HPU English instructor Mark Tjarks has two plays in production this week at the 11th annual Original Play Festival (OPF XI) by the Kailua-Kona-based Aloha Performing Arts Company. Evil at the Post Office and The Very Old Mango Man will be performed Aug. 19 and 20, respectively, along with four other plays selected for the four-day festival of locally written theatrical offerings.

The festival runs August 18 through 21 in the Bridge Building on the campus of the Hualalai Academy in Kailua-Kona, Hawai‘i. The festival is a showcase for new theatrical works produced by Hawai‘i writers.

The Very Old Mango Man also was honored by a win at the 2002 Kumu Kahua Theatre playwriting contest, and Tjarks has been busy preparing its staging for that prestigious local theater. Future plans for Tjarks include a full production of another of his plays, Ventriloquist, by the Women In Theatre company in Lihue, Kaua‘i, scheduled for performance in March 2005.