If you’re gearing up for an October-appropriate Netflix fright fest on the couch, step away from the smart TV; there’s a better option about to take the stage right in time for the spooky season on the North Fork. Northeast Stage‘s inaugural Playlets and Poetry Festival will feature an eclectic, engaging collection of 10 one-act plays and poems adapted for the stage, well suited to Halloween hijinks.
“I curated the festival because I wanted something different for the Halloween season,” says director Nick Auletti. “It’s a smorgasbord of tricks and treats. You have contemporary comedy, contemporary drama. I think there’s almost anything supernatural, and I think all ghosts and ghouls are covered as well. They’ve got werewolves, Dracula, goblins, you name it.”
The theatrical adventure began with a book called “13 Plays of the Supernatural” that Auletti discovered back in college while perusing the tomes of his alma mater’s library. He forgot to return it years ago, but he remained enamored with the short, one-act format of the entries.
Inspired by the stories and how they might unfold on the stage, he began with Thornton Wilder’s “Mozart and the Gray Steward,” a play about the great composer meeting death while writing his famously unfinished requiem mass. The other offerings are curated from the the Victorian period to contemporary playwrights like Tara Meddaugh’s “When Marshmallows Burn,” about a mother trying to raise her werewolf son. There is even an original work by Auletti about a vampire couple struggling with life in contemporary New York.
“All of these plays mean something in today’s society, even if it’s [set] back in the classical age, or in the Victorian era,” says Auletti. “I hope to bring them to a contemporary light in which my modernization makes an audience see that these are important pieces. It’s important to have fun as well.”
Rather than choosing works that were straight drama or comedy, Auletti tried to strike a balance, weaving elements of each throughout.
“I think there’s comedy and drama in every single story,” he says. “And if you can balance that, that’s where plays need to be. They need to make [you] laugh, and then bring you down to reality and bring you back up with the comedy. There’s always an ebb and flow. I never see a piece of theater as strictly dramatic or comedic.”
Auletti says one source of inspiration for his views on the emotional rollercoaster of theater is “The Muppet Show,” and credits their zany antics and solid sense of community as his first example of what theater could be.
“I think seeing all these people go crazy, all these puppets go crazy, and then finally, having a community for them to present their work, I found so much charm in that. Theater has always been that community away from home for me. And everybody is accepted,” he says. “I just fell in love with the idea that we can all do something communal, and it could be serving the community, and it also brings in the artistry, and the collaboration.”
The actors themselves come from all walks of life, from mothers and retirees to professional actors. This mélange creates a synergy between the cast, the characters and works themselves.
“I think that variety gives each piece a special kind of connection where you can throw random people into a blender and just be like, ‘Okay, get along.’ Sometimes that’s not easy, but I’m so grateful for the camaraderie, the chemistry within my cast and with the pieces themselves,” he says.
Auletti believes theater on the North Fork is seeing a meteoric rise, creating a gentle rivalry with the more established South Fork scene. “I think the North Fork scene is really having a renaissance of sorts. [We are] matching the South Fork in theater. We have Northeast Stage, we have Corchaug Repertory Theatre, which is a new theater that’s really getting a lot of traction. You have the North Fork Community Theatre. You have the Riverhead Faculty and Community Theater. It makes me really happy.”
The festival runs Friday, Oct. 18 through Sunday, Oct. 20 at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church Parish Hall (768 Main St., Greenport), and then returns the following Thursday through Sunday at Jamesport Meeting House (1590 Main Road, Jamesport). Run time is around 90 minutes with an intermission. To purchase tickets to the festival, click here.
