The annual Gi60: International One-Minute Play Festival, hosted by Brooklyn College’s Department of Theater, Screaming Media Productions, and Dean Clough Mills in the United Kingdom, celebrated its 10-year anniversary by staging 60 of its best short plays from years past, in addition to 100 new and original plays. Traditionally held in the New Workshop Theater, on the lower level of Whitman Theater, this live international theater festival has produced 1,000 plays over the last 10 years. “Gi60 is the world’s first international downloadable theatre festival, featuring a global community of playwrights and artists from socially and culturally diverse backgrounds,” said Theater Professor Rose Bonczek, who directs the plays and coordinates the production. “Presenting a diversity of themes, styles, and characters, the festival offers an unparalleled variety of writing by authors from across the world and our audiences explore a breadth and range of the human experience that is unique to this festival,” she added. From an annual submission pool of more than 600 plays, this year’s selection included playwrights from Australia, Italy, Los Angeles, and Boston. Over three days, the one-minute plays were brought to life by an ensemble cast of theater students, alumni, and professional guest artists. Brooklyn College, along with Dean Clough Mills, a UK-based business community that includes arts programming, simultaneously staged the new plays, along with the best plays from previous productions. “Each year the festival weaves together plays to form a single global story,” Bonczek said. “The live streaming of the event allows us to share them beyond the walls of the New Workshop Theater so tens of thousands can see and hear them. In that sense, we create one global ensemble.” The festival raised nearly $3,500 for a theater student scholarship. The festival was attended by playwrights from as far away as Toronto, Canada, and was live streamed from California to England. All plays were recorded and will be posted in late August on YouTube and linked through www.gi60.blogspot.com
