Spontaneous Productions!

For pretty much the last two years, I've been complaining to Rob whenever he asks me what play we should be doing as the spring production - in short, "WHY DON'T WE DO THE 24-HOUR PLAYS??? I am the only Pettitt-Schieber that hasn't taken part in a 24-hour play and it's depressing!" He stopped doing them after Lucy's 24-hour plays, so I guess I know who to blame now.... jk. But seriously, my point is, it is only fitting that this incredibly crazy theatre experience started with a 24-hour play. The rumor was spreading on the first day that the playwright apprentices were going to have to stay up all night the very first night and write plays, and sure enough, after our very first meeting, Tom (the director of the program) announced that we would be performing "Spontaneous Productions" the next night at 8 o'clock for an outside audience (called thus because apparently "24-hour plays" is copyrighted...) Cue the insanity.

So the playwrights, on the very first night of the program, stayed up until about 3 o'clock writing their plays. As a director, I came into the picture at about 10 AM (thankfully!) and received my script, "A Pleasant Day for Happiness," to look over and work on until 2 PM when I started with the actors. Now, to be honest, I had no idea what to do with the script. It was a decent play about this couple who get kidnapped by this butcher who tells them that he's going to kill them if they don't fall in love (kind of like that one scene from I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change, with David Martinez, remember?) So in terms of workability, I could have gotten worse - it wasn't like I got paired with a teenage Samuel Beckett or anything! But my limited director experience hadn't really prepared me for something like this, so I was a little freaked out, which is possibly my favorite feeling in the world - the feeling of a good old-fashioned challenge. I worked with the actors straight from 2 PM until 5 PM, when we had a dinner break, and then we had a tech rehearsal at 6 PM, a dress rehearsal at 7 PM, and the real shebang, with outside audiences and all, at 8 PM. The whole experience was just badass. I can't really imagine a better start to the program, to be honest. The first day, I was doing pretty well in terms of meeting people (like I hadn't made any serious faux pas or created any awkwardness) but after the Spontaneous Productions I felt like I had known some of these people my entire life. It was really cool. The best, though, was after the show: the playwright came up and shook my hand. I don't even think I did that great of a job with his show, looking back on it now, but he got to see what he wrote being brought literally to life within a span of a day and I can only imagine how cool that must have felt. His name's Jake, and he's actually one of my better friends now, and I think he's got a lot of potential as a playwright - but that moment when he came up and said good job was really special.