Featured image: Zuzana Kronerova, Hot Summer '68, GUnaGU Theatre, photograph by Ctibor Bachraty
Two mini dramas written by young, aspiring playwrights propose a closer look at personal identity.
Change explores the phenomenon of “liquid” identity—an identity without meaning in a society with exaggeratedly good intentions. The play provides commentary on a world dominated by hate and misunderstanding towards anyone different in any way. Although inevitably political, Change attempts to offer an absurd view of the stupidity of powerful people and the helplessness of others.
People’s Toast follows Fran Vaneka, a female character based on the title character, Ferdinand Vanek, from Vaclav Havel’s Vanek Trilogy. A young American writer and political activist, Vaneka wanders through Prague in 2019, balancing her aspirations and everyday life practicalities. The play penetrates into the world of Vaclav Havel and his canons of didactic theater, sociology, and political activism.
Change (Czech Republic). Playwright: Tomas Louzny. Director: Patrice Miller. Stage Directions: John Amir. Cast: Yael Haskal (Woman), Bob Laine (Robert), Ellis Stump (Olga), Ann Marie Yoo (Martha).
People’s Toast (United States). Playwright: Ellis Stump. Director: Ellis Stump. Co-Director, Dramaturg: Patrice Miller. Cast: John Amir (Michael), Yael Haskal (Vaneka), Bob Laine (Alek), Ann Marie Yoo (Vera).
Running time: 90 min.
Both presented plays are the winners of the Best Mini-Drama Student Contest, organized annually by the Vaclav Havel Library Foundation in partnership with Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, and Janacek Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Brno.
The reading is followed by Q&A. It is free and open to the public. Suggested donation $10. Today, we ask you to help us support our Best Mini-Drama Student Contest program by purchasing a printed copy of one of the winning plays. You will contribute to the continuation of life-changing opportunities for creative talents. > Buy student plays
The event will be broadcasted online, live on Zoom. RSVP is required to receive the Zoom link. RSVP online through Eventbrite.
TOMAS LOUZNY is a Czech playwright, theater director, and translator. Apart from playwriting he is directing in many Czech theatres as well as adapting novels and other non-dramatic materials for his performances. He cooperates with Czech theaters such as Prague City Theatres, Theatre X10, The Drama Club in Prague, and Drama Studio in Usti nad Labem. He is also interested in immersive theatre and in different forms of communication in between an actor and the audience. He had studied theatre directing at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. In 2017 as well as in 2018 he won the mini-drama contest organized by the Vaclav Havel Library in New York. Subsequently, he was welcomed as a visiting scholar at the New York University – Playwrights Horizons and at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts in Berlin. In 2020 he also won the Radio Drama Contest at the Czech National Radio. While not working he enjoys travelling, especially to South and North America. Rather than being Czech he considers himself to be a European or a cosmopolitan.
ELLIS STUMP is an NYC-based Columbia University Playwriting MFA, youth theatre educator, and crafter of collaborative, imagination storytellings inspired by catharsis and growth. Along with the Vaclav Havel Library Foundation’s playwriting competition, her original full-lengths have earned worldwide awards, productions, residencies, and publications by: Wallace Stegner House (SK, Canada), Athena Project, NY Theater Festival, The Main International Theatre Festival, Over Due Theatre Company, Penn State, The State Theatre, Iowa State University, and more. She graduated Penn State Honors College May 2019 with influential degrees in Film, Clinical Psychology, Gender Studies, International Studies, and English, and cherishes visual art, yoga, cheap global travel, and toast. Instagram/Twitter: @ellis_liketheisland
PATRICE MILLER is a director, choreographer and performance artist best known for their interdisciplinary performance making. Recently directed the premieres of This Joint is Jumpin featuring Lillias White (The Other Palace, London), Brian Boone’s The Testament of Josh: A Flesh and Blood Musical, James Judd’s Funny Stories (Crown & Anchor, Provincetown), In the Pines (AUSTRAL Buenos Aires, Argentina). Noted downtown credits: Mad Jenny’s Love und Greed, Sarah Jane Johnson’s Devil in the Box, Maggie Cino's Decompression, Marion Fayolle’s In Pieces, Evelyn Piper’s Bunny Lake is Missing. Artistic Associate of Untitled Theater Company #61: Paul Auster’s City of Glass, Vaclav Havel’s The Pig … , Money Lab. Installation/performance art work includes work for The Brooklyn Museum, Prelude/CUNY Grad Center, SUNY Stonybrook; Steve Valk & Michael Klein’s Excavation: Martha Graham Company (COIL); Grace Exhibition Space, Postmasters Gallery, NYLA, Performa, NYC Fashionweek. Patrice frequently guest curates throughout downtown NYC and is also an enthusiastic cat lady and lazy witch.
JOHN AMIR Past credits include A... Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again (The Public - Under The Radar), The Skin Of Our Teeth (Theatre for a New Audience), Fruit of The Loom: Woom To Toom (Upright Citizens Brigade, Brooklyn Comedy Collective), The Testament of Josh, ReFuse, Harakiri Kane, Cant, Julius Caesar, Nord Hausen Fly Robot, and My First Autograce Homeography (The Brick). You can currently catch him as John B. in Gemini CollisionWorks’ sci-fi sitcom audio drama, Life With Althaar, available on all podcast platforms.
YAEL HASKAL is a playwright and performer based in New York. She is a member of the New York Neo-Futurists and a 2020 Young Playwright in Residence at the Echo Theater Company (LA). Recent performance credits include Polyxena in The Trojan Women (La MaMa, dir. Andrei Serban) and Scipio in Caligula (New Ohio, dir. Dennis Yueh-Yeh Li). Her writing has been performed at La MaMa, Dixon Place, IRT, The Tank, the Kraine, Cherry Picking (NYC); Ivoryton Playhouse, Warner Theatre (CT); Theatre Simpson (IN); InspiraTO Festival (Toronto); and other theaters nationally. Yael is the creator of the webseries "Fun Moms.” www.yaelhaskal.com.
BOB LAINE is a poet, playwright and Independent Theater Award winning actor. Before the pandemic he could be seen monthly in the Roger Nassar's long running late night hit soap opera for the stage It's Getting Tired Mildred. He hopes to bring his new one man show Inventions to the stage in late 2021.
ANN MARIE YOO is a native New Yorker and a walking stereotype: Carnegie Hall performing, Ivy League engineering, figure skating Korean American. She loves to perform, have fun and be stupid! Which is a far cry from her painfully shy and chubby childhood self. During this pandemic she and her husband love to stuff their faces with good (and bad) food while watching good (and bad) TV. Credits include Drs. Jane & Alexander with UTC61, Edgar Allan Poe at St. Luke’s Theatre, AzN PoP! at Joe’s Pub (theater); FOX's Gotham, FOX’s NFL Sunday with Rob Riggle, TBS’s Full Frontal with Samantha Bee (TV); Comedy Central, Betches, Scary Mommy, Above Average (web). @annmarieyoo
ABOUT THE 2021 SPRING WEEKEND: CONCERNING HUMAN IDENTITY
The 2021 Spring Weekend: Concerning Human Identity is organized by the Vaclav Havel Library Foundation (VHLF) and Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association (BBLA) in partnership with the Polish Cultural Institute New York and Consulate General of Slovakia in New York. Spring Weekend is part of the annual Rehearsal for Truth Theater Festival honoring the playwright and human rights activist Vaclav Havel. It showcases contemporary European plays through stage readings performed and directed by New York City–based actors and directors.
The 2021 program has been conceived in consultation with Attila Szabo, Deputy Director, Hungarian Theatre Museum and Institute; Vladislava Fekete, Director, Theatre Institute in Bratislava; Zuzana Ulicianska, Chair of the Slovak Center – International Association of Theatre Critics; Tomek Smolarski, Performing Arts Programming, Polish Cultural Institute New York; and Martina Peckova-Cerna, Head of International Cooperation Department, Arts and Theatre Institute in Prague.
The program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and Council Member Ben Kallos. Promotion partners include the Czech Center New York, GOH Productions/Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theatre, and PACE.V4 (Performing Arts Central Europe).