Posting Date: May 1, 2009
KSU helps prepare "Slasher" opening at Humana Festival
By Liza Scales
 |
Playwright Allison Moore |
Kennesaw State University theatre and performance and students had the privilege of working with professional playwright Allison Moore in preparation for the opening of her play “Slasher” at the annual prestigious Humana Festival at the Actors Theater. The Louisville, Ky. festival is where theater lovers and critics from around the world converge to get a first look at the future of American theater. The St. Paul Pioneer Press describes the event as taking “the temperature of the American theater,” and KSU Associate Professor Jamie Bullins calls it “a huge deal for new playwrights in American theater.”
“Slasher” is a play about the making of a “slasher movie.” The production makes a social commentary of how society embraces this disturbing form of entertainment, and the people who profit from it, through the conflict between a mother, her daughter and the director of a slasher film. Margaret Baldwin, lecturer in the Department of Theatre and Performance Studies and friend of Moore’s, participated in the reading as the mother character. Moore was impressed with the opportunity the students had to participate with as colleagues and praised KSU for “the rare and wonderful chance to see such collaboration on a university campus.”
The project was one of the first of KSU’s New Works and Ideas programs in the TPS department and was developed with the help of a grant from Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis. Associate Professor Dean Adams directed the reading at KSU, and Moore worked on the edits and visited two classes, “Play Analysis” and “Senior Seminar,” where she discussed her process as a writer. Adams praised her as “a wonderful person and a great teacher for our students. It was a happy set of circumstances to be able to bring her to Kennesaw and provide our students with the amazing experience of seeing how a play is created through all stages of development.” Baldwin said several students called this project the “highlight of their class.”
When assisting a professional playwright develop a new work, students are involved on the ground floor of the creation process. Adams calls this the genesis of a work; the students do the reading and the playwright hears the words and sees the action. “Students need to learn that when they go out to get work in performance arts, networking with those creating work is how a group of actors create from scratch,” explains Adams. “This is the ethos of being able to understand, to know and to experience the slow process of collaboration.”
Under his direction, they also created some film components for the play, which they put in front of an audience for direct feedback. “This process shows students how they can support a new work that hasn’t yet been published,” says Adams. Not only did the students gain valuable production experience, but Moore says this was the first video contribution to one of her plays. “If I ever have the chance to do this again, I feel as though I am now much more prepared to work with film as a developmental component for a play,” she says. “Dean’s expertise was incredible in this area!”
Originally from Texas, Moore lives in Minneapolis and is a core member of the Playwrights’ Center where she has received two Jerome Fellowships and a McKnight Advancement Grant. She is also a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, one of the best writing programs in the country. As a budding actor, it was the dearth of good female roles that led her to begin writing. Her plays include “The Strange Misadventures of Patty,” “Urgent Fury” and “Hazard County,” a serious look at murder, moonshine and the impact of the television show “The Dukes of Hazzard.