Midtown International Theatre Festival

When New York's ninth annual Midtown International Theatre Festival kicks off on July 14, it will be "bigger, faster, and better," according to founder and executive producer John Chatterton. Fifty-two productions are scheduled, compared with 42 in 2007, plus seven free staged readings. Seven venues have been reserved, all within a few blocks of one another in Midtown West. Dramatic premieres, revivals, musicals, solo shows, one-act anthologies -- all will be represented. And for the first time, what Chatterton calls a "Commercial Division" has been created to allow three shows to extend their runs for one week beyond the festival's Aug. 3 closing.

But with so many theatre festivals racing through New York each year, how does MITF distinguish itself from the rest of the pack? "We have, I believe, the highest ratio of paid staff to participants" is Chatterton's reply. "I'm open to anyone refuting that, but that's my impression from feedback I've gotten from people who have been in other festivals. So it's a more personal experience." Production support includes one-on-one marketing consultations with managing producers. Notes Chatterton, "We bill ourselves to our participants as 'the festival that cares.'"

The selection process is three-tiered. First, scripts are evaluated by an artistic director who specializes in the appropriate theatrical genre -- there are 12 categories in all. Second, MITF's managing producer, Emileena Pedigo, examines each production proposal and determines whether it fits the festival's dimensions. "If it had a cast of 30 and a lot of animals and fire-eaters and other circus tricks," says Chatterton, "we would politely decline to let it go on." Finally, staff members decide whether each show has a workable marketing plan. If not, they assist the artists in setting one up. "It's too common in theatre festivals for a play to have a fascinating script and a really interesting production but no audience showing up," Chatterton says. "We want to be sure that we have decent houses."

Speaking of audiences, Chatterton adds that he's especially enthusiastic about the Commercial Division. This year, MITF hired director Clayton Phillips to recruit and curate the offerings in this part of the festival. The extended performance schedule is intended to help casts polish their work so that, in the final week of the run, they'll be ready to present it to the industry in the hope of a professional afterlife. This year's three Commercial Division shows are Exit Cuckoo, a monodrama by Lisa Ramirez about mothers, children, and nannies; Love, Incorporated, Marc Castle's musical comedy about a woman who develops a business plan to find romance; and Opa!, a musical by Mari Carras, Laurel Ollstein, Nick Kitsopoulos, and Nicholas Carras about a long-forgotten Greek island on the brink of joining the rest of civilization. These shows will run in repertory at the Barrow Group Theatre.

Other MITF selections include As You Like It -- The Big Flush, based on scholar John Hudson's proposition that Shakespeare's plays were actually penned by Amelia Bassano Lanier, a woman of Moroccan-Semitic background who lived a secret Jewish life in Italy in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. It was Lanier whom historian A.L. Rowse pegged as the "Dark Lady" of Shakespeare's sonnets, and the aptly named Dark Lady Players present an experimental version of As You Like It highlighting the tenets of Hudson's theory, under Stephen Wisker's direction.

Henry Meyerson's Jump Jim Crow looks at the American minstrel-show tradition and the controversial practice of performing in blackface. The drama examines the relationship between Thomas Rice, a white minstrel performer who "corks up," and his African-American collaborator, who writes the act. Directed by Tom Thornton, the play incorporates "Jump Jim Crow" verse and dance -- the real-life Rice's trademark performance routine. And Wildcat Theatricals is reviving Harry Kurnitz's 1961 comedy A Shot in the Dark (based on the French original, Marcel Achard's L'Idiote, which was subsequently adapted as a Pink Panther film featuring Peter Sellers' Inspector Clouseau). Wildcat also staged a play in last season's MITF, George Axelrod's Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?.

There's also a musical about the queen of the Nile (Cleopatra -- A Life Unparalleled), a dramatization of Dorothy Parker stories and poems (Those Whistling Lads), and a what-if dramedy about a meeting between Hillary Clinton and Monica Lewinsky (Hillary and Monica: The Winter of Her Discontent).

For more information, see www.midtownfestival.org. Tickets: (212) 279-4200 or www.ticketcentral.com.

-- Mark Dundas Wood