When we stepped into the Millibo Art Theatre for our monthly meeting last night, we were immediately overwhelmed by envelopes. Great stacks of them everywhere. On the ticker counter. On the merch table. Covering a card table they set up for the day. I mean everywhere.
Turns out Jim and crew were sending out the annual newsletter to the 3000 people on their mailing list. And they had big news to share.
As part of this year's IndyGive campaign, they're trying to raise $10,250 to help them move into an expanded space at the new Ivywild urban development district. The new space will include a state-of-the-art theater with seating for 120 as well as dedicated rehearsal and classroom spaces.
Not to mention space for Colorado Springs' biggest and most exciting playwriting group.
If you'd like to contribute to this ultra-worthy cause, visit the MAT's IndyGive page.
Oh yeah. The meeting. We had 11 attendees, which isn't bad considering how busy everyone is this time of year, and 6 of those were writers (including the playwriting team of Mark and Lauren Arnest).
We started out with Charlie Ammen's 10-minute relationship drama Daddy. He revised it one last time to make the protagonist more active. But now he's done with the piece and wants to see it produced before he makes any more changes.
We followed that with the second part of David Overbey's full-length drama, 00:00. This one's hard to categorize, but it's about a media studies professor who's unable to relate to anyone except a wisecracking prostitute. It's been interesting seeing this one develop.
Next up was the end of Mark and Lauren Arnest's one-act comedy The Cafeteria. This dystopian view of corporate culture seemed polished already--and it should, as it's been produced before--but the Arnests came away with some ideas to heighten the tension at the end.
And we finished up with part 2 of my restaurant farce, Chef's Surprise. I still don't know where I'm going with this thing and still just taking it scene by scene. But there was a rather lengthy discussion of the proper pronunciation of bearnaise sauce and how to exploit it for the purposes of a (very bad) pun.
After the meeting, Jim mentioned that the MAT has had a good run of 10 minutes plays and would now like to try something different. That's why they're going to start looking for one-acts next year. If you have anything ready for them, they'd be happy to take a look at it. Just bring it by to one of our meeting.
Finally, if you're looking for something to see this holiday season, you might be interested in the Christmas drama A Candle in the Window, which runs December 13 to 15 at the University School of Colorado Springs. Drama Lab member Nancy Holaday is directing and Buck Buchanan is one of the leads. For more info, click here.
