The Dogwood Fine Arts Festival’s second annual Emerging Playwright Awards returns to the Beckwith Theatre this weekend.

Over the last several weeks, members of the theater company and the festival have read through scripts from young playwrights across Michigan and Northern Indiana, narrowing it down to three finalists. Judges and audiences alike will decide the victor of the contest, with over $2,000 worth of prize money up for grabs.

Readings of the finalists scripts begin at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, with Elizabeth Frankel’s “A German Party,” presented by actors with Beckwith. Readings continue at 7:30 p.m. Saturday with Graham Techler’s “Moxie,” concluding at 2:30 p.m. with Gregory Strasser’s “Atlanta.” The readings are free and open to the public, with the audience ratings of the play helping to determine the winner.

The winning script will receive another reading during the Dogwood Festival, on Monday, May 11.

Over the next three days, the Dowagiac Daily News will profile each of the finalists, beginning with Frankel.

 

Like each of the seven characters in her play, Elizabeth Frankel was faced with a choice a few years ago that would decide her future.

The daughter of a producer and a playwright, Frankel grew up surrounded by the stage, getting involved with the profession from an early age.

“[Theater] is kind of been like a religion in my family,” Frankel said. “There wasn’t a time when theater wasn’t a part of my daily life.”

Naturally, she began pursuing her own career in the profession, attending University of Michigan’s acclaimed theater program to study directing. By the time junior year came about, though, she began to question if she was truly passionate about the family trade, or if she was just going with something that felt familiar to her, she said.

After spending several months away from the stage while studying abroad in Europe, she realized that she missed working on the art form she had known since her birth — and was devoted herself to continuing her journey as a director, actor and playwright.

“I realized that I wanted to do theater, on my own terms, for my own reasons,” Frankel said.

The recent graduate’s entry into the 2015 Emerging Playwright Awards explores a similar theme about the power that a single choice can have on the rest of one’s life.

Entitled “A German Party,” the play is set on New Year’s Eve in 1932 Berlin, only a month before Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Power assumes power in Germany. A group of friends gather that evening for a reunion party, where their bonds with one another are put to the test as they discuss their political allegiances.

“It’s about the exact moment of making a decision, one that you can’t go back from,” Frankel said.

The New Jersey native, who has been writing plays since middle school, wrote the script for the drama over a summer weekend two years ago, she said. After leaving it untouched for another year and a half, she realized that the story had potential and has been working on improving it ever since, she said.

Like most of her other works, Frankel choose to base her story around a historical setting. She first became interested in creating a play based around Nazi Germany after directing a one-woman adaptation of the story of Anne Frank, she said.

“The time period is a character that influences what happens,” Frankel said. “World War II is so rich in psychology and sadness and drama. It’s the perfect platform for a play.”

Despite the setting, the plot of the story focuses more on the characters and their dilemmas than on historical details, Frankel said.

Since graduating from school last May, the theater director has moved out to New York City, where she is currently serving as an assistant director for a production at the New York Public Theater. While her commitment to the play will prevent her from attending Friday’s reading in person, she is excited about the opportunity for her play to be shared with a new audience, she said.

“To know that somewhere, a room is appreciating your work, it makes you feel really good,” she said.