Photo Source: Christine Jean Chambers
As literary descendants of Lorraine Hansberry ("A Raisin in the Sun") and Amiri Baraka ("Dutchman"), black playwrights continue to be identified with such topics as the heritage of slavery, political struggle, and identity crises, Girod says. "That's been the standard, and it's come to be expected." "The Submission," "The Mountaintop," and "Stick Fly" are current examples on and Off-Broadway, she notes.
"I'm not saying those plays shouldn't be written, but there's so much more that makes up the black experience," she continues. "In our first year, we had plays that dealt specifically with black topics, but also we had dark comedies and sci-fi. Last year many of the plays looked at domestic or family issues. Several plays explored the experiences of young black homosexuals. And this year we're seeing plays about feminists and lesbians and quite a few plays that live in an abstract world."
The seven writers in this year's festival were tapped by last year's authors. The new crop were told they could write about any topic that grabbed them. Playwrights are responsible for finding directors, holding auditions, and casting their works. Along with the 10-minute plays, the festival will also feature staged readings and a panel discussion on typecasting.
"We invite agents, producers, and artistic directors," says Girod. "And a lot of the playwrights in the last two festivals have been asked to submit future pieces to theaters and producers. How it all develops remains to be seen. But so far a lot of people are now in the system."
Can We Talk?
Brought up in Baton Rouge, La., Girod is one of 10 siblings and the daughter of a physician. She graduated from Louisiana State University with a degree in English and earned her MFA in playwriting from Columbia University before becoming an intern with Horse Trade Theater Group, where she got the idea for the festival. "I want to continue to write plays," she emphasizes, "but I now think of myself mostly as a producer."
Looking back at the festival's first two years, she is pleased playwrights have made contact with industry insiders but puzzles over the career trajectory of most African-American dramatists. They rarely get the opportunity to take a play from workshop to regional production to Broadway, she says. "What we now see is a black playwright who will come into mode every three years. August Wilson was not typical."
Many black playwrights don't know how to define or market their work, Girod continues. In an effort to address that issue, Atlantic Theater Company joined forces with Fire This Time to host a panel discussion with seven festival playwrights—four from this year and three from last year. The invitation-only audience was made up of film and TV producers, literary managers, and an array of artists. Atlantic's literary associate, Abigail Katz, moderated the event and asked the playwrights if they felt pressured to write a certain way because they were black. One playwright said she was proud to write about the black experience in her native Detroit, while another noted there was no way she could market her work as a "black" play, recalls Girod. "But for me, just sitting in Atlantic Stage 2 was a high point of the festival," Girod says. "It was inspirational and informative. The fact that they were all together in a room just talking made me so proud of the playwrights and my fellow producers."
Girod is looking forward to the upcoming panel on typecasting. Panelists will include playwright David Grimm, director Patricia McGregor, actor Bridgett Antoinette Evans, Epic Theater Ensemble executive director Ron Russell, producer Fred Zollo, and Horse Trade Theater Group artistic director Heidi Grumelot.
"We're going to try to tackle hot-button typecasting issues that are not necessarily from a racial or ethnic perspective," says Girod. "For example, I have a white, blond actress friend who is very funny and smart but is often told by producers, 'You can't be funny or smart. You're blond.' We'd like to hear how producers respond to that. We also want to talk about casting persons of color in plays that are not specifically about race. Do producers feel it will change the meaning of the play or violate audience expectation or need to be accounted for in some way? If that's what they're thinking, why?"
The Fire This Time Festival runs Jan 16-25 at The Kraine Theater and The Red Room, both at 85 E. Fourth St., NYC. (212) 868-4444 or www.horseTRADE.info.
