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Cascade’s student playwrights feature their 10-minute plays in noted theatre festival

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Six original plays written and directed by PCC students will take center stage this month during one of Portland’s best-known theatre festivals.luis.

“Beautifully Ugly,” by Tayde Ramirez; “Last Call,” by Richard Sangeleer; “Sage,” by John Pfeil; “5K,” by J.J. Lostica; “Barcodes,” by Garrett DeRose and David Traynor; and “Enough Wine to Kill a Horse,” by Matt Sorensen and Brad Sosinski will premier as part of the 2018 Fertile Ground Festival of New Work. Showings are slated for 7:30 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 25, in the Moriarty Auditorium, Cascade Campus. Performances are free and open to the public.

The plays were written in the “Creative Writing: Scriptwriting” classes and celebrated in a handbook of 10-minute student plays produced during the summer 2017.

“Students are drawn to the power and compression of the 10-minute form,” said Gail Jeidy, a scriptwriting instructor with PCC and creative advisor to the production.

The diverse works pose questions of sexuality (“Enough Wine to Kill a Horse”) and coming to terms with family in the age of artificial intelligence (“Sage”). One showcases the dialogue between two runners in the 10 minutes before a championship race (“5K”); and another explores what happens when an everyday shopper meets a sentient self-check-out station (“Barcodes”). There’s a complete telenovela in under 10 minutes (“Beautifully Ugly”), and a tortured take on the writing process (“Last Call”).

“The students have gone above and beyond to make this event happen,” added Jeidy.