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Miami Herald

City Theatre makes a move, changes format for annual ‘Summer Shorts,' here's why

City Theatre will present a four-show event, script-in hand readings of 20 short plays from Thursday, June 26 through Sunday, June 29 at the Sandrell Rivers Theatre, Miami. Four of the original plays are from writers who are part of City Theatre's 'Homegrown' Playwright Development Program; some members of the group are pictured above. (Photo by Morgan Sophia Photography, courtesy of City Theatre) It was 29 years ago when City Theatre premiered its first edition of 'Summer Shorts,' which has become a staple of summer theater in South Florida. The short play festival started at the University of Miami's Ring Theatre in June 1996 with eighteen plays in two programs. 'Shorts' moved to the Carnival Center in 2007 (now the Arsht Center), where it has played ever since in the smaller black box Carnival Studio Theatre. Now facing a financial shortfall after losing $50,000 as one of the casualties of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' vetoing of more than $32 million in state arts grants for 2024-25, City Theatre's 'Summer Shorts' producers say they had to get creative in how to present its annual short play festival. Canceling it wasn't an option. 'The cost of producing theater has gone up over the years, especially since the pandemic,' says Gladys Ramirez, City Theatre's executive director. 'And then, last year, when the state of Florida cut funding to hundreds of organizations, including ours for general operating support, one of the realizations was that we could no longer afford to present 'Summer Shorts' at the Arsht Center. So, we needed to pivot.' And along with the cuts from the state of Florida, Ramirez says there was a reduction in funding from Miami-Dade County as well as funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. 'We were just getting hit from all directions, so looking at the budget, we couldn't afford six-week contracts with artists to do a full production.' The pivot was a new venue, the Sandrell Rivers Theater in Liberty City, and a new format: A four-show event, script-in-hand readings of 20 short plays. 'So right now we're still working with 30 actors, nine directors, and 20 playwrights, and we still have new works by local playwrights as part of the lineup,' says Ramirez. Different than in past years, each show will have a different mix of five ten-minute plays. Four of the plays are from writers who are part of City Theatre's 'Homegrown' Playwright Development Program: Bianca Utset, Nick Valdes, Cristina Marie Pla-Guzman and JC Gutierrez. Other plays in the festival were selected from the Susan J. Westfall National Short Playwriting Contest, which is a nationwide call for playwrights to submit short scripts of any style or genre. Pla-Guzman, whose play 'I. You,' will be performed at 3 p.m. on Sunday, June 29, says that when she first met with the Homegrown group, she knew the directive was to work on a short play for the festival. 'A lot of things in my life personally were happening at the same time. I had just lost my grandmother whom I loved very much, and I was dealing with my oldest daughter's autism diagnosis. You know, they say writers should write what they know, so I started capturing moments in my life.' She says the play is very closely autobiographical about a mother and her two daughters dealing with an autism diagnosis and being 'pushed and pulled to grow through love, and under that, unconditional love is there all the time.' Pla-Guzman brought in a prop for her reading, yellow roses. 'My grandmother loved yellow roses.' She says in her short play, yellow roses fall from the sky as a symbol to the mother signaling that her grandmother is always with her, guiding her. An educator and an actor, Pla-Guzman says she's accustomed to performing her own work, so this will be the first time she'll be seeing someone else's interpretation of what she's created. 'I'm excited about that and nervous,' she admits. Next up for the Homegrown playwright is the directive to write a full-length script. 'I already have an idea,' she says. JC Gutierrez's short 'Burn Book' takes on banned books. He's also directing two of the short plays in the festival. 'I feel like City Theatre is always good at coming up with stuff that's funny, relevant, and topical, and it hasn't lost that part of its charm,' he says about the new format. Gutierrez, who majored in theater performance at FIU, and is now the artistic director at JCAT, a theater at the JCC in North Miami, and an arts educator, says getting into the Homegrown program was a way for him to get more serious about playwrighting. 'I had always written but never really received guidance and structure. It's the one thing in my theater wheelhouse that I hadn't developed as much, so I wanted to take the opportunity to work alongside other developing playwrights.' The idea for his short, performed at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, June 28, came from his background of teaching ancient studies and world history to middle and high schoolers. 'It's essentially about the last literate man on Earth who is a former professor. He's been hired, well, forced, to burn books and only keep the ones that are safe for consumption, according to the government. He's taking too long to do it, so they enlist a 'dreg,' an illiterate person and the lowest member of the social class in this dystopian world. Together, they discover a book of all of the sacred texts of humanity and they have to decide whether they need to burn it or not. That's where the conflict happens.' Adding a throughline to festival is actress/comedian Jannelys Santos who will be the emcee. She's the chief operating officer of Little Haiti's Villian Theater and has been performing with Villain since 2015. 'We definitely wanted to give this more of a production value than a reading series,' says Margaret Ledford, City Theatre's artistic director. 'Villain Theater are experts in the short form, such as improv and stand-up comedy. So when we put our heads together we thought that they would be the perfect partner.' Santos will play an original character created for the festival, emcee Rhonda Sanchez (say the name aloud for the riff on Florida's governor). 'The show is fully produced in the sense that we've created this fictional character as a host and we'll have live music with a few musical numbers, and a projection component. So it will feel more elevated than a staged reading in black box,' says Ramirez. Continuing 'Summer Shorts' at a different venue and using the staged reading format took some consideration before it was finally settled on, reveals Ramirez. 'People were like, 'Why are you doing this?' It was a very difficult decision that took a lot of conversation between Margaret and I and our board. We have this duty as a nonprofit and as artists to be creative and continue creating opportunities for our community, and to laugh. Because what else can we do, you know? And so that's why the device of using Rhonda to create this awareness in a parody format is really what we're going for,' says Ramirez. There's a bit of a comfort level, too, for Ramirez and Ledford working at the Sandrell Rivers Theatre. Fantasy Theatre Factory, who mostly perform, and tour works for young audiences, is the company that manages and operates the theater. 'Both Gladys and I cut our teeth with Fantasy Theatre Factory. We were both actors, at different times, with FTF. I think this is a great move for us,' says Ledford. If you go: WHAT: City Theatre's Summer Shorts Festival WHERE: Sandrell Rivers Theatre, 6103 NW 7th Ave., Miami WHEN: 7:30 p.m., Thursday, June 26, Friday, June 27, Saturday, June 28 and 3 p.m., June 29 COST: $25, general admission, $40 VIP tickets include up-front cabaret-style seating and a signature cocktail. Tickets at Free parking. INFORMATION: (305) 284-8872 and is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don't miss a story at