BYU’s theater department put on a series of original short plays written by students for the Microburst New Play from Oct. 23-25.
Blood, sweat and tears were shed in preparation to showcase six short plays by student playwrights. Though Microburst director Corey Ewan was bleeding slightly from an on-set mishap, the West Campus Central Building’s black box theater was filled with excitement for opening night.
Ten BYU student actors teamed up with BYU’s theater faculty to put together these shows into one massive production over the course of the weekend.
“These actors have really captured that sense of ensemble. They’re so jazzed about what they’re doing. There are no egos, they just want to work,” Ewan said.
Though Ewan only started working on the festival in September, the 2025 Microburst festival has truly been in production for nearly a year. Microburst has become a well-oiled machine, premiering halfway through every fall semester for twelve years.
Each one of the plays had a unique tone that encapsulates "the spooky season." For instance, the festival’s first play, “That’s the Spirit,” was ten minutes of playing on the word "spirits."
Student playwright Keri Griggs started writing “That’s the Spirit” as a comedic exercise in a playwriting class nearly a year ago. When her draft was selected to be featured in 2025’s Microburst, she and five other playwrights were thrown into the full-blown creative process.
“I got to sit in on a few of the auditions. I think the most interesting thing was just seeing how different people would interpret what I wrote,” Griggs said.
After the plays were selected, each playwright had to enroll in a separate class to properly dedicate the time necessary to develop the production.
“Everyone’s required to take the class so you’re workshopping your chosen play. Once that’s over, the writers have just as much involvement as they want to or can have,” Tyler Thompson, a student playwright, said.
Thompson’s play, “Till Death Do Us Part,” was a thespian’s comedic analysis of what happens after death. The three-person play showed off the ghostly Romeo, Juliet and Paris — an epilogue to the Bard’s star-crossed lovers as a tumultuous love triangle.
“I think this is exactly how Romeo and Juliet should have ended, since Romeo’s such a dog,” Ewan said.
Though there were plenty of laughs to go around, the festival also had dramatic themes that the actors had to juggle throughout the show. Ten actors were cast in a repertoire style, making them star in multiple plays and embody diverse characters throughout the show.
“These are some of the most talented students I’ve seen in my last twenty-five years of teaching,” Ewan said.
These original works were an exciting opportunity for the student actors to stretch their capabilities.
“Sometimes an actor gets stuck in their head by previous performers, but that doesn’t happen here. We just get to actually become these original characters,” Lex Smith, a student actor, said.
Every actor had multiple characters to portray throughout the production. They all had to work together as a reliant team to make sure each play would have the best outcome.
“I’m in two of the plays and they’re very contrasting roles. It’s really, really fun to act in new works and discover everything together. It’s a very creative process,” student actress Claire Quigley said.
Though these actors have only been working on the festival for the past month, they had to match their effort and work ethic to how much work was done prior to their involvement.
“I am so impressed by the director and the actors who took my words and created a beautiful vision for my work that I could not have done alone,” student playwright Wilma Isle said.
The 2025 Microburst New Play Festival became the product of in-depth teamwork throughout BYU’s theater department, fueled by student creatives and produced by faculty.
“I hope we have done justice to the playwrights. I want them to feel good about what they’ve done because they should be honored,” Ewan said.
