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Montana Playwrights Network announces Premier Project plays

| October 10, 2019 10:05 AM

Three theater companies in Montana have made their selections of original plays written by Montana playwrights and will offer productions of their selected plays in October and November 2019, and January/February 2020.

Coming up in Havre at the Montana Actors Theatre: October 11 to 13, and Oct. 17 to 19: “The Vorbit Incident” by Missoula playwright Jay Kettering. Visit www.mtactors.com. for tickets and more information:

Directed by Andi Daniel, “The Vorbit Incident “ is an original comedy set in a missile silo outside Great Falls, and follows rookie missileer, Lieutenant Snick Vorbit, who doesn’t have much to do at his job that isn’t routine. Today, however, turns out to be anything but. He must decide whether to follow orders and launch his flight of 10 nuclear missiles or trust the advice of his spiritual mentor, who may or may not be a hallucination. With the fate of the world hanging in the balance, he looks to the sky for answers.

The Missoula performance is produced by the Downtown Dance Collective and features Montana playwright Leah Joki’s original comedy, “The Poppovichs” Nov. 14 to 16, and Nov. 21 to 23, 2019. For tickets and more information, visit www.ddcmontana.com, or call 406-360-8763.

“I have always thought that anyone who lives past the age of 50 years old is on borrowed time. The herd simply starts getting picked off,” Joki said. “I started to notice in my own family that the dynamics were always up for grabs and you couldn’t predict the outcomes. Although this is not completely autobiographical, all of these characters are members of my family. All of these incidents happened to them, or someone we knew.”

The final production featured in MPN’s 2019 Montana Premiere Project will be in Helena at the new Helena Avenue Theatre. For more information or tickets, call or text 406-235-0353. Titled “Plumb Local,” the production features three one-act plays based in Montana’s culture, and also includes original music performed by Helena musician, Steven Gores. Dates are Jan. 31, Feb.1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 2020.

“Plumb Local” includes Cynthia Webb’s “Driver’s Ed,” a comedy that explores a mother’s discomfort in answering questions about sex with her daughter. Also featured is Jay Kettering’s “Flotsam, Jetsam, & Bill.” “Bill’s plan is simple: catch one more beautiful trout, then blow his brains out. But a young stranger interrupts his plan, and when a pair of mysterious creatures emerges from the river, Bill begins to look at his life, and time, in a whole new way.” The final original one-act is Pamela Mencher’s “Montana Fish Story,” which examines what might happen when local catch-and-eat fishermen collide with a guided, trophy fish seeker from out-of-state.

The Montana Playwrights Network (MPN) is a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organization incorporated in Montana. MPN was formed to provide a forum focusing on story as expressed through a variety of formats, including but not limited to playwriting, storytelling, poetry, history, non-fiction, essays and memoirs. For more information visit www.montanaplaywrights.org or call Mencher at 406-235-0353 or montanaplaywrights@gmail.com