Stage contest planned here

The semi-final round of 2016 Onstage Project, presented by the Acadiana Repertory Theater and Little Black Dress Ink, will be held at 7 p.m. April 2 at the Eunice Community Art House.
Gabe Ortego with the Eunice Players Theater and Acadiana Repertory Theater said, “We have about 24 company members and a lot of the company members are from Eunice. That’s why we chose to do the event in downtown Eunice.”
He added, “Once we have the reading, we will pass out comment cards. The readings will be judged by the audiences, and the cards will be passed on to artistic director of Black Dress Ink. From there they will select the finalists. We will get to produce the world premiere of the finalist in July in Lafayette. It’s kind of a big deal.”
Ortego spoke to the Eunice Rotary Club on Wednesday. This year, the Lafayette-based Acadiana Repertory Theater, a non-profit, partnered with Little Black Dress Ink, based in Prescott, Arizona, for the fifth annual Female Playwrights Onstage Project. The event is the reading of 35 new plays in seven cities with more than 60 artists.
The Eunice event will feature seven readings of short plays written by female playwrights from across the country. The $5 entry fee includes wine and cheese.
Ortego said Little Black Dress Ink is an all-female theater company, and its mission is to produce new works produced by females.
“In the playwrighting world, female playwrights make up about 22 percent of the work that is produced in the country,” he said. “According the census, women make up about 50.8 percent of the population and men make up about 49.2 percent of the population. The goal is to promote works by female playwrights.
“Each play (for the event) is 10 pages each, and they range and vary in topic and discussion. They focus on the female voice and what issues are going on that face women in this country today.”
Play topics include divorce, dating in the 21st century and the legalization of marijuana.
“In one play, a couple are forced to reexamine their marriage after gossiping about their neighbors they can hear through a wall,” Ortego said. “They realize that maybe their marriage isn’t as great as they think it is.”
Ortego added, “There are a few of the shows that deal with adult themes so we will call it a PG-13 event. We had no say in content or discussion and we shouldn’t because it’s the female experience from these writers points of view.”
Ortego has been a member of the Acadiana Repertory Theater since 2011.
The company is a new-works-based theater that produces only works that have never been produced, and submissions are accepted from playwrights across the country. The troupe travels for shows to towns including Opelousas and Abbeville.
This season, the theater company is also featuring only female playwrights, and about 400 submissions were received in the season call out.
“We had to whittle those submissions down to four shows,” Ortego said. “It was a harrowing trial and error. We read a lot of great shows. We read some not so great shows, but 400 submissions — that’s incredible.”
Ortego said the eventual goal of the theater company is to make Acadiana a destination for theater and regional theater, and the company will soon be featured in The Dramatist, the official journal of the Dramatists Guild of America.
“We are the only new works theater in the state of Louisiana and possibly in the South,” he said. “That is an underrepresented work. You have to create new work or theater will eventually die, and it’s an artwork that we are very passionate about. It’s refreshing.”
For more information, visit www.acadianarep.org.