Taipei Players returns to the stage on Sunday after two successful runs earlier this summer. The nascent expat theater troupe will perform two shows — each featuring five short performance pieces, or “shorts” — at APA Studios in Ximending (西門町).
“Doing shorts encourages more people to come out because there is more variety in the works presented,” said Mandy Roveda, Taipei Players’ co-founder and director of three of this weekend’s five works. “Also, people have different schedules. It’s easier to schedule more people in shorter spurts of time.”
Scheduling rehearsal time, however, is far from the troupe’s only concern. Bliss, the original venue planned for An Evening of Shorts II, closed down last month, leaving Taipei Players scrambling for a new location. They eventually settled on APA Studios, a space that they could rent out at the last minute while remaining within their limited budget.
“But we had to borrow chairs [for the audience to sit on] from a temple,” joked the troupe’s other co-founder, Sarah Zittrer.
Taipei Players formed late last year in response to the lack of English-language theater in Taipei. It was also an opportunity for Zittrer and Roveda, both acting school graduates, to do what they love most.
“We copied the idea ... from Seoul Players,” Roveda said, referring to a similar theater cooperative in South Korea that she was part of before moving to Taiwan last year. “They’ve been around for 10 years or so. I thought that it was so amazing that there is a constant theater group ... and we thought, hey, we can do that here,” she said.
As with previous Taipei Players’ performances, Sunday’s lineup is heavy on comedy. Roveda will direct Katie Partlow, Zittrer and Daniel Munns in Mary Gallagher’s humorous Perfect, the story of two women discussing the flaws of the perfect man.
“My boyfriend,” said Roveda, when asked to describe her perfect man.
Audience members can expect the unexpected in Art Control, a comedy about a hungry woman’s attempts to acquire vinaigrette for her salad, written by Carter W. Lewis and directed by Roveda
Brandon Thompson, meanwhile, will direct two shorts written by Sam Sheppard. Hero in His Kitchen is a story about friendship while Repeat wittily examines the choices people make in their lives and the consequences that often ensue. Both works feature Thompson and Munns.
The evening ends with Claire, a monologue written by John Kuntz and performed by Klaire Wu (吳青樺). This closing short examines an actress’ inability to distinguish between illusion and reality.
With this being the third installment of performances by Taipei Players, I asked Roveda and Zittrer what the future holds.
“We are going to do longer productions at the end of the year,” Zittrer said. “In the new year we will start on a full-length show. It’s gonna be a big one,” Roveda added.
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