nuVoices Festival features familiar faces 

Are all the new voices that Actor's Theatre of Charlotte is presenting at its third nuVoices Festival truly new playwrights venturing forth with their first plays? Not at all. In the case of the four playwrights coming to town this week's festivities, Jan. 15-18, these are experienced hands bringing us works that have never been fully produced before. But given their track record — and the festival's — at least one of their new scripts is ready for primetime.

A panel of judges, along with audience enthusiasts who see all four staged readings, will decide which of the four entries gets that primetime here in Charlotte. All of the final four are presented simply in script-in-hand productions after a few scant rehearsals, and the winner will be awarded with a fully-staged production next season.

For the first time in nuVoices history, the festival will feature a defending champion. Diana Grisanti won top honors with River City at the 2013 read-off, and a full production of the piece, taking us back to the 1968 civil rights unrest in Louisville, opened the current season back in September.

The festival has turned Grisanti's play writing career around. "Before finding out about nuVoices last year, I'd had a couple of workshops of River City, but I was pretty much ready to put the play in the proverbial drawer," she recalls. "Getting to workshop the play in Charlotte, though, completely rejuvenated me — and by extension, the play."

Involvement with Actor's Theatre intensified when Grisanti's script took top honors, assuring her of a return trip to Charlotte. "Being in residence during rehearsals for River City was invaluable. I'll tinker till the cows come home, but there's nothing like a deadline — especially the ultimate deadline: opening night — to encourage tactical rewrites. Being in the room with the production team and having institutional support is such a gift for a playwright."

Grisanti's new script, INC, directed by Adam Burke, will be read Jan. 15 at 9 p.m. and repeated on Jan. 17 at 3 p.m. Like River City and some of the playwright's favorite theatre works — including Death of a Salesman, How I Learned to Drive, and Ruined — the new piece features a protagonist who must come to terms with her past.

"I love writing characters whose good intentions go wrong," Grisanti says. "These characters are relatable and detestable at once. Because everyone, at some point, will witness injustice. When we find ourselves in proximity to evil — personal or institutional or both – we have to ask the question: Will I take the leap from bystander to ally? And if I choose ally ... Will I eff it up?"

Of course, part of the fun in so many theatre works is the mess our heroes make of things. Grisanti rips her mess from real life to create her insomniac heroine, Ada, who takes a call from a stranger that turns her life upside down.

"I temped at a call center the summer after grad school. It was a strange place — lots of corporate speak and compulsory cheeriness. The whole experience — the people, the pace, the culture, the decorating scheme — it all had an Alice-in-Wonderland, down-the-rabbit-hole weirdness about it, so I tried to recreate that sort of strange, manic energy within the play."

Rich Orloff, whose Chatting With the Tea Party gets its debut on Jan. 16 at 6 p.m. and an encore on Jan. 17 at 9 p.m., has an older connection with Actor's Theatre than Grisanti — and more ancient ties to Charlotte. Veronica's Position, based on the tumultuous marriages of Liz Taylor to Richard Burton, was first read in 1995 at Charlotte Repertory Theatre's New Plays in America Festival. Soon after its boffo first impression, Orloff's script received a fully-staged Rep production, which the Loaf named Best Comedy of the year.

Actor's Theatre produced Orloff's hysterically harrowing initiation into corporate culture, Big Boys, in 2009. Another Orloff laugh riot, Someone's Knocking, got a production in 2002 by BareBones Theatre Group that the playwright himself found nifty, summed up by this reviewer as a "blizzard of hilarious one-liners."

Though a Broadway production would still be a breathtaking leap, getting a break or honing his skills aren't top priorities at this stage of Orloff's career. Nor is Charlotte the first place where Tea Party has been read.

"Readings are the modern equivalent of the old Broadway tradition of taking a show on the road to work out its kinks," Orloff declares. "During 2014, Chatting With the Tea Party had readings at a dozen theaters around the country, from New York and Miami to Phoenix and Chattanooga, and the play improved because of each reading. The good news is that Charlotte audiences will benefit from all this work, with a leaner and better crafted play than it was a year ago."

The script distills real talks that Orloff had during the heat of the 2012 presidential campaign with real Tea Party leaders – two dozen of them, extending over 63 hours. His protagonist's name is Rich and nothing the interviewees say is made-up. Orloff didn't dive into this project with a distaste for the Tea Partiers. "Who are these people?" is what Rich wants to know.

"When I became confronted with my own ignorance, and the ignorance of the people around me, I decided I wanted to make the Tea Party real," says Orloff. "Making the unknown real is one of my favorite activities as a playwright. If I followed the maxim 'write what you know,' my body of work wouldn't add up to a ten-minute play."

Tonya Bludsworth, who is directing Chatting with the Tea Party, was unfamiliar with Orloff's work before drawing her festival assignment. But she is definitely familiar with nuVoices, having served on the 2013 judging panel, and she quickly fell in love with Orloff's playscript.

"Politics are such a touchy subject for people," Bludsworth says, "and I love the balance that he finds and the way he uses humor to bridge the opposing sides. From my email exchanges with him, I've learned that he has a great sense of humor and is eager to make the piece as strong as it can possibly be. I'm looking forward to the collaboration."

For Bludsworth, who is also an accomplished playwright and actress, the collaborative process provides takeaways to be channeled into all of her theatrical endeavors. Working on Tea Party, she also has an eye out for the audience.

"The key takeaway is to present a thought-provoking piece that explores the inherent value of the common ground that unites us all once you manage to step beyond the political vitriol of the 'sound bite' rhetoric. By using comedy, Rich makes stepping across the political divide compelling and well worth our time."

Sean Pomposello is the first newcomer at this year's nuVoices, vying for top honors with The Woodpusher, kicking off the festival on Jan. 15 at 6 p.m. with a repeat reading on Jan. 17 at the same time. His protagonist, Archie, is a chess hustler newly arrived in New York with hopes of winning the World Chess Open. But Arch may have a couple of lessons coming from a bunch of homeless Bronx chess aces.

Rich Rubin rounds out the final four for 2015, serving up Caesar's Blood on Jan. 16 at 9 p.m. with a lunchtime reprise on Jan. 18 at 1 p.m. The main characters, gathered at the Winter Garden Theatre after the 1864 election, are the famed Booth brothers — Edwin, Junius and the infamous John Wilkes — giving a benefit performance of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. Can you imagine what they'll talk about?