Hurricane Season
The Eclectic Company Theatre
The Eclectic Company Theatre's FIFTH Annual Hurricane Season (One-Act Playwriting Competition) has been running since July 11th. Of the 150+ submissions this year, 12 plays have been selected to compete for the top honor. Each week, three one-act plays (or musicals) compete for a place in the finals.
Audiences are given ballots on which to rank the three plays, based solely on the quality of the scriptwriting, and are directed to "vote for your favorite story and then make sure your friends get the number 2 spot."
In the performance reviewed, we were not told who won, but I am pretty sure there was no competition in the writing. "Ewe Gotta Have Friends" by Norman R. Brilliant was just that. Brilliant. His nonstop fun-filled one-liners stole the evening away from two very dim, over-acted plays ("Libraries are Exciting Places" by Anthony Arnold and "Flawless" by Janice Eurgubian). Brilliant's script has the perfect recipe for a full-length production. A police detective (Geoffrey Rivas) pressures Bo Peep (Erin Treanor) to give up the location of her missing sheep. Director Taylor Ashbrook understands the comedy in this piece as Rivas, who's on-target timing never failed, removes one fedora only to reveal another one still sitting on his head.
Treanor was also a gas as the "second rate" nursery rhyme character, Bo Peep.
This short story is quite a treasure, eliciting the audience's nonstop laughing throughout.
The competition closes August 24th. I highly recommend the final weekend, which will showcase the best of the entire competition. http://www.eclecticcompanytheatre.org