8 Tens @ Eight Short Play Festival

Celebrating 20 Years With 16 Award-Winning Works

SANTA CRUZ — Santa Cruz County Actors’ Theatre is proud to present the 20th Annual 8 Tens @ Eight Short Play Festival, January 9 through February 8, 2015, at the Center Street Theater in downtown Santa Cruz.

The annual ten-minute play festival is one of the most anticipated and popular events of the theatre season in Santa Cruz. To celebrate their 20th Anniversary, Actors’ Theatre is offering twice the fun this season, with sixteen award-winning plays from their national playwriting contest, showing in repertoire over the five-week festival.

Every summer Actors’ Theatre holds a national playwriting contest, judged by a select group of local writers and directors. The winning plays are then produced into full productions for the January Festival. The contest has become nationally renowned, with over 200 entrees this year from across the country and internationally, some from as far way as South Korea and England.

“Over the years we have received plays from writers all over the world,” says Artistic Director and Festival founder Wilma Marcus Chandler. “The 8 Tens @ Eight has become known as the premiere ten-minute play festival on the West Coast. We have proudly kept in touch with many of our winning playwrights and seen them go on to have plays produced in larger venues, knowing it all started for them here in Santa Cruz.”

In past seasons Actors’ Theatre produced staged readings of the contests’ runners-up, titled Best of the Rest, which followed the Festival. Due to popular demand, this season audiences will see the Best of The Rest transformed into an additional evening of fully produced short plays, with the area’s top directors, actors, designers and stage crew recruited to produce the new Festival format. This year’s sixteen award-winning plays will be presented as an “A” and “B” night; eight ten-minute plays on each night, in rotation. A special $40 ticket package is available to see any “A” and “B” showing throughout the run of the Festival.

Over its 20 years the Festival has seen some difficult times, like so many theatre companies as of late. In 2011, when the Festival was in its 16th year, they almost closed their doors permanently. But it was the fortitude and commitment of Actors’ Theatre president Bonnie Ronzio that kept the beloved Festival going.

“Due to financial reasons, Actors’ Theatre left the Art Center as its resident home,” reflects Ronzio. “It seemed a shame to discontinue the Festival as it had become a community favorite and was very dear to my heart, and to so many others. Four years later, here we are—celebrating our 20th anniversary. It gives all of us at Actors’ Theatre such joy and satisfaction that we have endured, and that the community supports the festival with sold-out performances every year.”

“The 20th anniversary will be our biggest season ever,” adds Chandler, “as we present an extravaganza of both comedy and drama, both traditional and avant garde, in a wide variety of short plays designed to give audiences two distinct and diverse evenings of fine performances.”

Actors’ Theatre presents 8 Tens @ Eight Short Play Festival January 9 – February 8, 2015 Wednesday – Saturdays @ 8 PM | Saturday and Sunday Matinees @ 3 PM Center Street Theater, 1001 Center Street, Downtown Santa Cruz.

Please visit www.sccat.org for a full calendar of “A” and “B” night performances.
Tickets: $25 General | $22 Senior/Student | $40 Package for any two-nights www.brownpapertickets.com or 800-838-3006 for 2-night package special.

•••

Founded in 1985, Actors’ Theatre is a production company producing the 8 Tens @ Eight Producer/President: Bonnie Ronzio. Artistic Director: Wilma Marcus Chandler. Website: www.sccat.org.