Steven Dietz Sweetly Eludes Serendipity in THIS RANDOM WORLD

Playwright Steven Dietz is both prolific and versatile. His plays range from God's Country, a scary, fact-based exposé of white supremacists in the Northwest, to Private Eyes, a theatrical and romantic play that peels away layers of lies and fantasy around lovers who also happen to be actors, Lonely Planet, which piles up chairs to talk about AIDS, adaptations of Dracula and Ibsen's An Enemy of the People, several musicals, and Bloomsday, the recent Steinberg/ATCA citation winner that deals with two mismatched people who meet on a tour of Dublin centered on James Joyce's Ulysses.

You'll see a lot of relationships, especially thwarted or flawed relationships, in Dietz's plays, as well as a message about getting out in the world and actually living life. That's certainly on display in This Random World, the play Dietz premiered at last month's Humana Festival of New American Plays. The play's subtitle is "the myth of serendipity" and that describes This Random World rather nicely, as a collection of sweet, nice, eccentric people fail to connect with each other, often passing like ships in the night.

There's sister and brother Beth and Tim -- she's taking a trip to Nepal in an attempt to LIVE before she dies, while he's a stay-at-home guy who has failed at love and work and isn't quite ready to push past his perceived failures -- and their mother, Scottie, whose life is a lot more interesting than her children think. Around their axis spin Bernadette, Scottie's warm and competent aide; her sister Rhonda, who works at a funeral home; Tim's ex, loopy Claire; and Gary, Claire's current boyfriend who is about to break loose.

Their plotlines intersect, but never really connect, and that kind of almost-but-not-quite is Dietz's main point. He sets up the standard dramatic expectation that when these characters finally meet, there will be dramatic sparks and a POW! SOCKO! payoff. But that's what Dietz is exploring, the notion that serendipity is more likely to make us miss each other than collide.

And so This Random World actively and purposely avoids the expected payoffs. Or, as Actors Theatre of Louisville's materials on the play frame it: "Mining the comedy of missed connections, This Random World asks the serious question of how often we travel parallel paths through the world without noticing." In that way, This Random World ends up giving its audience the same "if only" ache the characters feel. It's a whole lot more satisfying than you might expect from a play that sets out to leave its characters unsatisfied.

In its Humana Festival production, This Random World was lovely and real, quite funny and quite sad. Part of that is on the page, as Dietz and the surprises he built in keep the characters and action moving smoothly.

And part was due to director Meredith McDonough's inventive staging, which employed a stream of costumed stage hands from Actors Theatre's apprentice company sliding in, out and through the Bingham Theatre's in-the-round space between scenes, showing us more of those people traveling "parallel paths through the world" even as they seamlessly changed the scenery. It was a neat trick that underlined the central idea.

Deanna Bouye (L) and Beth Dixon in This Random World at the Humana Festival
Photo credit: Bill Brymer

McDonough's cast did fine work across the board, with Beth Dixon terrific and vivid as Scottie, who knows her own mind and brooks no objections, and Deanna Bouye a delight as Rhonda, the one who thinks it's perfectly normal to offer coffee to a spirit who just walked in the front door. Nate Miller's Tim and Renata Friedman's Claire were also appealing and absolutely believable.

Dietz's plays have enjoyed a great deal of success in regional theaters over the past thirty years. Let's hope This Random World shows up, too. I'd like to see it ten or twelve more times, myself.

Qui Nguyen Wins Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award for VIETGONE

Image for The Oregon Shakespeare Festival production of Qui Nguyen's Vietgone

This year's top Harold and Mimi Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award has been awarded to Qui Nguyen's Vietgone, called "an all-American love story about two very new Americans" in South Coast Rep's description of the play's premiere production last year. The quote continues: "It’s 1975, and Saigon has fallen. He lost his wife. She lost her fiancé. But now in a new land, they just might find each other. Using his uniquely infectious style The New York Times calls 'culturally savvy comedy'—and skipping back and forth from the dramatic evacuation of Saigon to the here and now—playwright Qui Nguyen gets up close and personal to tell the story that led to the creation of…Qui Nguyen."

Qui Nguyen

Vietgone is currently playing at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival; it will play Off-Broadway this fall, with previews beginning October 4 at New York City Center's Stage I, presented by Manhattan Theatre Club.

The Steinberg/ATCA New Play Awards recognize playwrights for outstanding work that premiered professionally outside New York City during the previous year. The prize comes with a $25,000 top award, this year given to Nguyen, along with two $7500 citations, which were awarded to Steven Dietz, for his play Bloomsday, and Jen Silverman, for her play The Dangerous House of Pretty Mbane. With a combined cash prize of $40,000, the Steinberg/ATCA Award is the largest national new play award program of its kind. 

Dietz's Bloomsday received its world premiere at ACT Theatre in Seattle. ATCA panelists who read the play during judging described it as "Tender, beautiful, and heartbreaking." The play involves two characters, one a Dublin guide who takes people to see locations from James Joyce's Ulysses and the other an American who isn't at all familiar with the book. Their brief meeting is "complicated and enhanced by visits from their 35-years-later selves.

The Dangerous House of Pretty Mbane is set in a safe house for women in South Africa, with Silverman using the story of a soccer star who returns to her native land in search of a missing lover who also happens to be a political activist to explore issues of violence toward women, media and politics, and what it means to go home again. Silverman's play was first produced at Philadelphia's Interact Theatre Company.

The other three finalists for the award were Samuel D. Hunter for Clarkston, Lynn Nottage for Sweat, and Jonathan Norton for Mississippi Goddamn. Norton took home the 2016 ATCA M. Elizabeth Osborn New Play Award, which was also awarded April 9, during the final weekend of the Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville. The American Theatre Critics Association gives the Osborn New Play Award to an emerging playwright who has not yet received national attention.

Lou Harry, arts and entertainment editor for the Indianapolis Business Journal and IBJ.com/arts chairs ATCA's New Plays Committee, which selects honorees for both the Steinberg/ATCA Awards and the Osborn Award.

Finalists Announced for Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award

The American Theatre Critics Association has announced the six finalist plays for this year's Harold and Mimi Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award. This award recognizes the playwrights whose scripts were deemed the best among plays that premiered professionally outside New York City during the previous year.

This 2016 finalists are Steven Dietz for Bloomsday, Samuel D. Hunter for Clarkston, Jen Silverman for The Dangerous House of Pretty Mbane, Jonathan Norton for Mississippi Goddamn, Lynn Nottage for Sweat, and Qui Nguyen for Vietgone. ATCA offers more detail on the plays:

BLOOMSDAY by Steven Dietz

"Tender, beautiful, and heartbreaking," said one panelist about Dietz's tale of four – well, actually two – characters meeting on the streets of Dublin. A brief encounter between Cathleen, a guide on a tour of locations from James Joyce's Ulysses, and Robbie, an American who never read the book, is complicated and enhanced by visits from their 35-years-later selves. Yes, we've all seen what-might-have-been stories on stage, but in the words of other panelists, this "artful and elegant," "lovely and thoughtful" play with its "slightly supernatural sparkle" had an ending that's "a genuine epiphany."

Bloomsday premiered at ACT Theatre in Seattle.

CLARKSTON by Samuel D. Hunter

"Deftly entwining a love story with a classic tale," according to one panelist, Clarkston, set in a nondescript town in eastern Washington, "expresses the sorrows and yearnings of working class people who have heavy burdens and few options." It's about the bridging of a divide between a pair of Costco employees, one seriously ill. Although one is a distant relationship of Meriwether Lewis, these two are on very different journeys of discovery in this story that is "told simply with no razzmatazz, just quiet power and characters you care about," a panelist commented.

Clarkston premiered at Dallas Theater Center.

THE DANGEROUS HOUSE OF PRETTY MBANE by Jen Silverman

A soccer star is drawn back home in search of her lover, who runs a safe house for women, in this "smart, stunning, excellent" play. It is, according to one panelist, "an illuminating political play that uses memorable, flawed characters to tell a powerful and personal story." Another added that the play is "an assured, fascinating window into the abuse of women in South Africa, but also much more – a lyrical love story, a probe of how media can help and hurt when drawing attention to violence, the conundrum of deciding whether to live in a foreign country where you can be safe and prosper or remain at your own peril in your tumultuous native land."

The Dangerous House of Pretty Mbane premiered at Philadelphia's InterAct Theatre.

MISSISSIPPI GODDAMN by Jonathan Norton

Norton takes us to the house next door to Civil Rights leader Medgar Evers in this drama about a family making tough decisions in a tumultuous time. "He may have used Nina Simone's song as his title, but the play's content isn't borrowed at all," one panelist commented. Others added that the "fast-moving, dramatic, and revelatory" play with a "truly explosive, molten core" includes "nothing PC or sentimental." The play has, according to another, "a raw quality that actually benefits the tense 'desperate hours' scenario of neighbors and families divided by the insidious pressures of racism."

Mississippi Goddamn premiered at the South Dallas Cultural Center.

SWEAT by Lynn Nottage

Disappearing jobs impact a group of friends in a play that features "great storytelling" with "a rich gallery of characters" and "a compelling story arc," according to panelists. In the great tradition of bar-set plays, “One could say Sweat is about the ways the national economy is shifting away from manufacturing jobs. One could also say it's about parents and children, about how skin color separates in ways we can't/don't often articulate, and about how business decisions made by unseen people in power can destroy lives." It's "an extraordinary play" that "grabs at the beginning and packs a wallop in the end."

Sweat premiered at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

VIETGONE by Qui Nguyen

"A sexy comedy about culture-shocked, grieving Vietnamese refugees who fled to the U.S. after the fall of Saigon? Where everyone is really speaking Vietnamese, but we're hearing it as slangy, cheeky English? I marveled at what this playwright was bringing off," commented one panelist about Vietgone, a very entertaining, fresh tale that slyly reveals its darker contours." Others noted that the play offers "a vivid, specific voice, a wonderful sense of humor and compelling stakes" and that Nguyen "does great things with fine sensibility, language and structure, along with the right mix of lunacy" in style that "is as fresh as the content."

Vietgone premiered at South Coast Repertory.

The top award of $25,000 and two citations of $7,500 each will be presented April 9th at Actors Theatre of Louisville during the Humana Festival of New American Plays. With that $40,000 pool of prizes, the Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award is the largest national new play award program.

ATCA has honored new plays produced at regional theaters outside New York City since 1977, with the idea that plays performed in New York are eligible for many more awards than those produced regionally, and a spotlight should be given to those plays in the latter group. No play is eligible for the Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award if it has gone on to a New York production within the award year. Since 2000, the award has been generously funded by the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust.

Last year the top prize went to Rebecca Gilman for her play Luna Gale. with citations to Lucas Hnath for The Christians and Nathan Alan Davis for Dontrell, Who Kissed the Sea. Previous recipients include Adrienne Kennedy, Craig Lucas, Arthur Miller, Marsha Norman, Robert Schenkkan, August Wilson and Lanford Wilson. For a list of all the winners and citation recipients from 1997 to 2014, click here.