BRIEFS: A Festival of Short LGBT Plays • That Uppity Theatre Company and Vital VOICE Magazine

That Uppity Theatre Company and Vital VOICE team up once again for "Briefs", a festival of short LGBT plays that celebrates its fourth anniversary, founded by Uppity Theatre's Joan Lipkin, and Darin Slyman of Vital VOICE magazine. This year, another stable of talented actors and artists are featured in eight LGBT-centric plays that appeal to diverse audiences. It's also the inaugural year for the Ken Haller Playwriting Competition for LGBTQ and Allied Youth, named after longtime LGBT activist, pediatrician and actor.

Things kick off with Sharon Goldner's "Recently Discovered", a staged reading that turns Dr. Seuss, complete with illustrations, into a lesbian coming out story and all of its complications. A different "Special Guest" was featured with each showing, along with a "Cat in the Hat", that played opposite Lipkin.

BRIEFS: A Festival of Short LGBT Plays • La Perla

Helmed by That Uppity Theatre Company, in partnership with The Vital VOICE, "Briefs" is back for its third year, and this festival of short LGBT plays, with almost 100 submissions from across the country, seems to get better and better every year. While LGBT-centric themes have pulsed as the heart of "Briefs", the universal nature of the human condition is an overall motif, with a nice balance of live acts and eight 10-minute vignettes that range from the humorous to the thought-provoking.

BRIEFS: A Festival of Short LGBT Plays • La Perla

That Uppity Theatre Company, along with the folks at The Vital VOICE are back with the 2nd Annual installment of Briefs: A Festival of Short LGBT Plays.  The plays featured this year (and in the interest of full-disclosure, I was on the reading committee) are better than last years', covering a range of LGBT-related topics that nicely integrate these issues within the backdrop of everyday life, as opposed to beating you over the head with it "public service announcement" style.  There are comedies, dramas, and something for everyone -- gay or straight.