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Senior Performing Arts Students
To Participate in '365 Days/365 Plays' Festival
A group of senior performing arts majors has been selected to participate in 365 Days/365 Plays Festival, a year-long grassroots theatre event spearheaded by the Pulitzer-prize winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks and nationally acclaimed theatre director and producer Bonnie Metzgar.
In November of 2002, Parks had the idea to write a play every day for the next 365 days—one play a day. The result is 356 Days/365 Plays, a cycle comprised of daily meditations on an artistic life; observations about life, war, and politics; and critical comments about the world in which we live.
“Some of the plays are very short, less than a page. While others are a maximum of five pages,” said Mark Charney, the director of theatre at Clemson. “We will present week 20, featuring seven plays that look at the demands of war, the difficulty of an artistic life, and the challenges of a conservative government.”
The entire cycle begins with the short play “Start Here” and continues with 364 separate pieces that include “Father Comes Home From The War,” “The Kingdom of this World,” “Lickety Split,” and “9-11.”
Once completed, Parks and her long-time collaborator Metzgar began toying with idea of having at least 365 theatres produce the premiere of the new cycle world wide, and with that thought in mind, an international festival started to take shape.
Since November 13 of last year festival participants have presented one week of the cycle, before then passing the cycle on to the next theater. “The result is a sort of cultural relay race celebrating theatre around the word,” Charney said.
The Clemson University theatre program is among 60 college and university drama programs selected as part of the 365University (365U), the higher education component of the festival. What’s more, over 600 professional, regional, and community theaters around the world are premiering Parks’ latest theatrical creation—356 Days/365 Plays.
At Clemson, the event is part of the creative inquiry project for undergraduates, which requires students to conduct research for the better part of the year, and take charge of the innovative event in terms of direction, design, and music.
Charney is serving as artistic director of the project, but eleven seniors are coordinating, directing, designing, and writing music for the project. “This represents their senior capstone project and also the university’s emphasis on undergraduate research. They are passionate about 365 Days/365 Plays and what Suzan-Lori Parks has to say about humanity. All of them agree that they would like to bring theatre to folks who normally do not attend,” Charney explained.
The performing arts students have been selected to premiere their portion of the 365 Days/ 365 Plays in late March. Among the seven plays they will perform are “Possum,” “House to House,” “The Beach, The Sea,” “George Washington Slept Here,” “Black Dog” and “George Bush Visits the Cheese and Olive.”
Clemson and the College of Charleston are the only schools in South Carolina fortunate enough to participate in this endeavor. And like other schools, the short plays take place in unconventional settings. “We are performing a sort of guerilla theatre,” said Charney, “using site-specific locations such as coffee shops and outdoor locations. Best of all, even with plays this short, the writing is so good that the theatre experience should be a terrific one. Expect to see short plays in cafeterias, on the street, and in fields at Clemson.”
