Edmonds Art Beat review: Choose the winner at Driftwood Players 11th Annual Festival of Shorts

In Edmonds’ Driftwood Players 11th Annual Festival of Shorts, the audience gets to choose the winner

Eight 15-minute plays have been selected from submissions around the globe, and they have never before been produced for an audience. Each performance includes eight short plays that include multiple directors and casts.

The production is broken into two acts, each containing four short plays. When you arrive at the Wade James Theater you are given a ballot sheet and the opportunity to vote for your favorite play. All the short plays follow the theme “What would you do?” and are portrayals of a variety of ethical dilemmas that the cast is faced with.

The theme, looking at both ethical dilemmas and decision-making in everyday life, is approached with a mix of comedic and dramatic consequences. Some of the plays lean heavily into the drama and the challenge of making a very hard decision or show the consequence of a decision already made. Most of the shorts are shown in present day and tackle adult content.

Being part of the audience and having the opportunity to vote adds an interesting layer of engagement. I found myself fully immersed in each short production with a mix of asking myself “what would I do in this situation?” and still paying attention to how I would rank each short play for my ballot. The timing of 15 minutes is long enough to fully engage in the story and short enough to keep your attention on the question at hand. I highly recommend the experience of partaking in the Festival of Shorts.

Past winners of this event have later been developed into full-length award-winning plays. The Festival of Shorts runs until July 3, with shows this week on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. Tickets can be purchased here. Because mask policies are still in place, there will not be a reception after the final performance The winners will be announced on the Driftwood Players website July 5.

As the productions cover ethical dilemmas, there are advisements on the website and on the program flyer regarding content/trigger warnings: sexual harassment/assault, domestic violence, gun violence, searing/harsh language, bigotry (homophobia, anti-Semitism, sexism, racism, nativism), discussion of war, gun sound effects, and images that some people may find disturbing.

The list of short plays:

Windfall by James Pfrehm