As If Wants Your Cakes. Live Girls! Wants Your Cupcakes.
An up-and-coming Kenmore theatre company wants your cake recipes ahead of its upcoming production of The Cake; and the long-running Cupcake Reading Series wants your new play scripts. Both have deadlines next weekend.
Bakers: Show Us Your Cakes
Lights pop to include a bakery. … Breathe in. Do it. Let yourself go there, fatty, don’t hold back.
— Stage directions from Bekah Brunstetter’s The Cake
It’s not terribly rare that a bit of choice dialogue in a well-written play sends me into hearty laughter. It’s practically unheard of, however, for the stage directions in a script to do so.
It speaks to the keen writing in Bekah Brunstetter’s play, The Cake, which the Kenmore-based As If Theatre Company selected for its next production, its third full-length.
Meticulous cake-maker Della struggles to fit her perception of the girl she’s always known with her conceptions of morality and sexual orientation. In other words, how should she feel when discovering her best friend’s daughter, now all grown up, is marrying a woman? And, more pressingly, how should she respond when she’s asked to make the wedding cake?
The topic is politically charged, but The Cake has such a sweet script that this one should go down easy — even if there’s plenty to chew on.
As If’s Artistic Director, Cindy Giese French, who’s directing the play, discussed the company’s vision for its next mainstage production — “well-rounded characters, juicy dialogue, an intelligent story, a beautiful blend of comedy and tragedy” — and why The Cake rose to the top.
The Cake is smart and loving and a bit raunchy. The scenario presented is one with which most people can identify – meaning, what happens when someone you love disagrees with the way you live your life? Can you continue to love them and/or are there certain boundaries you can’t cross? It’s big, meaty stuff here. … Laughs and shocks that you won’t find in a lot of community theatre (hence the age warning in our show). Bekah Brunstetter doesn’t dumb down any of these people; the arguments they present are valid to them. And the ending isn’t wrapped all up in a nice, little bow.
As If’s production opens March 19. Before that, the company invites people to submit their own cake recipes, for a collection they’re putting together in conjunction with the show. The deadline is this Friday, February 28. Find submission details here (links to company’s Facebook post).
Recipes are great and all, but what about the real stuff? French assuages any concerns about that one: “Oh, and there’s definitely cake.” That’s a relief.
The Cake runs 3/19 through 4/5 at the Kenmore Community Club. Tickets are $25, here.
Read NWT’s coverage of past productions here and here.
Playwrights: Show Us Your Cupcakes
For years, Live Girls! Theater has held readings of new plays, called the Cupcake Reading Series, that are accompanied by (actual) cupcakes that audience members are welcome to graze on. Those favoring a sweet combination of words and icing should go check the readings out in June, after Live Girls! announces the dates and details.
In the meantime, the company, led by Producing Artistic Director Meghan Arnette, is looking for “full-length and substantial one-act plays” that are “written by womxn, female-identifying, femmes, and non-binary individuals.” The submission deadline is this Sunday, March 1.
Read more about the series and submissions here.
Chase D. Anderson is Editor & Producer of NWTheatre.org.