Salt Laker's work is among 3 'amazing' new plays
The New American Playwrights Project has been in full swing — it began 15 years ago as a way to help aspiring playwrights and to encourage the development of new plays and audience participation.
August saw the crop of new plays for 2008 in their first staged readings. "We had more than 100 solid entries this year, and from those we've chosen three new amazing works," said Charles Metten, director of the New Play Project.
This year's selected playwrights are T.J. Edward from Brooklyn, N.Y.; David Rush from Carbondale, Ill.; and Matthew Ivan Bennett, from Salt Lake City.
"I think I've wanted to be a writer since the third grade," said Bennett, "I wrote Jamie Deever a poem. I don't even remember what is was about —something like she was a candle in the dark — and she decided to go out with me and I realized that was my vocation."
Bennett may joke about his early beginnings, but after 12 years at his craft, a degree from Southern Utah University, and at only 31 years of age, he has written over a dozen full-length plays and is also the resident playwright of Plan-B Theatre Company — which will focus its upcoming season on works written by Bennett, including "Di Esperienza," the work selected for the USF New Play Project.
Rapier commissioned Bennett to write a piece about Leonardo da Vinci. "It entailed a lot of research," Bennett said, "There are 20,000 pages of notebooks. I didn't read them all, but I think it's fair to say that I read at least 2,000. I waded through it."
Bennett's play examines Leonardo da Vinci the man, who was a procrastinator plagued with self-doubt.
The other plays featured at this year's New Play Series are "Father Mike," a nostalgic comedy that takes place in 1955; and "Germinous Seeds," which uses Herman Melville's life and work as a point for three interrelated stories — two actors play three roles each.
Through a series of workshops, the playwrights have been able to see their works on stage for the first time. With the help of the festival's professional actors, as well as the audience, the playwrights have been tweaking a few things for a final presentation beginning Wednesday.
"For the playwrights it's an invaluable experience, because, unlike novelists, playwrights are involved in a collaboration," explained Amanda Caraway of the New Play Project. "They can learn so much about their own piece once they hear the words come out of the mouths of actors. Until they get that collaboration, it's just not complete."
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