25 Hour Theater Festival

25 HOURS
6 PLAYWRIGHTS
A HATFUL OF ACTORS

AND ONE NIGHT OF THEATER MADNESS!

JOIN THE FUN NOVEMBER 3 at 6 and 8 PM at LAVA Center, Greenfield

On Saturday afternoon, November 2, a group of playwrights will receive a prompt, pick some actors out of a hat, and spend the next 25 hours writing brand new plays and bringing them to performance. Featuring local and regional playwrights: Henry Balzarini, Nina Gross, Silvia Kaplan, Jan Maher, Jonathan Mirin, and Brian Rust.

It’s wild, wacky and fun! Most of all, it’s super creative!

Come out to LAVA Center, 324 Main Street in Greenfield the evening of Sunday, November 3 for two showings of the work of these amazing artists!

6pm: Masks Required
8pm: Masks Optional

$10–20 suggested donation

This event is produced by Christine Benvenuto and made possible by a grant from the Greenfield Cultural Council.

about the playwrights:

Henry Balzarini is a former teacher of English and a writer of works in storage. He has created and helped others create in-the-moment short improv plays in various and sundry venues over the years in Boston, Vermont, Western Massachusetts and LAVA.

Nina Gross is a musician and a writer of poetry, prose, dialogue and song. Her writing has been included in anthologies and presentations of the Straw Dog Writer’s Guild, Moonstone Arts Center, Cutthroat Journal, Suzuki World Magazine, the Montague Reporter and Local Access to Valley Arts. She is a Yale graduate with degrees in anthropology and Afro-American Studies. Her play, Inheritance, is ready for production. She practices aikido and loves to dance.

Silvia Kaplan’s interests focus on poetry, play writing, story writing, ceramic sculpture, paper mache sculpture, and cooking. Her interest in writing began earlier in life, inspired by her father, a well known poet from Argentina. Silvia also teaches Spanish, and wandered in many parts of the world, until establishing herself in this country. She loves all animals, insects, and nature. Especially, she loves cats.

Jan Maher writes novels, short stories, plays, poems, and to-do lists. She is a co-coordinator of The LAVA Center in Greenfield, MA.

Jonathan Mirin is an internationally produced playwright, performer and Artistic Director of Charlemont’s Piti Theatre Co. and Bloom Center for Arts & Ecology. He wrote and performed in his award-winning first film “Canary in a Gold Mine” during the pandemic which went viral during its online world premiere at the Ko Festival of Performance. He also enjoys directing teen and children’s theater programs in Greenfield and Shelburne Falls. ptco.org

Brian Rust is an actor, clown and writer who was most recently on stage this summer in the Post-Meridian Radio Players’s live audio production of ‘The Thin Man.’ He would like to thank Christine for this opportunity, and his thermos of Mountain Dew mixed with Red Bull for making this script possible.