Erin Hanratty and Andrew Bluher in “Two Things,” by Anna Monech. Directed by Brad Leroy Cartwright. Image also by Brad Leroy Cartwright.
“I think we all need to get each other’s diseases,” EMP Collective member and one of the directors of the One Minute Play Fest, Brad Leroy Catwright, told me, after my EMP Collective audition. Before you get grossed out, I think what what Brad’s was really saying is the importance in immersing oneself in the different theatre circles in this adventurous arts scene. That is exactly what Baltimore’s first One Minute Play Festival allowed so many of us to do.
Actor Brandon Scott Boyd and Director Andrew Peters rehearsing. Image by Carly J. Bales.
As a member of Glass Mind theatre, that company will always have my loyalty; however, I’ll be damned if I didn’t get a more severe case of BROS-itis being directed by Baltimore Rock Opera Society member Chuck Green, and acting alongside some of the more regular band of BROS. My Glass Mind colleague, Artistic Director Andrew Peters, has poured himself into the company, but he boldly decided to work with actors who he’d only worked with a bit, or not at all.
This weekend, bodies packed into EMP Collective, with unearthly art by Lacey Anderson and Sylvia O., hanging in the funky space. Bright artwork illustrating some of the plays served as a backdrop to the performances. EMP’s programming offers a complete meshing of the artforms, which ties so well with this Festival, itself a meshing of the determined, energized spirits of so many Baltimore artists. Not only were Glass Mind, Single Carrot, Baltimore Rock Opera Society and EMP Collective represented, but so were 50+ exceptional individual artists. Each playwright had some tie to Baltimore, and the entire cast was made up of around thirty actors.
Carly J. Bales and Josh Buursma in “My Parasite,” by Matthew Buckley Smith. Directed by Brad Leroy Cartwright. Image by Chelsea Newhouse.
While the One Minute Play Festival is a theatre company that works in national partnerships, it makes sense that Producing Artistic Director Dominic D’Andrea considers himself a Baltimore boy. “I consider to be Baltimore my home town, even though I’ve been away for about a dozen years. I didn’t know much about the arts boom that’s been happening in the past 15 years. I’ve leaned a new term in Bmore: ‘DYI Theatre,’” he says. To D’Andrea, DYI why relates to “artists artists from across disciplines coming together to contribute work to one another from different disciplines in groups.”
While the festival is national, there is something so downright Baltimore arts about it. The inclusiveness, the rapidity, the – and especially – the jump-right-in-let’s-do-this-
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To continue Cartwright’s analogy, I think this disease-infested pool of Baltimore theatre is beautiful because of how possible it’s been for me and other artists to just to jump in. I didn’t study theatre in college, and after a year of administrative work with Glass Mind, I tentatively mentioned I’d like to try acting in my first mainstage show since high school. Peters graciously cast me in my company’s ensemble show, Adapting Cinderella, last March. I am indebted to my entire company for their amazing support.
For this festival, I had said to D’Andrea that I was interested in acting, and he suggested my name to Chuck. That’s it. And even after three shows, when I say I’m an actor or artist, it’s followed up by a string of exclamation points and question marks. I know I’m not the only one. One Minute Play fest actor, Andrew Bluher, a med student, had no experience, and simply wanted an escape. He asked, on opening night, “Am I an actor now?” “Yes,” I responded, “but it’ll take you about three shows before you feel like you’ll be able to say it.” I began acting in March 2012 – it’s now February – and you’d have thought the novelty would have worn off by now. But I just continue to be more and more reinvigorated. The laughter I heard felt like nothing less than audible magic.
To some, Baltimore will never be more than violence and shattered glass. (It was just today the glass repair guy fixed my boyfriend’s car window after his Honda got broken into a few nights ago.) I’m not blind to that. But for myself, and several others, it’s the place that has let me call myself a theatre artist.
