Denver, Colo., bookstore BookBar has launched BookBar Press, whose first title, Bite Size: An Anthology of Micro Theatre, was released yesterday. Bite Size is a compilation of 10 short plays that resulted from the Denver Center for the Performing Arts' Off-Center competition that drew more than 200 submissions from Colorado playwrights. Five of the plays were performed in a three-week run in spaces around BookBar. The plays touch on topics such as social justice, prisoner rights, religious revelations and transgender experiences; the settings range from the Denver Public Library to a future dystopian Denver.
BookBar and BookBar Press owner Nicole Sullivan said, "We were so excited to be a part of the incredible Bite Size production, which truly highlighted so much of what the Colorado arts community has to offer. As an indie publisher, we also want to focus on our local community, so it made perfect sense to launch BookBar Press with Bite Size as our debut title."
The 10 plays included in Bite Size are A Pocket Full of Dandelions by Kristen Adele Calhoun; Holy Couch by Edith Weiss; Marginalia by Jeffrey Neuman; Outside the Room by Theatre Artibus, Grapefruit Lab and Larry Mitchell; Toxoplasmosis by Sean Michael Cummings; Something to Read at the End of the World by Maureen Biermann; The F Word by Claire Caviglia; The Missing Piece by Christina Miller and Addie Levinsky; The Side of the Room by Dakota Hill; and Malum by Ashley Rice.
The book also opens with poetry by Denver author, speaker and activist Theo E.J. Wilson, and includes forewords by director Meredith Grundei and DCPA Off-Center curator Charlie Miller. All royalties will be donated to Denver Center for the Performing Arts.