One of the traditions at the Humana Festival is the annual anthology plays in which the Actors Theatre commissions a set of playwrights to create short plays and vignettes on a specified theme.

This year, the show is called “Brink!” with a series of pieces centered on the “magico-religious aspect of crossing frontiers.” That is, our life changes and the rituals that go along with them.

This is one of the better ones I’ve seen, and one of the reasons is that there are a couple of different story lines that run through the 90-minute piece. “Grandpa’s Cologne,” a two-song musical by Kristoffer Diaz and Greg Kotis, tells the story of a young man preparing for his first date with an older woman, a seventh-grader who just moved into his condo complex. The first song is a rap and the second a catchy little jingle, and a pair of Greek soldiers find life-long companionship on their way to fight Trojans.

Highlights include “Today I Am Woman” by Deborah Zoe Laufer in which a young woman spouts quotes from Sartre and Camus making a statement at her bat mitzvah but ends up daddy’s little girl when it comes time to dance. Laufer also contributes “Evolution,” the tale of the first sea creature to venture onto dry land. In “The White Bread Ballet” by Peter Sinn Nachtrieb and Deborah Stein, a girl tries to run away from the circus to become an accountant in Cincinnati, but sees that life flash in front of her in a dance set to overwrought movie music.

I find it a little surprising that more schools and community theater groups don’t pick up on these Humana anthology shows for productions. They have good writing for the most part, are usually funny and have lots of roles but could also be done by a talented smaller ensemble.

Official site: The Humana Festival of New American Plays

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