Beckwith Theatre’s Local Playwright Festival

The 5 Playwrights, their plays, synopsis, and their comments.
Susan Meadows
HOUNDED
Synopsis: A weary rescue dog arrives at his fourth home and adjustment ensues.
Themes: Each of us is different. None of us are perfect. Maybe we can find a way to co-exist. Maybe we can even like it just a little bit.
- Personal Comments: “As a long-time actor, I always wanted to write a play but thought it too daunting. However, a 10-minute play - maybe I could do that! So, I entered a contest and was pleased to see it performed. Now new actors will offer their take on it! As a long-time pet owner I followed the old adage ‘write what you know’. This is the result.”
- Background: Susan Meadows is a potter and voice actor in Stevensville, MI.
Linda LaRocque
Play #1 - DREAM CAMPER
Synopsis: When Wilma, a free-spirited eccentric, shows up at a KOA campground
and openly shares her dreams with Rose and Dottie, she unknowingly awakens a surprising new attitude in everyone.
Play # 2 - LIVING LARGE
Synopsis: The ladies are meeting to discuss a trip to the casino. But instead, they find themselves in the middle of a confusing conversation with an adventurous friend, who shows them what living large might be like.
- Personal Comments: “Since the 10-minute play is primarily dialogue, writing them is a wonderful opportunity to hone those skills as you learn to convey a story and define its’ characters, through conversation, with an economy of words.”
- Background: I’ve written 40 plus plays. 25 have been published and produced and 12 have been award-winning. Some award winning full lengths that have been produced are: Only On Pizza, Revival At Possum Kingdom Community Church, The Christmas Gathering, Goodbye Mr. Goodrich, Town Car For Sale, Joyce’s Choices, Rat Trap and Ain’t Tina Turner Classical Music. The 5-time award winner, Revival At Possum Kingdom Community Church, has been produced throughout the United States, in professional, summer stock, civic and dinner theater venues. It is published by Playscripts. Publishers for other works are, Pioneer Drama Service Christian Publishing, Smith and Kraus, Playscripts Best Monologues, Next Stage Press and Art Age Publishing.
- For the past 5 years, 8 short plays that specifically deal with the elderly, are successfully being used at several universities as teaching tools, in their medical departments, with the purpose being to help last year medical students get into the mindset of the aging so they may better understand the population, they will eventually be caring for.
Ralph T. Neltson – nom de plume
Play # 1 - It’s Just Lunch
Synopsis: A woman reflects on what the rest of her life may bring. Her partner, initially clueless, catches on. Could there be a happy ending?
- Personal Comment: “I have been working on short plays for some time. It is a challenge to tell a story that touches people in such a short time frame. I guess as an older person, I am intrigued about life opportunities. I think I identify with both of these 2 characters.”
Play # 2 – HOUSEHOLD NAME
Synopsis: What if you were given a job that initially seemed like easy money but was terribly difficult and might just end up changing your life?
- Personal Comments: “With a little background in marketing and public relations, I wonder how persons of times gone by would be ‘handled’ today. What would the ‘pros’ do? How would it go? I’m pretty happy with this work…so far.”
- Background: I like being anonymous. I will be present because I just can’t stay away. I will be so nervous and anxious to see if there is any reaction to these two shorts.
Lisa Cripps-Downey
THE GREAT EXPERIMENT
Synopsis: Carol has a visitor, a usual visitor, that comes to see her at her ‘home’. It is a home where she has lots of time on her hands. Among other things, Carol uses that time to try an experiment involving her unsuspecting visitor.
· Personal Comment: Writing a 10-minute play is like cutting a slice out of the center of a pie, maybe you get all the good stuff but it can get a little messy. I liked the challenge of creating the characters and trying to make the audience think, care, feel and laugh all in ten minutes! Among the plays I have written are Gender Soufflé, Moving Forward, Last One On, and Shirt Powers. I have been fortunate to have my plays produced at Twin City Players. Some have been presented at State and Regional theatre festivals as well as other community theaters.
· Background: By day, I am the President of the Berrien Community Foundation. I get to work with amazing nonprofit agencies that serve our community and connect with generous donors who want to do great things in our community.
Theater has been a part of my life since high school. I’ve been on stage in plays and musical, predominantly at Twin City Players. I’ve also been able to direct and help backstage on anything except costumes. It’s been fun to share a love of theater with my family – my kids grew up at Twin City Players – and now get the chance to be back on stage with my husband who I met at TCP.
Larry Nielsen
Play # 1 – QUIET
Synopsis: A couple of teenagers, a boy and a girl, appear tucked away in closet. We don’t know why they are there. Their conversation leads us in one direction. But…”
- Personal Comment: I like plays that give me something to think about; challenge my thoughts and express the playwright’s point of view. I tried to write a play that does this. I hope it does that for you.”
Play # 2 – SUPER SIX
Synopsis: Five friends return to town to discover what happened to their sixth friend.
- Personal Comments: “Today’s environment can be pretty great, but it can also be pretty awful. Let’s root for the good, work for the good, and support each other for the good. Because when that doesn’t happen it can be pretty awful.”
- Background: “Being retired, I have more time to write. In my younger days I wrote poetry. Then for much of my career I just jotted ideas I would get to later, Yeah, later. Now I write plays. I have written a few other short plays. I am my own worst critic. Quiet was a finalist in a 10-minute play competition. Super Six is being presented for the first time.
- I have written two full length plays; Make it Home and an adaptation of A Christmas Carol. Make it Home was recognized at a state festival competition and the adaptation was a runner up in a state competition. Both have been produced at Twin City Players. Make it Home was also presented for the SWM Lest We Forget group and at the Beckwith Theatre Company. It has also been produced by theatre groups in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. The adaptation tells the Charles Dickens classic starting out in Old Joes Emporium with Old Joe, Dilber and the Char Woman. That one, the adaptation, is fun. Make it Home, was more personal as it is mostly true accounts of over 50 WWII veterans, including my father, and a number of children and stay at home women that made it through the war. Make it Home touches the heart, brings a few laughs and, certainly, gives you pause as it reflects on the lives of those that fought in WWII or stayed and struggled at home.”