Fest Success!

Remember when I said that Hubs and I were going to have to team-write for the 24-Hour Play Festival because the organizer's boyfriend wanted to write? (Which he did, by the way, and his play was, shall we say...not good. By any stretch of the imagination. Pee-you.) Turns out another writer didn't show, so Hubs and I got to write our own plays after all. Yay!

So, 7:30 p.m. Friday everyone shows up to the theater, introduces themselves, shows their prop and costume piece. Then at 9:00 p.m. the actors and directors go home and sleep while we writers go write. First we have to collect a jumbo supply of writing munchies including a sub sandwich, a Twix bar, grapes, gummy bears, and pop (That was my personal menu. Everyone else had their own).

At first, I really didn't have any idea what I was going to write. Then I decided it would be fun to adapt this, which I wrote for the Invasion of the Bloggy Snatchers blogfest under my "real" name.

It turned out spectacularly well. I was terrified the actors wouldn't be able to memorize all the lines in such a short period of time. Two years ago when I wrote, I drew some newbie actors who completely froze on stage, couldn't remember their lines, and the play bombed big time. Let me tell you, that was the epitome of embarrassment for a writer.

Tonight, however, I got awesome actors and they pulled the play off without a hitch. It was great!

One of the best things is that as a writer, watching the play from the audience, I was able to see the places where I could make adjustments and improve the play. It's a great opportunity.  I'm sure other writers experience this too, where everything you write sounds great when you read it in your head, but to see it performed points out the flaws very clearly. I think this play has potential in the long run, and watching it performed helped me to find the places where I can improve the timing, add jokes, delete lines, tighten dialogue.

How did Hubs' play go? Well, not so great. He pulled newbie actors who pretty much bombed his play. The script was good, but the acting stunk. So now he's had the privilege of experiencing writer embarrassment.

Overall, though, it was another really awesome 24-Hour Play Festival!