The Contemporary American Theater Festival, which opened in Shepherdstown on Wednesday for its annual four-week run, has added a fifth play and a third performance space this year.
This is the 18th season for the summer festival, which features new and nearly new works from major and emerging playwrights, said Peggy McKowen, the festival’s associate producing director. “We do the kind of work that is both entertaining and exciting, while also being thought-provoking and challenging,” Mc-Kowen said.
The festival, whose budget has grown to $1 million, sells 10,000 to 13,000 seats in a given year. Some visitors squeeze four shows into a two- or three-day weekend, and they will now be able to fit in five if they arrive Friday evening.
“Theater is one of the last true community experiences we have,” McKowen said. “It’s exciting to see work before anyone else sees it.”
The 2005 festival included the play “God of Hell” by Sam Shepard, which attracted 13,000 people, McKowen said. Shepard won a Pulitzer Prize for drama with “Buried Child” and earned an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor for playing Chuck Yeager in “The Right Stuff.”
The advance sale has been good this year for Richard Dresser’s “View of the Harbor,” the final work in a trilogy that began at the festival two years ago, McKowen said. “A lot of our retuning patrons have been following that.”
In addition to the 425-seat theater in the Frank Center and a 175-seat studio theater, the festival has added an 80-seat experimental space in the new Center for Contemporary Arts at Shepherd University.
The festival also includes art exhibits, lectures and a staged reading of Steven Dietz’s “Yankee Tavern.”
The season runs through Aug. 3. Admission to each play is: adults $36 on weekends, $30 weekdays; senior citizens $30 on weekends, $26 weekdays. There are a wide variety of package plans. Visit www.catf.org or call (800) 999-CATF (2283).
Here is a brief description of the plays:
“The Overwhelming” (Friday through Sunday, July 17, 19-20, 23, 25-27, 31 and Aug. 2-3): An American family newly arrived in Kigali, Rwanda, in early 1994 comes face-to-face with the realization that nothing and no one around them is what they seem. Who can they trust and what will they do when faced with enormous human tragedy? Debuted to acclaim in London, the drama by playwright J.T. Rogers challenges viewers to go home and forget. They can’t.
“Pig Farm” (today, Saturday, Sunday, Wednesday, July 18-20, 24, 26-27, 30, Aug. 1-3): Comedy about hard times and heroism in the American heartland from Greg Kotis, Tony-winning lyricist and book writer of the hit musical “Urinetown.” In this land of Big Farming, the Feds want the snouts accurately counted, Tom yearns to farm freely and his wife just wants a baby.
“Stick Fly” (today, Saturday, Sunday, Wednesday, July 18-20, 24, 26-27, 30, Aug. 1-3): Chicago writer Lydia R. Diamond’s play is a probing and funny family drama and an up-to-the-minute consideration of privilege and perception. When an elite African-American family reunites on Martha’s Vineyard, incendiary dialogue ignites about race and class, the desire to break free and the need to belong.
“A View of the Harbor” (Friday through Sunday, July 17, 19-20, 23, 25-27, 31, Aug. 2-3): Richard Dresser concludes his “Happiness Trilogy” with this offbeat look at Maine’s flaky upper crust and a scion who wants to escape. After the blue-collar struggles of “Augusta” and the suburban angst of “The Pursuit of Happiness,” class matters here.
“Wrecks” (today, Saturday, Sunday, Wednesday, July 18-19, 24-27, 30, Aug. 1-2): Neil LaBute, the reigning Bad Boy of the American theater, offers a mischievous monologue about a grieving widower and the wife he has just lost. Edward Carr circles through the facts and memories of his complicated marriage and finds a surprising truth. Typically unsentimental yet unexpectedly romantic, “Wrecks” is love, LaBute style, balancing deep affection and moral dilemmas in shocking fashion.
Reach Bob Schwarz at bobschwarz@wvgazette.com or 348-1249.