BYOT XVII

Once again, Bring Your Own Theater graced my life this weekend.  Once again, it was amazing and given life by so many talented, brave, beautiful people.  And once again I wrote a ten minute play in a couple hours and then taught math to elementary school kids the next day while exhausted.  The kids didn't notice. 

I was concerned this time because I felt as though I didn't flush out the characters as much as I would have liked.  I don't think I differentiated them as much as I could have, and that's something I prided myself on in previous plays. 

This play was a different beast.  The heart of the story was driven more by the situation than by the characters.  And I really wanted none of the characters to learn anything or grow or change, so then of course, none of them did.  I think because of that, it felt shorter.  Snappier.  Less of a pivotal moment in a character's life and more of a stupid thing that happened once.

Which, I've decided, is fine.  It worked.  The actors and director were amazing and they did brilliant things.  The ending I'd written was weak.  I knew it was weak.  But they made it work, given great stage direction decisions and a change of props.  Also, when the father was telling one of his many stories, the kids would mouth along with him, doing the same hand gestures as if they'd heard it a million times before.  Brilliant!  That gave it history and tied the characters together.

So now that I've alerted you to all the nit-picky things I don't like, here's the script for you to read!  Enjoy.

BYOT XV

Friday and Saturday was BYOT XV: Catchy Subtitle, the 24 hour play project where teams are assigned, themes are given, writers have 12 hours to write, and then actors and directors have 12 hours to practice before the big show.

I wrote again this time.  Our theme was "frenemies" and we ended up with three male actors, the idea of showing how guys can also have frenemy relationships, and the idea that we could subvert tropes about masculine friendships.  Coming out of our initial, brief brainstorming session, I was terrified that I had no idea how to do this in the time given and that these guys were all going to think I was an idiot.  Also, I was trying to do too much in a ten minute play and have it all have an emotional kick.  But in the end, I just sucked it up and wrote my ideas, and it came out to 10 pages, and I decided that would have to do.

And it worked!  I don't think I captured completely what our group was going for, but I gave them a foundation and then the guys accomplished it with their body language and the staging.  They took these parts and made them full characters.  They made a meal of this script.  It was amazing, and I felt so awed and relieved.

The plays were recorded, and will be up on the YouTube page at some point in the future, at which point, I'll put the video up here.  (Speaking of which, the post about the last play I wrote, "Put a Ring on It," has bee edited to include the video.)

Below the cut is my script for the lazily titled play, "The Snake." Enjoy

BYOT XIII

(Edit 9/1/14: the video is up!  Watch it!)

Despite my fears and awkward posts about how I didn't know what I was doing, my script at Bring Your Own Theater turned out well.  The actors liked the characters, and the director said I made it the easiest day of his life and then drunkenly kissed everyone.  I've heard it said that the best compliment you can give an artist is not to tell them that you love their work, but to tell someone else that you love their work.  At BYOT, someone came up to me and said, "I heard your script is great," meaning that someone who had read it had told them this.  That's all kinds of awesome, even if people were being especially nice to me after I acted so concerned and new.

But more importantly than my script getting good reception, the play was amazing.  The actors (who were all unbelievable) completely owned it.  As my director told them later in a fit of excited passion, "You were the only three people in that room."  They changed some lines by adding swear words which made it feel more natural and emotional, and they added a few jokes, all of which I approve of 100%.  It was a collaborative effort--one that I'm honored I was a part of and was not at all something worth worrying about.  I gave them a plot and characters and a spirit, and then ran with it, expanded upon it, made it breathe.

So it was awesome and I liked it, and I'm sharing the video of the performance and my script below the cut.  Enjoy!