Voices of BTM XVI: Abbey Fenbert

Abbey Fenbert

"I think all plays should be ten minutes long." 
- My Dad

The basic criterion by which I gauge all works of theater I create or consume is this: Am I bored now? A play can be long, it can be slow, it can be quiet or experimental or sad — but like hell does a play have the right to bore me. That’s offensive.

We’re a civilization of zero time. If my play’s dull, I’ve stolen your time and whittled ever so slightly at your will to live and now you’re counting the vowels in the program and the tree they killed to print it died for nothing and it’s all my fault.

High stakes yo.

And we who hoard time will be skeptical of theater in marathon form. But ask yourself the only question that matters: Are you bored yet? At a festival like BTM, you cannot be bored. Your dad cannot be bored. Every ten minutes, the world changes.

Winning weekend

Current MFAs (and friends!) display their awards on the terrace of the Kennedy Center last weekend. L-R: Lesley University's Cassie M. Seinuk, NYU's Nick Carr, and our own Abbey Fenbert and Stephanie Brownell. Not pictured: Steven Barkhimer and Michael Parsons. Read more.

Congratulations, all! (And thanks for the photo, Steph!)

Michael Kanin Playwriting Awards announced

KCACTF winners past and present at BPT for Peter M. Floyd's Absence. L-R: Stephanie Brownell, Abbey Fenbert, Peter M. Floyd, John Kuntz and Michael Parsons. (Thanks for the photo, Kate!)

Great KCACTF news for current MFA students and alums: Abbey Fenbert's Intentions was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for Comic Playwriting; Michael Parsons' Sumner Falls won the Rosa Parks Playwriting Award; and Steven Barkhimer's Windowmen was a co-recipient of the David Mark Cohen Award. Stephanie Brownell's Eskimo Pie is a national finalist for the KCACTF Ten-Minute Play Award. All four will travel to D.C. next month for the national festival.

Also: Lesley University's Cassie M. Seinuk (our friend and sometime stage manager!) was a co-winner of the KCACTF Latino Playwriting Award for her play From the Deep!

Congratulations all!!!

KCACTF Region 1 finalists announced

Work by three of our current MFA playwrights will advance to the national-level award competitions at the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF) in Washington, D.C.

Line Please by Will Carter and The Sand Beneath the City by Abbey Fenbert will compete for the John Cauble Award for Outstanding Short Play. Stephanie Brownell's Eskimo Pie and Abbey Fenbert's Geniuses are finalists for the KCACTF National Ten-Minute Play Award. Selected plays were announced at the KCACTF Region 1 competition at Cape Cod Community College earlier this month. The national festival will be held in April.

Congratulations, guys!

Thanks for stopping by the booth

If you've come to see our production of Steven Barkhimer's Windowmen (which runs one more weekend!), you've encountered these friendly faces in the ticket booth: current MFA playwrights Abbey Fenbert (L) and Stephanie Brownell (R). Last weekend they told me they plan to collaborate on a play about their box office experience...Window Women! (Or should it be Windowwomen?)

Good one, guys. Start writing!

Join us this Sunday to get in on The Ground Floor with BPT's current MFAs

Spring has sprung, and that means it's time to see what the current class of MFA playwrights has in the works. This Sunday, April 28, at 6 p.m., The Ground Floor New Play Series will feature 30-minute excerpts of five new plays-in-progress. The reading is free and open to the public, and will be right here at BPT. 

Details about the line-up of plays are below. Join us!


Tough Love by Danyele Brickner
Directed by Rebecca Bradshaw
Featuring Evelyn Howe
Lights up. Young woman enters dragging dead body. It's not what you think. Or is it? Danyele Brickner brings humor and grit to this unusual coming of age story.

Elephants by Will Carter
Directed by Jeremy Johnson
Featuring Bill Mootos
Paul Manley loves the wrong person. Every time. Will Carter investigates the troubling nature of obsession and devotion: In a world created by a loving and forgiving God, who is to blame when things go terribly wrong?