Brattleboro Reformer

Brattleboro Reformer

  • Joined: June 18, 2023
  • Articles: 283

Guilford Center Stage’s 2026 season includes search for short plays

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GUILFORD — Guilford Center Stage enters its second decade with the traditional spring and fall productions at Broad Brook Community Center.The 2026 season opens the first weekend in May with “Shorts,” a program of small plays. Stage manager is Sue Kelly. Several works by regional playwrights are already in the lineup, and the group still welcomes script submissions by a Jan. 23 deadline. Plays of about 8-10 pages are ideal, and a maximum of 12 minutes running time is suggested. Authors may submit pdf or word documents to producer Don McLean at don.inscape@gmail. com (or use the address to arrange to deliver a hard copy.)Open auditions for actors for “Shorts” will be held in two sessions: Thursday, Feb. 5 , from 5 to 7 p.m., and Saturday, Feb. 7, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. No appointment is needed. Auditioners may come unprepared, or have a short monologue ready, and scenes from the short plays will be available for an impromptu reading. Auditions take place in the fully accessible upstairs theater room of the Broad Brook Community Center at 3940 Guilford Center Road.Also, Center Stage is welcoming possible tech people, who either have, or want to learn, stage lighting and sound skills. Those interested may use the e-address to contact the group, or show up at the auditions.The season concludes on the first weekend in October. Guilford playwright Michael Nethercott returns to Center Stage with a new full-length play, which blends the human experience with the history of a small town... one Guilford, Vermont.Auditions for this play will be Thursday, July 30, from 6 to 8 p.m., and Saturday, Aug. 1, from 2 to 4 p.m.The 2025 productions are Guilford Center Stage’s 16th and 17th, since its founding as the resident theater company at the BBCC in 2015. The group has made a mission of presenting the work of local and regional playwrights. Work by authors living elsewhere in Vermont have included plays by Dorothy Canfield Fisher and Sinclair Lewis. The rarely-performed play, "A Battle of Wits" (1916), brought together Guilford native (1850) Charles W. Henry with the scenic curtains and flats he painted in 1900 for the stage at the Community Center. Current Guilford playwright Verandah Porche has been featured. The theater group also likes the occasional venture into the mainstream, with shows such as last year’s Love Letters and the 2023 production of Wilder’s Our Town. This past fall, Vermont playwright/director Miles Ledoux brought a pair of Agatha Christie mysteries to the stage.Again, contact the group at don.inscape@gmail.com.