Creative writing students to present final act
PHOTO COURTESY ROBERT MOREIRA
Students in the Advanced Creative Writing: Workshop in Playwriting course (ENGL 4351) are preparing once again for their annual Ten-Minute Play festival Thursday.
The festival will take place from 7 to 10 p.m. in the Student Union PlainsCapital Bank Theater on the Edinburg campus. Admission is free to the public.
Robert Moreira, a senior lecturer in the Creating Writing department, told The Rider the play festival has allowed students for over a decade to perform in different venues, while giving them an opportunity to showcase their work.
“I think the audiences can expect some really thought-provoking plays that students have worked on all semester,” Moreira said. “Students have been working diligently to revise and to cast their plays, so I think they bring up a lot of really interesting comedic as well as tragic stories, subjects that should be engaging to the audience.”
He spoke about the process behind producing and directing a play as students, explaining the class starts discussing the plot and how the structure is developed. Students create their own characters and talk about conflict and how dialogue is not just what the characters say but also what they do.
Every week, students bring a draft of their play as writing assignments and slowly incorporate what the play will be about.
“Most people would probably say, ‘Wow, they are only writing only 10 to 15 pages,’” Moreira said. “But those 10 to 15 pages, if you extrapolate all the different drafts, students are writing close to 100 pages, rearranging character and dialogue.”
One of the featured pieces will be “Monday Morning Blues,” a comedy written and directed by Adolfo Sandoval, an English senior.
Sandoval added “Monday Morning Blues” is about Randall, who works at a department store, and comes across his favorite football coach who just lost the championship game. His goal was to be a football player and, once he meets the person who is in charge of the team, he does everything it takes to prove himself.
He said the most challenging part of the process was to find the actors and manage to transmit to the audience the intentions of his work, while keeping focus on the comedic stance of his play.
The senior encouraged the community to attend the festival.
“I’ve read and read through and heard some of the scripts being read, and you’re gonna get some really cool stuff there, ranging from drama to comedy and some more existential stuff,” Sandoval said.
PHOTO COURTESY ROBERT MOREIRA
Moreira said some of the plays performed are strongly themed, encouraging the audience to be aware. He said he hopes attendees interpret the performances as a form of art where participants are all engaged in the understanding of what each play is about.
J. Alexis Salinas, an English senior, talked about his experience participating in the performance.
“I would like my audience to just walk away still thinking about my play,” Salinas said.
He said his play deals with a heavy topic, starting with a man who ended up in the afterlife. An entity called “The clerk” makes him realize he might have taken the wrong decision.
Salinas added the overall moral of his play is to show the audience that life matters, and he hopes that like changing channels on a TV, attendees can find something they enjoy.
PHOTO COURTESY ROBERT MOREIRA
