#theatre posts — Ben Crowder https://bencrowder.net/blog/tag/theatre/ Feed for blog posts tagged with #theatre. Sat, 11 Jul 2026 16:35:42 GMT en-US https://bencrowder.net/ Best of New Play Project https://bencrowder.net/blog/2010/best-of-new-play-project/ https://bencrowder.net/blog/2010/best-of-new-play-project/ Mon, 20 Sep 2010 12:00:00 GMT When I heard that New Play Project was putting on a Best of New Play Project show, I got all giddy inside. I love New Play Project. I started out as an audience member but pretty quickly got involved with writing plays (I’ve had six produced through NPP), directing them, and putting on shows (running auditions, making posters, typesetting scripts, running box office, etc.). I haven’t done anything with NPP in over a year now, but man, I look back on those days with fondness. Those were good times. Incidentally, my experience with New Play Project was a strong impetus behind my starting Mormon Artist.

We just got back from tonight’s performance and mmm, it was good. Yes, I’m biased — I was there when all of these were first produced by NPP, and all of the playwrights are my friends — but really, these are some great short religious plays. If you’re in the Provo area, go see the show. And if you want to know more about New Play Project, we featured them in Issue 1 of Mormon Artist.

The plays

Adam & Eve, by Davey Morrison Dillard. Funny and touching. And now that I’m married, it makes even more sense. We awarded it first place in our Mormon Artist Young Writers Contest last year.

Foxgloves, by Matthew Greene. Honest opinion: it’s not my favorite, but now that I’ve seen it six or seven times, it’s opening up to me and I’m starting to like it more. I don’t think it’s a bad play — I think it’s just not one of those kinds of plays that I immediately like.

Gaia, by Eric Samuelsen. I like this one more every time I see it. Lots of thought-provoking material along with a disturbingly convincing Lucifer, which is exactly how it should be. (For the people who might get uncomfortable with parts of the play: it’s a story, not a statement on doctrine. Nor is it trying to be.) (Is that controversial enough to get you to go see it? I hope so.)

A Burning in the Bosom, by Melissa Leilani Larson. Like Gaia, it grows on me every time I see it. It’s an honest and compelling and real portrayal of seeking after confirmations from the Spirit. And did I mention that it’s funny?

Prodigal Son, by James Goldberg. Love love love it. I’m even more biased with this one, since I assistant directed it the first time we produced it and sort of became the Thailand consultant for the mission parts, but bias aside, it’s a very, very good play. It won a well-deserved AML award back in 2008. And I wish I’d written it. (Which holds true for most of these other plays, actually.)

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]]> Bad Play Project update https://bencrowder.net/blog/2009/bad-play-project-update/ https://bencrowder.net/blog/2009/bad-play-project-update/ Fri, 17 Apr 2009 12:00:00 GMT So, my Crime & Punishment & Teletubbies: The Musical play not only got booed offstage two pages before it was over, but it also won first place. (Meaning, it was the worst, most awful play. But ironically it was a compliment of a sort. Kind of.) Anyway, it was fun to see it win, even if it was initially mortifying when people started shouting “Get off the stage!” even before the actors finished saying all of the lines.

Now I just need to try to remember how to write good plays…

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]]> Bad Play Project https://bencrowder.net/blog/2009/bad-play-project/ https://bencrowder.net/blog/2009/bad-play-project/ Fri, 17 Apr 2009 12:00:00 GMT For those of you in the area, we’ve got our first Bad Play Project show tonight. I wrote one of the plays (Crime & Punishment & Teletubbies: The Musical) and am directing another one (Waiting for Godot Baggins). You can check out all the details over at New Play Project’s site. Can’t make it? No worries — I’ve posted the script to C&P&T:TM for your reading agony (er, pleasure). Keep in mind that this is meant to be awful. Hopefully it succeeds. ;)

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]]> The end of the run https://bencrowder.net/blog/2008/the-end-of-the-run/ https://bencrowder.net/blog/2008/the-end-of-the-run/ Mon, 15 Dec 2008 12:00:00 GMT Just got back from closing night of my show. While it wasn’t perfect (more on that in a second), I’m happy with how it turned out. Of all my plays, this one (To Love and to Cherish) had some of my favorite lines. That’s probably because it’s more personal than my previous plays have been, more from the gut and less from the head.

That said, I wrote the script in an hour with hardly any planning beforehand (I got the idea in the shower, got out, dried off, and promptly sat down and wrote it all out right then) and never actually revised it (contrast that with my last play, Tree of Blood, which I rewrote 15 or 16 times). And I only went to one rehearsal. (Rehearsals are usually where I see what needs to be rewritten, thus their importance.) As a result, there were some things I didn’t get to change about the play that I now wish I could have (tightening it up a bit, giving the characters a named homeland and culture instead of the ambiguous one they had, reword a few lines here and there), but that’s just life.

Oh, and I’m happy to announce that this is the first time I didn’t place in the top three! (My last three plays all got third place.) This sounds kind of weird, I realize, and you might think I’m asking for sympathy or pity or something, but I’m not. I’ve been hoping that my winning streak would end because I was starting to take it for granted, and that assumption is a quick recipe for laziness in writing and complacency. I needed to know that a third-place finish was not guaranteed, so that I keep striving for excellence in my craft and all that.

Speaking of which, I’ll keep writing plays, but I plan to switch gears here and focus much more heavily on fiction (short stories and novels).

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]]> To love and to cherish https://bencrowder.net/blog/2008/to-love-and-to-cherish/ https://bencrowder.net/blog/2008/to-love-and-to-cherish/ Thu, 04 Dec 2008 12:00:00 GMT FYI, my new play, To Love and to Cherish, opens tomorrow night. It’s a short 10–15 minute piece about arranged marriages (sadly, there isn’t much autobiographical about this one :P) (though in retrospect, my last play was about a cursed tree that made people lose their wits (and their lives), so maybe I don’t do the autobiographical thing very well). It’s part of a set of seven short plays called “Games We Play” (about love and relationships) and is produced by New Play Project at the old Provo Theatre Company building at 105 E. 100 N. in Provo. Here are the performance dates:

  • Friday, Dec 5 @ 7:30pm
  • Saturday, Dec 6 @ 2:30pm
  • Saturday, Dec 6 @ 7:30pm
  • Monday, Dec 8 @ 7:30pm
  • Friday, Dec 12 @ 7:30pm
  • Saturday, Dec 13 @ 2:30pm
  • Saturday, Dec 13 @ 7:30pm
  • Monday, Dec 15 @ 7:30pm

The show runs a little over two hours long, with a ten-minute intermission dissecting the first three plays from the last four. (Mine’s second to last, though it could possibly change, seeing as we’ve still got tech/dress rehearsal for it tonight.)

Anyway, tickets are $6 ($5 for students/seniors/educators, and $4 on Mondays with groups of 5 or more). If you’re in the area, you should come see it.

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]]> Games We Play: auditions https://bencrowder.net/blog/2008/games-we-play-auditions/ https://bencrowder.net/blog/2008/games-we-play-auditions/ Sat, 25 Oct 2008 12:00:00 GMT If you’re in the area and interested in acting, come to auditions next week! As I mentioned a couple posts ago, New Play Project (the theatre company I work with) is hosting a set of plays on relationships called Games We Play, and my new play “To Love and to Cherish” (about arranged marriages) is one of the six or seven plays in the show. And the show will run the first weekend in December — the 5th, 6th, and 8th (a Monday). Anyway, if you’re interested, here’s when auditions are:

  • Tuesday, October 28, 7:00–9:00pm @ F430 HFAC (BYU campus)
  • Wednesday, October 29, 7:00–9:00pm @ F430 HFAC (BYU campus)
  • Thursday, October 30, 7:00–9:00pm @ UVU campus (room TBA)

If you’d like to get involved in the production in another capacity, by the way, feel free to email me. There’s plenty of room for volunteering.

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]]> New NPP redesign https://bencrowder.net/blog/2008/new-npp-redesign/ https://bencrowder.net/blog/2008/new-npp-redesign/ Fri, 24 Oct 2008 12:00:00 GMT For the past while I’ve been working on the New Play Project site redesign, and today it finally went live:

In other news, my play “To Love and to Cherish” (about arranged marriages) got accepted for the next NPP set of plays, Games We Play. More details forthcoming.

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]]> Fire and rain https://bencrowder.net/blog/2008/fire-and-rain/ https://bencrowder.net/blog/2008/fire-and-rain/ Sun, 12 Oct 2008 12:00:00 GMT I forgot to include the info on the play I’m directing! The show is produced by New Play Project and is called Fire & Rain. It includes six short plays, the first of which was the one I worked on — Ben Phelan’s The Sword Without, and Terror Within. Showtimes:

  • Monday, Oct 13 @ 7:30pm
  • Friday, Oct 17 @ 7:30pm
  • Saturday, Oct 18 @ 2:30pm
  • Saturday, Oct 18 @ 7:30pm
  • Monday, Oct 20 @ 7:30pm

Tickets are $6/person ($5 for students/seniors, and if you come to a Monday performance as an FHE group with 5 or more people, it’s $4/person). You can buy tickets online (at www.newplayproject.org) or in person at the box office. And last but not least, the theater’s at 105 E. 100 N. in Provo (the old Provo Theater Company building).

I love theatre.

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]]> Take it from the top https://bencrowder.net/blog/2008/take-it-from-the-top/ https://bencrowder.net/blog/2008/take-it-from-the-top/ Fri, 03 Oct 2008 12:00:00 GMT In spite of how magical theaters are, I realized today that I really have no idea what I’m doing as a director. Jumped in the deep end here. It’s too early to tell if I’m any good at it, either. Humbling.

But you know, even though I’m sticking my neck out with this directing gig and might get it chopped off, at least I tried. If it bombs, well, I learned a lot, and I’ve always got my writing and the magazine and so on to put me back together again. And if a miracle happens, three cheers all around. The important thing is being open to failure and ready to learn from it. It might take a long string of failures to become a success as a director. Or I might realize it’s not for me after all. Either way, it was worth the shot.

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]]> No business like show business https://bencrowder.net/blog/2008/no-business-like-show-business/ https://bencrowder.net/blog/2008/no-business-like-show-business/ Wed, 01 Oct 2008 12:00:00 GMT Have I mentioned I’m directing a play? If I forgot, well, I am: it’s called The Sword Without, and Terror Within, and it opens next week. (More info forthcoming.) Anyway, we’ve been rehearsing it these past two weeks in library study rooms. It’s worked well enough, but it wasn’t till tonight at our company runthrough at the theater itself that I realized I’d forgotten how magical theaters are. It was like stepping into another world almost. All of the excitement of putting on a show returned, accompanied by a burst of much-needed energy and rejuvenation. I’m raring to go — this magic of theatre is addicting as all get out.

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