Jared AxelrodWriter of Adventure

ou remember that I time I directed a play that didn’t exist the day before, right? The one with the interesting implications of how our memories define us as people and the musical number at the end? “Latent Memories?” No? Didn’t I mention I directed a piece of theatre a few weeks ago? Seriously? Geez, next you’ll be telling me I’ve been doing a webcomic for a month and haven’t talked about it on the site.

Yeah, I should really get around to talking about that.

I’m not gonna say it’s hard being me, because it isn’t. It is however, apparently difficult to keep up with being me, even for me. And I’m around me ALL THE TIME. Maddening, I tell you.

So, right. “Latent Memories.”

“Latent Memories” was part of Plays & Players 24 Hour Cram project. The idea was, you get a handful of people signed up to be writers, directors or actors. The writers get assigned a director and some actors at 8pm. They have until 8am the next morning to get a brand-spanking new script to their director and actors. The director and actors have until 8pm that day to learn their lines, block the show, work out lighting and sound, acquire costumes and perform the piece. Clearly, insane and awesome, as I stated previously.

JR and I had signed up as writers, but we instead asked to be a directors and an actor, as they had too many writers. I ended up being assigned to Shawn O’Shea, and have Dennis Frazier, Mark Skandera and Wes Frenza as our actors. Shawn gave us a wonderful script that worked with our strengths and was full of laugh-out-loud surprises, and the guys dove in. As you can see for yourself:

This will come as no surprise, but we had the best costumes.The experience itself was nothing short of amazing. The constant rehearsing wasn’t easy. The actors had no time to reflect on their characters, and we had one hour on the actually stage to block, which is not nearly enough time, even for a 10 minute play. We started rehearsal at 10, which was a mistake, becuase at the end of the day I would have killed for two more hours of rehearsal. But as difficult as it was, the rewards of putting on a show in such a short time were monumental. I’d do it again in heartbeat.All thanks to Dennis, Mark, Wes and Shawn. You guys were a blast to work with.