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Poor little Gainesville. Big exciting Gainesville. Somehow both are true. All but alone in the vast interior of north-central Florida, Gainesville is best known for UF and the Gators (think Gatorade) but it also enjoys a thriving arts scene—at least in comparison to the rest of the region.

The sporty university that dominates the area also has a robust theatre department with several playwrights on the faculty and classes in playwriting, comedy sketch writing and dramaturgy as well as acting and tech – all electives in the BFA, BA and MFA programs. UF is home to three School of Theatre + Dance performance venues, including the Constans Theatre, Black Box Theatre and G-6 Studio. All of them present a variety of new works.

Professor Ralf Remshardt, who teaches playwriting and dramaturgy, says the student-run theatre company The Florida Players produces three full shows per year, and every year at least one of them is a new full length play or an evening of new shorts.

UF also recently staged Spill, written by Leigh Fondakowski in collaboration with visual artist Reeva Wortel. Spill is based on interviews conducted by Fondakowski and Wortel with Louisiana residents, fishermen, oil industry and government officials, and families of the victims of the BP Deepwater Horizon explosion. Fondakowski used the same play development technique when she served as the head writer for the widely influential plays, The Laramie Project and Laramie: Ten Years Later.

Spill tells the stories of people attempting to confront the natural disaster in 2010 and centers on the question: What is the true human and environmental cost of oil?

Spill first went through a series of workshops and staged readings in 2012 and some performances at Wesleyan University, which commissioned the play. An early version of Spill premiered in March 2014 at Louisiana State University’s Swine Palace Theater in Baton Rouge. A revised version of the play was recently produced by the TimeLine Theatre in Chicago.

The Hippodrome is the only professional theatre for an hour and a half in any direction,” says their dramaturg (and UF alum) Stephanie Lynge. “The Hipp” stays hip with productions like the southeastern world premiere of Mr. Burns by Anne Washburn. They also recently produced Women in Jeopardy by Wendy MacLeod and All Girl Frankenstein by Bob Fisher.

“In addition to bringing in contemporary shows, The Hipp reaches out on many artistic levels,” says Lynge, pointing to the development of the new play The Snow Queen, based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale that also inspired Frozen. “My version is more like the fairy tale, darker and more interesting.” says writer Charlie Mitchell, who is also a UF theatre professor. He was commissioned by the Hippodrome to write the work for the holiday season and is now seeking publication opportunities.

Acrosstown Repertory Theatre may not be equity, but they are committed to working with local playwrights, including works by the homeless. They recently had the world premiere of Chuck Lipsig’s Hometown Knights—a 2014 one-act entry in the Acrosstown’s Gainesville Homegrown Local Playwrights’ Festival, now in its fourth year. The play was so well received that the director requested it be adapted into a full-length play.

Lipsig says “Aristophanes wrote Knights to parody the politicians of his day; a friend of mine wondered how it might work with current-day politicians. However, it occurred to me at the time that current politicians don’t need my help to generate comedy. So, while its roots are in Aristophanes’ classic, I’ve made the effort to make Hometown Knights a farce on modern politics.”

Acrosstown has also recently staged locally written one-act plays Comfort Phone and Do You See Me? by Matt Goode and Beth-Ann Blue, as well as Lydia by Octavio Solis and Escape of Unicorn by James Sunwall.

Several community theatres in Gainesville also produce new works, and the Writers Alliance of Gainesville provides a forum for writers to interact and learn outside the university system.

ddavis-thompson@dramatistsguild.com