| | Issue #21.17 :: 04/23/2008 - 04/29/2008 | Need for Speed
Trustus Theatre Hosts Inaugural 24-Hour Theatre Project
| BY PATRICK WALL
| If the normal process of producing a play is a marathon, this is the 40-yard dash: The Trustus Theatre is hosting Columbia’s first 24-hour theatre project at 5 p.m. on April 27, in which five playwrights will have exactly one day to build a 10-minute play from the ground up. While such a project is actually common practice for playwrights, this is the first time such a project will grace the Capital City’s theatre scene.
“We haven’t done one yet, and we’re really excited to do it,” says Elisabeth Heard, artistic director of Armed Chair productions, Trustus’ youth theatre company. “We try to produce one [theatrical] event a year … that’s also a community event that’s exciting and different.”
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| Write faster! Trustus Theatre’s 24-Hour Theatre Project challenges playwrights to produce 10-minute plays from scratch in, well, 24 hours. |
The 24-hour project was suggested by one of the Armed Chair company members.
“We just went from there,” Heard says. “This was something we were all really excited about. It’s something that everybody in Armed Chair — and everybody at Trustus — could really latch on to and get excited about. It’s a concept you hear and you’re like, ‘No way. They can’t do that. Whatever.’ It’s a really exciting challenge for any playwright, any director, any actor who’s ever been through a theatrical process. If you think about condensing that down to 24 hours, it’s overwhelming.”
To accomplish the Herculean feat of producing a 10-minute play in 24 hours, Armed Chair has gathered five prominent young playwrights: Sarah Hammond, a former Trustus Playwright’s Festival winner for her play Kudzu and winner at the Actors Theatre of Louisville’s Humana Festival; Jon Tuttle, literary manager of Trustus Theatre, himself a three-time Trustus Playwrights Festival winner for Holy Ghost in 2005, Drift in 1998 and The Hammerstone 1994; George Pate, a former member of the USC improv troupe Toast and a recent winner of the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival One Act competition for his play Indifferent Blue; Jayce Tromsness, a faculty member of the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities whose plays have been produced by USC, Trustus, The Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, The South Carolina Children’s Theatre and The Puppet Regime Theatre; and Dean Poynor, a Trustus Company Member, local playwright and actor, most recently seen in Trustus’ production of Bug.
The playwrights will be paired with local directors Jim Thigpen, Dewey Scott-Wiley, Scott Blanks, Neal Easterling and Brian Hanscom. Writer-director pairings and actor assignments will be determined at random.
“We put all the names in a hat,” Heard says. “The sheer talent of who we have on board is going to be really exciting to watch.”
The clock starts at 5 p.m. on April 26, when the playwrights will be given nothing more than a theme to work with. The biggest challenge of the project, Heard says, will be creative editing.
“When you get into a theatrical process, you have so many ideas at one time and so many things you want to try,” Heard says. “With about five or six hours of rehearsal, you can’t do that.”
“Everyone’s going to take the suggestion of the theme and run with it,” Heard adds. “These people are insanely creative. You never know what could come out of it.”
And given the small time frame and lack of guidelines, theatergoers should expect the unexpected.
“I think that’s part of the excitement,” Heard says. “That potential for something really new and really exciting is absolutely there. And that’s one of the definite positive outcomes of a project like this: You never know what could happen.”
Trustus Theatre is located at 520 Lady St. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased at the Trustus Theatre box office between 1 and 6 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday. Call 254-9732 or visit trustus.org for more information. | |
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