Yalies 'Imagine' new drama forum

If the new Imagine festival of one-act plays has one thing going for it, it's name recognition. "It has such a great name," said Itamar Moses, CC '99, one of several playwrights featured in the production. "It reminded me of that John Lennon song."

Well, the festival actually has two things going for it. The second is a slew of new, eager theater artists. The playwrights, directors, and actors involved have been united by founder Ethan Youngerman's, SY '99, vision of an original work forum that "didn't take over people's lives," but offered a low-pressure setting to audition, rehearse, and perform seven student-written, one-act plays in two weeks' time. Pressure within the festival is so low, in fact, that the greatest concern to those involved may not be how polished their show is, but how well it fits into the larger Yale theater scene.

Concern of this sort seems contradictory to a festival whose mission is directly opposed to the idea of a theater establishment. In the existing campus drama scene, "there's no support for student playwrights," Youngerman said. "There is a need for a structured festival, for students who don't necessarily have the time or chutzpah to do it themselves."

The tasks of finding directors and performance spaces have stifled many Yale playwrights; Moses likened these tasks to "cresting a hill with a boulder." For that reason, Youngerman's promise to procure these things for all plays in the festival attracted more submissions than he could handle. "I had to say no to plays I would have liked to say yes to," he said.

He wound up with seven, including Abby Hendel's, DC '99. A newcomer to Yale theater, Hendel is just the sort of writer Imagine was meant to reach. "I've never done anything with theater," Hendel said. "I've actually always wanted to be an actress, but it never happened."

Hendel wrote her play as part of Karen Hartman's playwriting seminar last fall. "An e-mail was sent to our class soliciting submissions," Hendel explained. Hartman's class would eventually provide several of Imagine's plays. "I would never know how to put up my own play. But they found the directors, the actors, and the theater space. One playwright is a freshman who had never written a play before in her life. I'm really excited about it. It's something I never thought I'd do," Hendel said.

There is inherent tension, however, in a festival that seeks to empower new artists while courting Yale's established theater community. That tension manifested itself in Youngerman's search for experienced directors to helm each of the seven plays. "I haven't gotten as overwhelming support as I thought I would," Youngerman admitted. "I have to direct one of the plays myself, which I didn't want to do. I'd like to think this festival is part of the larger theater community." But the speed of the project allows little time to build bridges. "We just had auditions," Youngerman said of the festival, which opens in one week.

Gerard Passannante, BK '00, is one director who didn't need much persuading to join the team. "Ethan offered me the chance to work at a very quick pace, and I was excited," Passannante said. "This is an experiment for a person who's used to being a perfectionist." Still, Passannante recognizes that the focus of the festival is on the writers. "It's a playwrights' festival," he said. "A director's role is really important in this, interpreting roles that have never been performed before."

Whether or not Imagine reappears next year will be determined by its reception in the Yale theater community. To guarantee its return, the festival will have to prove that simple workshop performances of new student work are just as exhilarating as fuller, more traditional productions.

"With such short time, some of the shows will be more like staged readings than full productions," Youngerman conceded. "I was worried about breaking that sort of news to one of the playwrights, but when I told him he just said, `Hey, no problem. I'm just excited to hear [my own] words.'"

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