Young Lansing area artists shine on LCC, Riverwalk stages with new works

This summer, new works are popping up on downtown stages.

At Lansing Community College, they will be holding a 10-Minute Play Festival through July 28. It’s a festival featuring six original scrips, all of them written by LCC students and directed by LCC theater alumni.

The works were developed during the spring semester in a class taught by Andrew Callis and Blake Bowen. The class provided opportunity to learn about script and character development and the collaboration process needed to present original work.

The Festival’s plays include “The Egg” by Ignatius Arleth, “Delivery Dilemmas” by Kylie Fowler, “Gone West” by Daisy McGuire, “The Right Way” by Leiana Mireles, “Hot Sauce in Da Fridge” by Chandler Donelson and “Hidden Riches, Hidden Lies” by Amelia West.

The directors are Samantha Hall-Leonhardt, Stefan Lee, Doak Bloss, Mak and Kallie Marrison, Molly Sullivan and Iris Raine.

All performances are free and take place at 7 p.m. on the LCC Outdoor Amphitheater. If the weather is bad, the festival will move to Dart Auditorium.

Meanwhile, over at Riverwalk, they are getting ready to present the works of this year’s winners of Emerging Playwrights , a playwriting competition open to high school students in Ingham, Eaton and Clinton counties.

The presentation of these new works will take place at 7 p.m. Aug. 3 in Riverwalk’s Black Box stage.

Students submitted short one-act plays and the winners were announced in June. Each of the five playwrights wins a $1,000 prize.

This year’s winners are (the first two are getting full productions, the rest staged readings):

• “Roses are Red,” by Paulina River, senior, Dewitt High School; Synopsis: What if a color were to disappear? How would that affect other colors?
• “Butterfly Grief,” by Olivia Quiroga, senior, Holt High School (Quiroga was also a winner of the 2023 contest); Synopsis: Daphne’s father left the family destitute. Her brother has struggled to support the family, allowing Daphne to live a carefree life until he is seriously injured in a car crash.
• “Buddy’s Pizza,” by Evan Bywater, senior, Lansing Eastern High School; Synopsis: Jody’s first day at the pizza parlor is busy with strange orders and unusual customers.
• “Strangers Like Us,” by Ella Reid, senior, Dewitt High School; Synopsis: Henry’s marriage is falling apart. He asks his wife to go to the art gallery as a date night where they encounter a discontented artist.
• “Women at Housework,” by Abigail Triantaflos, junior, Ovid-Elsie High School; Synopsis: Alice worked in a factory in WWI until her husband returned home in 1920. She struggles with how her life has changed.

​Encore!

• All-of-us Express Children’s Theatre’s summer show celebrates life in the sea. They’ll be presenting “SpongeBob, the Musical” on July 26-28 and Aug. 2-4 at the Hannah Community Center in East Lansing. Show times are 7 p.m. Fridays and 3 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays.

This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Young Lansing area artists shine on LCC, Riverwalk stages with new works