The Humana Festival of New American Plays celebrates its 30th anniversary when the event kicks off this month. Collectively, the lineup of six full-length plays (plus a dramatic anthology and a bill of three shorts) crosses gender and political lines with dramas, comedies and satires. In the past three decades the festival has become nationally known as a channel for debuting full-length and one-act plays from emerging and established playwrights. Three Humana Festival entries have won Pulitzer Prizes, including The Gin Game (which returned to Actors Theatre of Louisville during the 2004-05 season) and six have garnered the American Theatre Critics Award. More than 300 plays by 206 playwrights have been produced through the festival, significantly expanding the American theatrical canon.
This year, several productions are bound for future stage-life after the festival goes dark in early April, including the Wilde-esque comedy Act a Lady, an examination of small-town life a la Our Town. The manly men of a Midwest burg stage a play to raise money for the Elks in "fancy-type, women-type clothes." This prompts the townspeople’s to ask: What happens when the men wearing the pants in the family start wearing skirts? Tickets for Humana Festival productions are $19-$50. Times vary. Actors Theatre of Louisville, 316 W. Main St. 584-1205. www.actorstheatre.org.
