By SHARON EBERSON
Explorations of art and class, aging and death, lives well-lived and -loved, the good, the bad and the funny, are rolled into the Becoming Arts Collective’s second annual Bridges & Stages 10-Minute Play Festival.
The 26 works, split into two nights, August 28 and 29, are a massive undertaking. In his remarks before Friday’s opening-night program, Becoming Arts founder and Executive Director Darrin J. Friedman asked the directors who shaped each work to stand and be appreciated, along with Artistic Director Barbara Burgess-Lefebvre, who was the driving force in this year’s festival, now at the New Hazlett Theater.
The first half of Friday’s program contained varying doses of sly humor and pathos, while the second half featured several works that were more serious in tone. Themes included class distinctions, dementia, and grief, yet the finale had the distinction of leaving us laughing about growing old.
Lemonade by Marjorie Williamson made the point that women of a certain age become invisible unless their presence is expected, a point brought home hilariously by Lynne Franks, Joyce Miller, and Thomas Kushner.
The parade of works on Friday began by tweaking our sense of sight vs. thought and knowledge. A screen declared that we were going to see a Tedx Pittsburgh event on A Density of Thought. Written by Timothy Krause and performed by Jack Lefebvre, the persuasive, often humorous argument was to sell us on “invisible paintings” — take that literally — being worth more than what the eye can see. In other words: Words are worth a 1,000 pictures.
I am still chuckling over James McLindon’s The Fault in Our Genes, with Shelbie Cook as an irate customer of an ancestry company, who calls a bored customer service agent (a fine comedic turn by Amanda Ann Leight). There’s a question about a percentage of ogre — yes, ogre — in the customer’s DNA, and the call explodes from there.
Nina Mansfield’s Out Damn Spot mines the dark humor in a shrewish wife and apparently inept husband. It starts with spouses (Jocelyn Hillen and Ryan Warsing) bickering about how to get a stain out of a designer shirt, and takes a wicked turn.
Among the more poignant stories were John Mabey’s The Fantasy of Hope, in which memories of a long-ago kiss might have future possibilities for Sam and Ray (Gordon Robertson and David Nackman) as they recall their young selves (Hunter Ventura and Daniel Schrauder).
Geronimo by F.J. Hartland, about two brothers (Desmon Jackson and Sean Hale) starting on a painful, initially funny, experience, leading to lifelong dedication. Hale appeared again, with Pat Fuchel, in another story about the love of a lifetime, 37 Origami Bees, by Jacquelyn Priskorn. Also leaving its mark was I Can’t, by Nathan Wagner, about a young couple (Tajionna Clinton and Darrin Mosley) faced with an excruciating end-of-life decision.
The smorgasbord of universal themes means some works will hit home more than others, while all were acted with gusto and presented with best feet forward. If I have one caveat, it is a reminder that vocal projection and playing to the back rows, in a cavernous space such as the New Hazlett, should always be a consideration.
It should not be lost on theater-goers that this weekend also marks the opening of the 35th annual Pittsburgh New Works Festival, which features programs Thursday-Sunday, through September 20, at the Genesius Theater at Duquesne University. Pittsburgh New Works receives entries worldwide, produced and performed by Pittsburgh-based companies.
With the official opening of the world premiere of a.k. payne’s BURNBABYBURN! An American Dream at the August Wilson House, it’s a weekend of endless opportunities to catch a wave of what’s happening on local stages.
TICKETS AND DETAILS
The Becoming Arts Collective Bridges & Stages 10-Minute Play Festival is in partnership with Broken Arts Entertainment, and co-presented by the New Hazlett Theater on the North Side. Tickets: https://newhazletttheater.org/events/bridges-and-stages-10-minute-play-festival/. For a full list of titles and playwrights: https://thebecomingartscollective.com/season/bridges-and-stages-festival-2026.
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