Playwrights pen short plays

Special to The Colonnade

Imagine sitting down one evening to write a short play and 24 hours later seeing it in full production on stage.

That’s just what six Georgia College & State University writers will do on April 22-23, and you’re invited to see the results that Saturday night at 8 p.m. in Max Noah Recital Hall.

Four MFA graduate students, Gwendolyn Turnbull, Nick Swetye, John Baum and Lauren Falkenberry, one alumna, Amy Zipperer, and one undergraduate, Eric Jones, will meet with a group of actors on Friday evening to get to know them, hear their voices, and possibly get inspiration. They will then each begin writing a 10-minute play.

When they finish, they’ll hand them over to six directors who will cast the plays from the pool of actors. They’ll begin rehearsals, and at 8 p.m., the curtain will rise.

The 24-hour marathon is the brainchild of new Director of Theatre Kathleen McGeever.

“The founding group has marketed this insane weekend of tremendous creativity, and similar events are sweeping the nation-from the William Inge Festival to Manhattan’s Lower Eastside to London, Chicago, Los Angeles and now Milledgeville,” McGeever said.

Over six years and 300 plays have been written and produced using the artificial constraints of 24 hours. The Village Voice called the event “an art unconnected to career, theatricality as life, as subversion, even as survival.”

“For GC&SU, the 24-hour plays are a chance to build bridges between the departments-to let the adrenaline take over and creativity land where it may,” McGeever said. “The weekend promises to be a ground-breaking experiment in ultimate and extreme theatre creation.”

Earlier this year, McGeever met with David Muschell, who teaches playwriting in the Department of English, Speech and Journalism and convinced him to be a partner in the project. “It’s a great way to allow a playwright to really experience the collaboration with directors and actors in a compressed, intense situation,” Muschell said.

Admission is $2 for students and $5 for faculty, staff and the general public. For reservations, please call Kathy Tennille at 478-445-4226.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Apr 22 2005. Filed under Other. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry