(Above: Benjamin Sanders and Alex Dang Scene in “Dirty Dishes,” one of eight, 10-minute plays that make up the 2018 NW10 short film festival at Oregon Contemporary Theatre in Eugene)

By Randi Bjornstad

Tara Wibrew can think of lots of reasons people might want to go to see an evening of plays that take a maximum of 10 minutes to perform.

As the associate producer at Oregon Contemporary Theatre, Wibrew admittedly is a fan of the short play, which at OCT has turned into an annual festival — the NW10 Festival — that wraps up its 10th season with its final four performances on March 22-25.

It’s a bit like Mark Twain’s old joke about the weather in New England: If you don’t like it now, just wait a few minutes.

Brittany Dorris, Nicole Medema, & Kali Kardas, in “Kings of the World” at the NW10 festival of short plays

“For people who are afraid they might not like a play, this is a great opportunity,” Wibrew said with a laugh. “If you don’t like something that’s being done onstage, you only have to wait 10 minutes to see something else.”

That something else is eight plays by playwrights from Oregon, Washington and British Columbia, with the final selection made by playwright Randy Baker, who also is a director and an artistic director of Rorschach Theatre in Washington, D.C.

Doing short plays “present a completely different set of challenges,” Wibrew said. “You can’t try to fit in as much, but you still use the core components of a play — it doesn’t mean that the topic is shallow, but it has to be more clearly defined. And, of course, you can’t do the same thing with sets and costumes that you would do in a longer play.

She sums up the idea of a 10-minute play as “more akin to a poem than a novel, more scotch than beer —it’s a real distillation process.”

How it works

Eugene play enthusiasts Paul Calandrino and Connie Bennett came up with the idea of a NW10 play festival more than a decade ago. They pitched it to OCT artistic director Craig Willis, who was immediately enthusiastic, Wibrew said.

Initially it was much more local, but through the years the geographical distribution of submissions has broadened greatly.

“We always have people who grow up here, go to other places and tell other people about the festival,” she said. “We had one student who came here to Lane Community College and then went up to Central Washington University in Ellensburg, so now there’s a lot of interest in that area, and they also help spread the word.”

As happens every year, the submission season for the annual 10-minute play festival runs from Sept. 1 through Oct. 31, after which the whittling down begins and the finalists are selected.

On a Saturday in January, all the producers and directors get together for a day of casting.

“We do a call, and people who haven’t been in a NW10 play before come in the morning with a one-minute monologue and a joke,” she said. “In the afternoon, most of them come back, along with people who have been in the show before, and all the directors watch all the readings for all the plays.”

It’s an interesting process, because it’s highly collaborative instead of competitive, Wibrew said.

Leslie Christgau Sabini and William Campbell in the 10-minute play, “The Quail”

“We try not to do any double-casting so the most people get a chance to participate,” she said. “And what’s so nice is that one director may point out to another director an actor that he (or she) has overlooked for a certain part. Everybody looks out for everybody else’s plays, too.”

For all those reasons, short play festivals have gained in popularity during the past decade or so, Wibrew said.

“I wish I could say we were the first to do it, but I think I can say that with our 10th annual production we are probably the most consistent in this region.”

The festival itself is accompanied by a playwrighting workshop led by Calandrino and Bennett, to introduce would-be playwrights to the concept of writing a short play.

“It’s a great way to dip a toe into the water,” Wibrew said. “Play scripts are always pretty short even when they’re full-length. But with a 10-minute play,  everything — concept, emotions and directions — are contained in about 10 pages of dialogue.”

This year’s plays

  • Dirty Dishes by Erica Braman, directed by Cullen Vance
  • Grand Canyon by Scott Stolnack, directed by Erica Towe
  • Here to Serve You by Barbara Lindsay, directed by Maggie Hadley
  • Kings of the World by Kate Danley, directed by Ty Potter
  • The Quail by Matthew Weaver, directed by Christopher McVay
  • Rouge + Noir by Connie Bennett, directed by Inga R. Wilson
  • Talk Time by Clare McDonald, directed by Scott Frazier-Maskiell
  • These, Our Mindless Hearts by Dale Light, directed by Geno Franco

NW10’s 10th Annual Short Play Festival

When: 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, March 22-24; and 2 p.m. on Sunday, March 25

Where: Oregon Contemporary Theatre, 194 W. Broadway in downtown Eugene

Tickets: $16, available at the box office, 541-465-1506, or online at octheatre.org

Special event: “Writing the Perfect Ten,” team-taught by NW10 executive producers Connie Bennett and Paul Calandrino. The workshop will take place from noon to 3 p.m. on Saturday, March 24, at Oregon Contemporary Theatre. To enroll for this workshop, contact OCT’s administrative office at (541)684-6988. The cost is $25, or $10 if also attending the NW10 festival.