet and his lily pads.

Gordon's first full-length play, "Murder 1, 2, 3" won the Colonial Theater's Most Promising Playwright's Award and was given a successful production at the Colonial Theater in Annapolis, Md. Since then, his plays have won or been finalists in over 25 national and international competitions. Some of his short plays appear in "Best Short Plays of 2005" and "Best Short Plays of 2006," published by Smith & Krause.

"THE BABY PHOTOGRAPHER" BY NICHOS VLACHOS DIRECTED BY GREG BOURBEAU

Chicago native and physician Nikos Vlachos set "The Baby Photographer" in a future in which all couples are expected, by law, to procreate. Couples who cannot have a child are given a surrogate to move the process along. Expecting their surrogate to arrive, Mr. and Mrs. Jones welcome a baby photographer, who has come to the door by mistake. Mrs. Jones believes him to be the surrogate, and the baby photographer believes that he is at the right house to take baby pictures. "Hilarity ensues … hopefully," said Greg Bourbeau, who is directing two casts for this show for the two weekends of the festival.

Vlachos - who studied theater in college before deciding to pursue a medical career - completed a fulllength play in August of 2002 entitled "The Bed," which was workshopped at Milliken University and then produced in 2006 at the Camino Real Playhouse in San Juan Capistrano, Cali.

Bourbeau plays Mr. Jones, the infertile husband, while Peter Arsenault plays the actual surrogate and Frank Morral fills the photographer's shoes. In the first weekend of the festival, Hadley St. John will play Mrs. Jones. Pam Murphy comes into the role for the festival's second weekend.

"It's hard to build any conflict at all in such a short period of time. The conflict, whether it's comedic or dramatic, doesn't have much time to build up," said Bourbeau, who is currently in the final editing stages of his own short film, "She and He." "It's a challenge from the directorial and acting standpoint, and that's why I like to work that way," he said. "You have to concentrate and work hard to get the build up and to make the

conflict make sense." I

When: Thursday-Saturday, Feb. 15-17, 7:30 p.m. Where: Upstairs at the Methodist Church, 2 Centre St. Cost: $10 For reservations, call 228-4305. For more information,

visit www.theatreworkshop.com.