“Technical Difficulties: Plays for Online Theatre,” May 7 through 9

Friday, May 7, through Sunday, May 9

Presented by Scott Community College

A series of short stage pieces that, according to Dramatists Play Service, “taps in to the delights and frustrations of staying connected,” Scott Community College's springtime production Technical Difficulties: Plays for Online Theatre will be available for streaming May 7 through 9, delivering a sextet of captivating works on the pleasures and perils of communication in the 21st century.

In Steph Del Rosso's Hey Stranger, Eve and Gideon reunite years after a messy breakup. What could go wrong? Possibly everything in this comedy about mixed signals and bad Internet, loneliness and autonomy, and one very precocious high schooler. Elaine Romero's Oyster concerns Marisela, who discovers that being bilingual comes at a price when she negotiates a potential opportunity in a border world where kids live, in captivity, in government cages. In Ken Urban's Intro the Fiction (Virtual), a professor discusses his student’s latest short story, as her characters feel too close for comfort for the instructor, and teacher and student must both reckon with how to write a good ending.

With Arlene Hutton's Looking Back, Kath was the last visitor to leave a major amusement park before the pandemic lockdown. While reminiscing online about life pre-COVID, two roommates challenge each other’s experiences and ideas of what truly makes a person happy. Craig Pospisil's Boredom, Fear, & Wine reminds us that when you’re stuck at home during a global pandemic, everything happens online – even therapy. Consequently, therapist Jess tries to be a sympathetic ear to the suffering Harper, who can’t reconcile her feelings about the terrifying disease with the monotony of lockdown. but the session goes off the rails. And in Mashuq Mushtaq Deen's Telephones with Cords, Bozz and Banjo, best friends and fellow puppets, are feeling the separation of a Zoom existence. Frustrated, Bozz wants to talk on the telephone, but Banjo senses that the request has more to do with their friend’s growing existential despair.

Serving as director for Technical Difficulties: Plays for Online Theatre is SCC theatre instructor Kevin Babbitt, whose previous works for his department have included Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You and The Laramie Project, and whose on-stage area-theatre appearances include roles in the Richmond Hill Barn Theatre's The 39 Steps and the Playcrafters Barn Theatre's On Golden Pond and Tuesdays with Morrie. Seven SCC students, meanwhile, compose the ensemble, with the show's cast consisting of Sara Bolet, Christian Gardner, Chloe Haertjens, Samuel Knupp, Jolene Medungo, Ethan Mason, and Julian Totten, most of whom portray more than one character.

Technical Difficulties: Plays for Online Theatre can be viewed any time between Friday, May 7, and Sunday, May 9, tickets are $5 per device, and more information is available by visiting ShowTix4U.com.