Two winners of the Best Mini-Drama Student Contest capture the devastating effects of our inability to communicate with one another. Both one-act plays offer fresh perspectives on alienation underscored by scathing commentary on systems designed to keep people compliant.
The story of Abigail Henkin’s Personal Speaker (2020) follows Leona, a copywriter at a search engine optimization company who is swept up in her coworkers’ excitement about a new technology that promises users an improvement in their love life and job performance. Yet as the technology’s grip on the office tightens, miscommunication reigns, spurring Leona and her coworkers to recover their voices and themselves.
In Cole Kordus’s Connection/less (2020), strangers aboard a halted subway train are obliged to turn off their phones and start communicating with each other. With naturally flowing language and dexterously constructed scenes, the author applies the themes from Vaclav Havel’s plays to depict the estrangement of people in our current reality.
Personal Speaker (2020). Playwright: Abigail Henkin. Director: Celia Krefter. Cast: Marie-Josee Bourelly (Connie, Saleswoman), Surya Buddharaju (Mr. Marker), Emefa Dzodzomenyo (Leona), Geo Kester (Beck), Joel Meyers (Ashton).
Connection/less (2020). Playwright: Cole Kordus. Director: Celia Krefter. Cast: Marie-Josee Bourelly (Sonya), Emefa Dzodzomenyo (Cere), Surya Buddharaju (Anthony), Joel Meyers (Gus).
Sound Designer: Camilla Cox. Costume Designer: Kate Purdum.
The presented plays are the winners of the 2020 Best Mini-Drama Student Contest, organized annually by the Vaclav Havel Library Foundation in partnership with the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, Barnard College, Columbia University, and Janacek Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Brno. For this round, contestants were invited to write mini-dramas based on Vaclav Havel’s The Memorandum, which opened for American audiences at the Public Theater in New York in 1968. In this play, a new language designed with the apparent goal of streamlining communication actually makes it harder for people to understand one another.
The plays Personal Speaker and Connection/less are available in our online store. By purchasing one of the short, witty scripts, you will contribute to the continuation of life-changing opportunities for creative talents.
The video of livestreamed stage reading is on the Vaclav Havel Library Foundation Facebook page.
Free and open to the public. Suggested donation $10. RSVP through Eventbrite is required.
Due to COVID-19 restrictions for indoor events, seating capacity is limited and on first-come first-served basis. Reservations must be made in advance. Wearing a face mask is required. No tickets will be available at the door, and anyone who has not received pre-event confirmation will be turned away. Read about Festival Safety Protocol.
ABIGAIL HENKIN is a playwright, a screenwriter, a director, and a Chicago native. She recently graduated from the University of Chicago where she studied Theater and Cinema. Her one-act play Decision Day was previously produced as part of the 31st Pegasus Young Playwrights Festival. She has worked at various theater and film companies, including the Court Theatre, Silk Mass, Slated, and Full Spectrum Features. She currently has a film in development. Her work frequently explores adaptation, investigates tensions between technology and the body, particularly for women, and satirizes social pressures. She loves science fiction, comedy, and challenging female characters.
COLE KORDUS, a storyteller at heart, Cole has been writing long and short form fiction since he was eleven years old. He grew up in rural North Carolina, where writing quickly became his favorite form of escapism. Self-publishing his first novel at the age of fourteen, Cole has several more novels in the works and has published several short stories through online magazines. While attending University, he studied Theatre, Russian Language & Culture, and Film, all the while writing, directing, and editing his own short films, plays, and other works, many of which saw production. With interests in politics, social trends, science fiction, and fantasy, Cole tries to imbue this in his works; creating character-focused stories that attempt to eschew stereotypes and traditional narratives that are told.
CELIA KREFTER is a director, choreographer, actor, and lighting designer who makes theatre to celebrate life. She strives to create art that provides healing, breaks down binaries, and defies hierarchies. As a dual-citizen of the US and EU, she is especially invested in theatre that holds international perspectives. Celia is a rising senior at Columbia University, where she studies theater with a directing concentration. She has worked extensively with the Barnard College Theatre Department, as well as The Tank, Columbia Musical Theatre Society, King’s Crown Shakespeare Troupe, Columbia University Players, and Cotuit Center for the Arts.
MARIE-JOSEE BOURELLY is an undergraduate student at Columbia University with the intended major of Anthropology. Past acting credits include Lady Anne in Richard III at Interlochen’s Shakespeare Festival, Nora Morton in Brighton Beach Memoirs at Theatre J, and Fran in Nerdy Nate and the Anti-Bullying Quest at The Kennedy Center. She is a proud YoungArts Winner in Theater and a recipient of the Young Artist Award from Interlochen Arts Academy.
SURYA BUDDHARAJU is a rising junior at Columbia studying history and theatre. He has played Tiresias in The Bacchae 2.1 (King’s Crown Shakespeare Troupe) and the Forest Ranger in On Loop (Barnard Theatre Department). He also participated in a staged reading of Dead Bird Play (Omaha Community Playhouse).
EMEFA DZODZOMENYO (she/her) is a rising junior at Columbia University. She started acting her sophomore year of high school and hasn't looked back. Outside of acting, Angelica loves blogging, cooking, and cycling.
GEO KESTER (they/them) is an actor, dancer, and born and raised New Yorker. They are about to graduate from the NYU Tisch School of the Arts with a BFA in Drama, having studied at the Experimental Theatre Wing and the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute. Recent favorite theatre credits include What of the Night? and ESCAPE (cold feet). When they are not acting, you can find them tutoring in math, knitting, or hanging out with their two pet cats and pet lizard.
JOEL MEYERS is a New York-based, Seattle-native actor and recent graduate of Columbia University where he received his bachelor’s degree in Theatre and Astrophysics. Recent Columbia/Barnard credits include Stupid F*cking Bird, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet, and Godspell. Film/TV: Three Busy Debras (Adult Swim), UFO Club (upcoming). Throughout June he can be seen in the special online performance of Bard Overboard at The Space UK and, distancing guidelines permitting, live at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this August.
CAMILLA COX is a theatre student with a forthcoming dramaturgy thesis at Columbia University. Credits include Stupid F*cking Bird (Barnard Theatre, Assistant Director), Disco Pigs (Barnard Theatre, Assistant Stage Manager), Fortitude (Columbia University Players, Producer), and Matilda (The Acting Studio, Director).
KATE PURDUM is a rising senior at Barnard College where she will complete a B.A. in Theatre and History. She is a director, writer, dramaturg and designer passionate about the intersection of past, present, and future made possible by theatre. Recent Barnard credits include: Director, RIP Andy Cohen (reading, 2021); Dramaturg, On Loop (2021); Costume Designer, CloudMelt (2021); Stage Manager, Disco Pigs (2020). Next Spring, she will complete her senior thesis in directing with a production of Young Jean Lee’s The Appeal.
ABOUT THE 2021 REHEARSAL FOR TRUTH THEATER FESTIVAL
The 2021 Rehearsal for Truth Theater Festival honoring Vaclav Havel is organized by the Vaclav Havel Library Foundation and Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association. The program is co-produced by the Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theatre, GOH Productions, Czech Center New York, Polish Cultural Institute New York, One-Eighth/Daniel Irizarry Theater, Slovak Consulate General in New York, Palissimo Company, and Arts and Theatre Institute in Prague, Czech Republic.
The 2021 Rehearsal for Truth Theater Festival 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. Additional support is by the Consulate General of the Czech Republic in New York, Ceskoslovenska obchodni banka – Member of the KBC Group, PACE.V4 – Performing Arts Central Europe, Visegrad Countries Focus, and International Visegrad Fund.