fun.<\/em> I think it\u2019s a terrific model for high school, college or community theater groups to play with \u2014 or even for church youth groups who want to try something a little different for their next mission-trip fundraiser.<\/p>\nHere, roughly, is how it sometimes worked: Everybody meets at the theater (or coffee house, or church basement) on Friday night at 9. Nothing has yet been written, cast or rehearsed, but 24 hours later \u2014 on Saturday night at 9 \u2014 you\u2019ll be staging a series of short plays as a full production for a paying audience.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a table on the stage with six hats. Each is labeled with some broad topic \u2014 something like Prop, Setting, Genre, Phrase, Song, Costume, Incident, etc. This part works a bit like the set-up for a game of charades. Everybody writes ideas for each of the various categories on little slips of paper and puts them into the various hats. \u201cBlue carnation,\u201d \u201cParis, 1943,\u201d \u201cromantic comedy,\u201d \u201cThis is all your fault, Mr. Donovan,\u201d \u201cGonna Make You Sweat,\u201d \u201cstovepipe hat,\u201d \u201ca betrayal,\u201d etc<\/em>.<\/p>\nOK, so \u2014 writers sit over there, actors over there, directors over there. These categories will need to be a bit flexible, since you\u2019ll need one director for every writer and enough actors to go around.<\/p>\n
Right then, how many writers have you got? Let\u2019s say six. Actors count off into casts, please. One, two, three, four, five, six. One, two, three \u2026<\/em> Now each writer knows the shape and size of their designated cast and each cast is assigned a director.<\/p>\nAt this point, each writer takes a turn drawing little slips of paper out of anywhere from two to six of the hats. No peeking. These elements will have to be included in the short \u2014 10-15 minute \u2014 plays they will be writing overnight.<\/p>\n
Now each writer knows how they will be spending the next 12 hours. One will be writing a short play for three women and two men, set on a spaceship in a distant galaxy and including the phrase, \u201cThese cookies are almost as good as the ones Mom made.\u201d Another will be writing a short play for one woman and three men and it will have to feature a picnic basket, a platinum-blonde wig, and a case of mistaken identity. Another will be writing a murder mystery for five women somehow incorporating a skateboard, a calico dress, and the phrase \u201cI should have remembered that before<\/em> I ordered the salmon.\u201d Et cetera.<\/em><\/p>\nThe writers have until 9 a.m. on Saturday, when everyone again assembles at the theater. The writers hand over their completed scripts to the directors and then go home to sleep. The actors of the various casts spend the next 12 hours memorizing lines, blocking and rehearsing the plays as their directors scramble to figure out some way to bring them to the stage by 9 o\u2019clock. The box office opens at 8:30.<\/p>\n
The whole experience tended to be a glorious illustration of what Stoppard\/Rush\/Henslowe described so well in Shakespeare in Love<\/em>:<\/p>\nHENSLOWE: Mr. Fennyman, allow me to explain about the theatre business. The natural condition is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster.<\/p>\n
FENNYMAN: So what do we do?<\/p>\n
HENSLOWE:\u00a0Nothing. Strangely enough, it all turns out well.<\/p>\n
FENNYMAN: How?<\/p>\n
HENSLOWE:\u00a0I don\u2019t know. It\u2019s a mystery.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Like improv, it didn\u2019t always work,<\/em> exactly. Maybe it didn\u2019t even usually<\/em> work. Many of the short plays created overnight seemed more like hit-or-miss comedy sketches or discarded pages from Christopher Durang\u2019s notebooks.<\/p>\nBut when it did somehow mysteriously all come together it could be magical. And even when that didn\u2019t quite happen, the evening had the energy and adrenaline of its without-a-net audacity. The audience paid its 10 buck a head and went away happy because even if they hadn\u2019t witnessed the creation of enduring art, they\u2019d gotten to see a bunch of people swinging for the fences and just watching that attempt<\/em> is kind of inspiring. And taking the risk of making<\/em> that attempt is even more so.<\/p>\nI you hear of anyone doing anything like this near you, be sure not to miss it. Try it out from the audience first, then take the plunge and sign up as an actor, a writer or director. Dare to eat a peach. At several points during that hectic 26 hours, you\u2019ll probably hate me for having suggested such a thing, but you\u2019ll change your mind by final curtain \u2014 at which point you may be thinking about how to do this even better next time.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Here, roughly, is how it sometimes worked: Everybody meets at the theater on Friday night at 9. Nothing has yet been written, cast or rehearsed, but 24 hours later — on Saturday night at 9 — you’ll be staging a series of short plays as a full production for a paying audience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. 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<\/a>I\u2019ll try to explain it here in a bit more detail because it was pretty awesome and because the idea deserves to be continued, revived, attempted and duplicated elsewhere. It\u2019s fun.<\/em> I think it\u2019s a terrific model for high school, college or community theater groups to play with \u2014 or even for church youth groups who want to try something a little different for their next mission-trip fundraiser.<\/p>\n