Editor’s Note: The Selective Echo presents a two-part wrap-up of the closing events of Plan-B Theatre’s 2008-2009 season. The first part (see May 12) focused on the season of plays featuring resident playwright Matthew Ivan Bennett. The second part presented here is a preview of the And The Banned Slammed On, Plan-B’s annual benefit and playwriting slam competition which will be held May 30.

In 2003, Plan-B Theatre decided that, instead of another dinner, its annual fundraiser would embrace a mission — featuring banned literature. “That led to the idea of having local luminaries and politicians read excerpts from banned books alongside local actors performing scenes from banned plays,” Jerry Rapier, Plan-B’s producing director explains. “The board chair at the time, Michael Mitchell, suggested we spin off the title of Randy Shilts’ novel about the AIDS crisis, ‘And the Band Played On,’ and title the event And The Banned Played On. It stuck.”

A year later, Plan-B started offering separately a slam-style event in which five 10-minute plays are written, produced, and staged all within a 24-hour period. The slam had an immediate appeal. As high-risk entertainment, live performances of five short plays in which the directors and actors read scripts for the first time just 11 hours before curtain can invite an almost gladiator-like feel to a theatrical evening. When one imagines how many things could possibly go wrong in a typical live theater performance after weeks of preparation, the 24-hour slam takes on a daredevil character. Hardly dull, the event crackles with plenty of nervous energy — from the theater company and the audience — in the hope that the evening will pass without any casualties, creative or otherwise.

Therefore, the perfect way to close a season exceptional in so many ways is to combine both events for the first time — And The Banned Slammed On — which will be held Saturday, May 30, at 8 p.m. in the Jeanne Wagner Theatre of the Rose Wagner Center for Performing Arts.

Once again, the theme is censorship and, more specifically, the challenge for the playwrights will be to create five plays drawing upon any one of a number of events in which censorship and a challenge to the First Amendment occurred in Utah since May 2008. Of course, only on the evening of May 29 will playwrights get their instructions.

The evening’s events will be hosted by Bill Allred from X96’s Radio From Hell Morning Show and Doug Fabrizio from KUER’S RadioWest and KUED’s UtahNow. Among the special guests will be Terry Wood, former news anchor for ABC’s KTVX affiliate in Salt Lake City. Although Wood was unceremoniously fired just days before Christmas last year, the defining event leading to his inevitable dismissal occurred in 2007 with Wood’s on-air editorial regarding the proposed Divine Strake non-nuclear high-explosive test in Nevada. He said at the time: “I, too, am willing to put my professional reputation and career of 40 years on the line in taking a stand against Divine Strake. It is that important to the health and well-being of our families. I am not willing to obediently accept the Dept. of Energy’s assurance that it will not cause us harm in the years to come. They may be right, but I do not want to take the chance.”

While the news director praised Wood’s action the parent company for the station, Clear Channel immediately demoted Terry Wood after he left for a 10-day vacation. Incidentally, the test was officially canceled two weeks after Wood’s editorial.

Photos below: Bill Allred, Doug Fabrizio, and Terry Wood

While previous benefits have featured readings of banned literature by local officials and journalists as well as scenes from the theatrical and musical repertoire by local actors and directors, this year’s combined effort will give audience members five world premieres, all locally created and produced.

“We are a community-based professional theatre. What does that mean? It means that we are fully aware of where we are and the need to encourage dialogue on any level,” Rapier explains. “I’ve said many times in the past and I still hold firm: I’m not concerned about people agreeing with any particular point of view we present. What I am interested in is creating theatre that creates conversation. I want the experience at the theatre to be the beginning of something.”

Merging the slam venue into the benefit makes excellent sense. Last year’s slam brought an appreciative audience of more than 500 in the sold-out Jeanne Wagner Theatre. And, considering they had just seven hours of rehearsal, the 25 actors and five directors did an exceptional job, particularly in communicating complex story and character elements. The honest — often earthy — performances crackled with the primitive thrills of the unexpected.

Indeed, the playwrights managed to pack complex, multifaceted story lines into scripts that ran perhaps 15 or so pages maximum. And, as in previous years, just 24 hours before the performance, each writer will be given an idea based specifically on a Utah issue of censorship or the First Amendment, a cast of five, the set backdrop, and a limited list of available props and sound effects. Scripts will be due 13 hours later at 9 a.m. on the day of the performance.

The goal for the benefit is $25,000 which represents a little less than 15 percent of an incredibly efficient annual budget of $177,000, a rather amazing feat for a small theater than manages three full runs of shows, consistently with sold-out performances. “We strive for our patrons to feel a sense of ownership over Plan-B,” Rapier adds. “We want each person who attends a Plan-B show to feel like we’re speaking to them, for them, with them.”

Plan-B’s fiscal prudence is all the more striking. Never afraid of risk, Plan-B’s company of directors, writers, actors, and technical staff carry out a unified mission of producing bold, well-written, well-acted new works of American theater, nearly all of which strike directly at the core of Utah and the surrounding region.

It is worth noting that Plan-B’s audiences have grown consistently since 2006 when it shifted its focus to original works by Utah writers. To wit, Jan Lauwers quote from a 2006 issue of the American Theatre Journal which exemplifies superbly the foundations of Plan-B that merit community support:

“Subsidies are a democratic means of safeguarding freedom of thought. Imagine that we were to question the subsidies for soliders. Well, dear Mr. Soldier, you can defend our country, but you will have to provide your own food and rifle. No problem, says the solider, and off he goes. In the distance he sees a farm and thinks to himself: I’ll find some food there. He knocks at the door. The farmer opens it. The solider holds a knife to the farmer’s throat and says: ‘I want a bowl of soup and then I’ll defend you.’ White white fear, the farmer gives him his bowl of soup.

Why should the arts always have to defend themselves? Why is so much social and political correctness required from them? I think it has something to do with the freedom they symbolize. They are defenseless because there is no power connected to this freedom–only responsibility.”

Tickets are available by calling (801) 355-ARTS or by visiting here. They are $40 (orchestra), $25 (balcony), and $10 (limited; student). A cash bar also will be available and food will be provided by Cali’s Natural Food.