Jackie Demaline 'pulled no punches' as a critic. She would have loved this play
It was bound to happen.
When Enquirer theater critic Jackie Demaline died in 2018, she left a chunk of money to Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati to establish a playwriting competition for college playwrights. The Jackie Demaline Regional Collegiate Playwriting Competition.
There were few guidelines. Entrants had to be enrolled at a college or university in this region. Nor were there mammoth awards. Each winner would receive $2,500 along with a professionally staged reading of the script.
Each year’s competition brought works by promising and sometimes gifted writers. But in 2022, one of those plays stood out far above the rest.
It was called “The Match Game” and was written by Steven Strafford, at the time a graduate student at Ohio University.
“It was far above and beyond anything else we received that year,” said Jared Doren, who has coordinated the competition since its first year in 2019. “It was smart and witty and had believable dialogue.”
You’d be surprised how rare it is to come across a script with all of those qualities, even from playwrights who have decades of experience.
Later that year, when the play was read in front of an audience by professional actors, Doren was even more convinced that the play ought to be considered for a fully staged production.
“The audience began reacting immediately,” recalled Doren. “I knew it was funny. But you never know how people who don’t know the script are going to react. You could feel this come alive right away. I remember thinking that it was going better than any reading I’ve done before.”
And so it was that “The Match Game” came to be the first Demaline competition-winning script to become part of ETC’s subscription season. The show opens April 13 and runs through May 5.
“What Jackie wanted was to make sure that someone was out there encouraging young writers,” said D. Lynn Meyers, ETC’s producing artistic director. “Over the past five years, her competition has introduced us to dozens of new writers. But this one deserved special attention.”
It’s intriguing that Demaline chose ETC to oversee this competition. She and Meyers often butted heads about plays. Demaline could be a tough – some would say “harsh” – critic. Her words could be extremely biting.
But the one thing that Demaline and Meyers shared was an uncompromising passion for theater. In their own ways, they believed that theater was essential. They championed new plays and believed that theater ought to be lively and timely and relevant to the world that was evolving around it.
There were other theaters or universities that could have become home to the competition. But in the end, Demaline saw ETC and Meyers as the best fit.
“We had our ups and downs,” said Meyers. “But Jackie knew we would make it happen. And it has.”
Strafford’s play is, in some ways, rather old-fashioned. The majority of the play takes place in a home where three generations of a family have been drawn together by a variety of trying issues. At times, the interactions are savage.
“It’s true that this play isn’t playing with traditional theatrical form,” says Strafford, who now runs Ohio University’s Musical Theatre program. “But it is a story about complicated people going through complicated times. And I think that can be endlessly interesting. Families never quite heal; they get used to the scars.”
And the characters in the play need plenty of healing. They are dealing with everything from broken hearts and disillusionment to cancer and dementia.
“But for all the heaviness in the story, Steven handles it so brilliantly with humor. It’s a great combination,” says Doren. “You know, as a critic, Jackie pulled no punches. And as a playwright, neither does Steven. If she were still around, I think she’d appreciate this work a lot.”
He’s been able to load the cast with a who’s who of veteran actors; Bruce Cromer, Deb G. Girdler, Allen R. Middleton, Jennifer Joplin and Jared Joplin – real-life siblings who play onstage siblings, as well – along with newcomers Savannah Boyd and Henry Howland.
“I think this competition – and this play – are a good legacy for Jackie,” said Meyers. “And just like I assured her, there will be more to come.”
The Greater Cincinnati Foundation administers the funding for PLAY/write: The Jackie Demaline Regional Collegiate Playwriting Competition. For information on how to support the fund, call the GCF at 513-241-2880.
'The Match Game'
When: April 13-May 5.
Where: Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati, 1127 Vine St., Over-the-Rhine.
Tickets: $55.
Information: 513-421-3555; www.ensemblecincinnati.org.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Late theater critic Jackie Demaline's play competition hits paydirt
