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 Mark Scharf (MFA 1984 Playwriting) is writing and acting in the DC/Baltimore area where he is serving his third term as Chairman of the Baltimore Playwrights Festival (now beginning its 25th Season) and as a new member of the Fells Point Corner Theatre's Board of Directors. His plays Blue Mermaid and Get Stuffed were produced this past summer in Baltimore, and his new one-act Memory Garden will appear in November, 2005 at Gettysburg College’s One-Act Festival. As an actor, he appeared in Jeffrey Hatcher's adaptation of Henry James' The Turn of the Screw during September and October of 2005. During the Spring 2006 semester, Mark returned as a teaching Playwriting as a Guest Artist at the University of Mary Washington during the 2006 Spring semester. Email Mark at MarkScharf@aol.com, or visit his site by clicking here. Alumni: Share your news with us. Email updates and links to mr2xk@virginia.edu Support
the Department of Drama
Support the Department of Drama Click here to give online Or you can give by mail: Send a check with "Dept. of Drama" in the subject line to: University of Virginia PO Box 400807 Charlottesville, VA 22904 Be sure to indicate your gift is for the Department of Drama! |
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"Inside the Box" The week after Thanksgiving the Helms was, for the second year running,
full of playwrights, actors, directors, and…wait a minute…First Year
Engineering students??
We thought we had learned a thing or two about how to handle this
week of intense collaboration with the aliens from the E-school,
but once again the playwrights challenged everyone with outrageous
special effects. We had a baby shot from a cannon, a gigantic
peanut butter and jelly sandwich (falling effect, click
for image), a rain of Hershey kisses (weather effect) a torch that
magically flamed (fire effect, WITHOUT ANY REAL FLAME OR FIRE, click
for image), and lots and lots of balloons.
Directors and Engineers were given modest budgets for the final productions from Deans of CAS and the E-school. The plays went up on successive evenings, with performance restrictions for the Engineers, who had to control each effect while staying 20’ away from the grid, and time restrictions for set up and strike, as with some theatre competitions. The time restrictions gave enthusiastic audiences a countdown to curtain and provided an opportunity for the savvy directors to choreograph and costume the whole mini-theatrical event.
Directors recruited actors to play insane professors, reincarnated Icelandic poets, Jesus and Satan, ducks enlisted in the Vietnam war effort, and a manageable portion of more recognizable characters. The project is a chance to hone serious skills in communication and theatre practice. As the directors learned when the normal challenges of pulling off a final directing scene were compounded by working with a living playwright and a whole team of baby engineers struggling to pull their effects into the requisite performance style and restrictions.
To read an article by a playwright from the first year of the Inside the Box project click here. |
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Last Updated on February 11, 2013 |
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