The first week, and I've made my deadline with a few hours to spare. My first play of 2012 is The Shakespearean Actor's Nightmare. As I alluded to in my first post, I am a graduate of the M.Litt/MFA program in Shakespeare at Mary Baldwin College, which is associated with the American Shakespeare Center. You can find out more about the MBC / ASC here: http://www.americanshakespearecenter.com/v.php?pg=69.
The ASC begins every year with a three month season called the Actors' Renaissance Season. As the website explains “In the Actors’ Renaissance Season, the ASC goes even further than we normally do into the staging practices of the English Renaissance, cutting out the directors, designers, and the months of rehearsals that Shakespeare’s company never knew….all in productions mounted with very few rehearsals and with the actors making the production choices. The special experimental season offers five productions running in rotating repertory.” Interns from Mary Baldwin College’s graduate program in Shakespeare and Performance are often used as prompters during the season. If an actor forgets their line, they are instructed to say “prithee” and the prompter will let them know the correct line. The ARS is one of my favorite things about the ASC - the productions are always exciting.
My play is about what happens when a production of Richard III falls apart. What would happen if an actor forgot their line and it was one of the most famous lines in the canon? And what would happen if the prompter refused to give the actor the line? Obviously, this has never happened at the ASC, but it was fun imagining what might happen and what the actor and the prompter would do, when a production's success is on the line.
My intention is for this play to serve as a humorous, yet loving tribute to the actors of the ASC ARS and to the students in the M.Litt/MFA program, and it is therefore dedicated to them.
Woot! Are the plays going to be available to us as well? Or just the summaries?
ReplyDeleteHmmm...good question. How about this - if you want to read a copy of the play, let me know and I'll email it to you. I'd post them here but I don't want people using them for nefarious purposes. ;)
ReplyDeleteLove this idea, Bonnie--very ambitious. I just finished writing 5-page screenplay for a competition (an hour before the deadline!), which was fun...but I can't quite imagine doing it every week!
ReplyDeleteI would love to read your plays, by the way. When you're done, you should try to publish them all as a book of collected one acts.
Hey! I heard you were doing this. I would be interested in both of the plays you've written so far if you don't mind sending them my way (do you have my email?).
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