Yesterday I put up posters all around town for the theatre. I’ve still got more to go, but I was able to get a large chunk of them done. It was hot. It didn’t make sense to me since it seems we’re in full autumn swing mode. Ah well.
I attended a development team meeting. It looks like I’ll be visiting some classes this fall to explain more about our company and discuss the themes and elements of THE RAINMAKER. That could be a lot of fun, I think. I’m also going to be learning more about the world of grants and foundations. It all sounds pretty fascinating to me.
After the meeting, I got my things together, pulled a suit and some shirts out for a costume, and hopped in the car with the writer/director of the ten-minute play and his wife, who was my scene partner for NOTHING HAPPENED. We traveled to Mankato, MN for this short play festival.
The festival was in an old school that has been converted to a community center. We had a makeshift greenroom, which was just a section of a hallway that was curtained off. It wasn’t a huge deal; we were only there for five hours tops.
The strange thing about this event is that none of us had any idea of what to expect. It seemed like it was a large blend of professional/academic/community theatre. I was really nervous for some reason. My scene partner and I decided was that it seemed just like an audition. You’ve got all these actors in a rather small space, waiting to go on stage for ten minutes. Some people are very friendly to strangers. Others know each other. I didn’t know anyone.
Ah well. I must say that we did a pretty fine job. We performed the play twice. We were second on, so we were able to catch most of the other shows in the audience. Boy was that auditorium hot. And there was a lot of variety in the plays. One was about a woman with a puppy attempting to attract men. Another play was written and performed by a sophomore in college and it was all about crying and these different stages of relationships and age. Another play was about this washed out rock band who was getting past middle age and debating the merits of tour and going on for a fifth encore.
The writer of our play (and fellow company member) did say that whenever there was laughter from other plays, it was only pockets of people who were friends of the people on stage. In our case, no one knew us. So when we got laughs, it was from the entire house. That was cool to hear.
I guess I didn’t even describe what the play I was doing is about.
I played Eric, who is sitting in a nice restaurant on New Year’s Eve. He’s about to propose to his girlfriend, Stephanie, but he’s got a lot of doubts. He’s had a habit of calling upon his former fiancé, Jennifer, just to hash out his problems. So Jennifer arrives (it’s all in his mind, so he uses his cellphone to talk to her, so as not to appear crazy. But since this is theatre, an actual actress appears and sits at the table—it’s pretty clever, actually. The two exchange pleasantries and get into a bit of an argument. Things get heated, and Eric denies that he’s trying to compare Jennifer to Stephanie. He also (finally) admits that he desperately wants to be “different from the man you couldn’t marry.”
What’s so interesting is how, in ten minutes, you go through a beginning, middle, and end. This play has a LOT going on, and I think we pulled it off with some success (not that this was a competition or anything). That’s hard to do in ten minutes.
I wonder if I’ve got a ten minute play or two I could write out. Who knows!
I’m glad I had the chance to do this. It was a great side project and nice change of pace from doing the same show for the past three months (not that I’m getting tired of THE RAINMAKER).
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