I don't know if the surprise spring snowstorm kept people at home, but last night we had just 11 people attend. Still, it was an extremely productive meeting. We read five plays, had some of our deepest, most passionate discussions yet, and put away a boatload of cookies.
We started with a 10-minute play from Barbara Summerville titled Auntie Verna. This touching drama vividly portrayed the troubled relationship between a hard-nosed older woman and her niece, a frustrated actress.
Next we read the opening of Tim Phillips' new romantic drama, Abigail Finds Love. The play is set in 1920's Chicago, and the audience loved how it evoked this setting through both action and dialogue. Tim told me that the play is based on the Biblical story of David and Abigail, but this is handled so subtly you'd never guess.
We followed this with four more scenes from my restaurant farce Million Dollar Meatballs. Here the bumbling jewel thieves figure out where the diamonds are hiding. Fortunately, most of the gags seemed to hit their mark.
After that we read a new scene from Jess Weaver's meaty drama Just a Game. Buck Buchanan was hilarious as a touchy-feely therapist trying to bring peace to the married couple at the heart of the piece. Some fairly raw emotions were on display, and Karann Goettsch made the most of a monologue in which her character rails against the husband for breaking the bizarre rules of their sex game.
We wound up with a rewrite of Charlie Ammen's short relationship drama Then and Now. This play melds two separate plays Charlie brought previously, and the audience loved how the two scenes worked together to deepen the other. Roy Kieffer was especially moving in a final monologue that took place at his late friend's grave.
See you all on June 9. And I promise that next time, we won't have any snow.
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