R and I have signed up for The 24 Hour Cram, a brilliant idea put on by Plays & Players–who I have done work with before, and indeed, hope to do work with again. Unsurprisingly, the mad minds who gave us “Superheroes Who Are Super” have yet another deliciously quick and dirty theater concept up their collective sleeves. Here’s how they describe it:
We meet on January 29th at 8pm at Plays & Players 3rd Floor. Everyone is put into teams that each consist of one writer, one director and an equal number of actors.
We chat, we laugh and then we send the writers home to write a 10 minute play by 8am the next morning. Directors receive the hot off the printer plays at 8:01am and meet up with their actors to rehearse until house opens at 8pm on January 30th. For those of you still counting – that is 24 hours of pure cram!
Clearly, I am insane for wanting to try this. Luckily, my wife is too. We are enablers in our insanity.
JR and I have an edge on this, as we have seen the results of a previous 24 Hour Cram and have a pretty good idea of what works (outsized characters, mysteries) and what doesn’t (quiet character, slow builds). We did a practice run last night, to see how long it took us to write a ten-minute scene. Mine, a Mamet-ian exploration of the pros and cons of the iPad, took about an hour. JR’s, an examination of the pitfall of modern supernatural romance via speed dating, took about the same time, but was, as you might imagine, a little more deep. After that rush job, 12 hours aught to be a luxury.
So, yes, it will be insane. But, the exact type of insanity that we excell at. Which means it will be awesome.
I expect to see you all there.