Laurel's One Act Festival is proving ground for local talent

When emerging artists ache to share their most creative impulses, the folks at Laurel Mill Playhouse listen.

Every year in early fall, the community theater invites budding playwrights, directors and actors of all ages to take part in its One Act Festival.

Formerly known as the Burtonsville Players, the nonprofit theater began hosting the annual event as Laurel Mill Playhouse almost 10 years ago. Veteran board members Marvin and Maureen Rogers, of Laurel; and Larry and Diana Simmons, of Burtonsville, are producing this year's festival.

As in the past, the 2011 One Act Festival is the forerunner to a statewide community theater competition that Laurel Mill Playhouse officers plan to enter in the winter.

But the event stands well on its own merit.

The One Act Festival offers local artists of all levels of experience a chance to explore the work of new playwrights.

Participating is fairly easy. Scripts simply need to be less than an hour long and are submitted to the theater's board of directors for consideration throughout the year. The theater typically advertises a call for directors and playwrights in the early spring, and then selects the scripts and assigns directors. Cattle-call auditions allow actors to be cast in multiple shows that run on separate weekends.

Once the festival closes, a single show will be selected to travel to southern Maryland in January as Laurel Mill Playhouse's entry in the Maryland Community Theatre Festival.

The competition

As a competition, the festival attracts script submissions from playwrights near and far. Two works by Californian playwright Mark Harvey Levine are being performed this year: "Howard," directed by Mark Allen; and "The Rental," directed by Penny Martin.

As with Laurel Mill Playhouse's regular season, the One Act Festival draws talent from Laurel and its surrounding counties. The theater's board also uses the festival to screen directors for future shows.

Leading new playwrights, directors and actors to the stage is part of the non-profit theater's focus on helping to nurture local talent, according to Maureen Rogers, and a good number of thespians from Laurel are bringing considerable energy to this year's crop of shows.

Rogers joins fellow Laurel residents Grant Myers, Anne Hull, Brendon Hustis, Julie Rogers, Rob Allen, Don Brown and Ken Krintz in various festival plays; and Krintz also directs "Edgemont Drive," by E. L. Doctorow.

Playwright Christopher Dwyer directs his script, "Waiting on the Moon," while Laurel playwrights Erica Smith, author of "These Are Your Only Options"; and John Hayes, author of "The Prankster," claim the honor of being the youngest and oldest playwrights at the festival.

Hayes, who hails from North Laurel, also directs and plays a major character in "The Prankster."

A seasoned playwright, poet and short-story writer who likes to rework his characters' stories in different lifestyles, Hayes says that he intended to explore characterization from a new perspective and was bitten by the acting bug.

"When it strikes, it strikes," he explained.

Producer Larry Simmons directs "Waiting for Dingleman's Comet," by Albi Gorn; and "Monsters in the Closet," by college freshman Jeanette Brown. Both shows feature young actors ranging in age from 9 to 16.

Morgan Wenerick, 13, appears in "Waiting for Dingleman's Comet" as the daughter of a character played by her own mother, Kathy Wenerick-Bell. Characteristically, Simmons also cast Brown's father, Don Brown, in "Monsters in the Closet."

Upcoming performances

The 2011 One Act Festival offers a different set of shows each weekend in September and continues through Sept. 25. Performances are Fridays and Saturdays, at 8 p.m.; and Sundays, at 2 p.m. Most of the plays run less than 30 minutes.

Sept. 16-18: "The Rental," written by Mark Harvey Levine and directed by Penny Martin; "The Importance of Being Hairy," written by George R. Johnson and directed by Stacey Shade-Ware; and "Edgemont Drive," written by E. L. Doctorow and directed by Ken Krintz.

Sept. 23-25: "Monsters in the Closet," written by Jeanette Brown and directed by Larry Simmons; "Waiting for Dingleman's Comet," written by Albi Gorn and directed by Larry Simmons; and "Wilderness," written by Mark Scharf and directed by Ed Higgins.

Laurel Mill Playhouse is located at 508 Main St. Tickets are $10 for general admission. For reservations, call 301-617-9906 and press 2. For more information about each show, go to laurelmillplayhouse.org.