Paying the piper

A year ago, when I first approached Jim Jackson and Birgitta De Pree about hosting a playwriting group at the Millibo Art Theatre, they loved the idea and agreed that we could use their venue for free the first six months while we worked to attract new members. After that, they would charge us a nominal fee.

That six months became a year, which was more than generous on their part. But now their board has voted to require a fee of all outside groups.

The fee I negotiated is $300 per year for twelve monthly meetings. That breaks down to $12.50 an hour. If you've ever had to rent a theatre, then you'll know how incredibly cheap that is. When I was running Pikes Peak KidStage, we would often do our shows at District 20 school auditoriums, and they charged $200 an hour.

So I think we can swing this. The challenge is finding a convenient and equitable way to do so.

One thing I don't want to do is a charge a per-meeting fee. That would be a constant headache to collect.

Instead, what I would like to do is charge all writers and actors a $25 annual membership fee. I think we have at least 12 people who would be willing to join, which would meet the $300 fee. If we get more people, the extra money would be used for cookies and other goodies. If we get a lot more people, we could reduce the membership fee.

Spectators would always be able to attend for free. Besides encouraging a large and enthusiastic audience, this would give potential writers and actors an opportunity to check our group out before they commit.

I hope this won't be a financial burden to anyone. Let me know what you think.

Playwrights, start your laptops

Jim Jackson took some time during this month's meeting to let us know about Four Play. This showcase of four short plays is returning in September, and Jim encouraged the writers of the Drama Lab to submit.

This is a wonderful opportunity for local playwrights to get produced. Last year, the MAT received 17 submissions and produced--you got it--four. That might seem like tough odds, but most 10-minute festivals get 300+ submissions and produce only 10. So this contest is well worth the effort.

All sscripts must include the prompts that will be announced at the MAT (1367 Pecan St.) and on their web site at 5pm on Friday, September 14. The deadline is 1pm on Sunday, September 16, giving the playwrights a scant 44 hours to complete their plays. (I talked to one of the winning playwrights from last year, and he told me he cranked out his script in one 6-hour binge on Saturday night.)

Jim did offer one piece of advice to help contestants improve their chances. It's all about producability. You may write the cleverest, most amazing play in the world, but if it's hard to produce, it's not going to be selected. The MAT puts these plays together in just a week, so there can't be any unreasonable technical challenges in terms of sets, costumes or special effects.

There's no strict length limit, but pieces should be around 10 to 20 minutes. And stay away from those casts of thousands. Three to six actors seems to work best.

When inspiration strikes

With the start of the new school year, a few of our regulars weren't able to make it yesterday, but we had a good meeting with 11 enthusiastic attendees and a record number of cookies.

We started off with the first part of a sci fi drama titled The Outcasts by Tim Phillips. We followed that with a 10-minute relationship comedy titled Kinda, Sorta by David Overbey. After that we read the beginning of the freaky The Infinite Lives of Hernandez Polk by Jeff Keele. And we wrapped it all up with part 3 of my backstage farce Kill the Critic!

David told me that he hadn't planned to write anything this month. But then, just a few days ago, an idea popped into his head and he spent the weekend scrambling to get it down in time for the meeting.

So if you've been tempted to bring something to The Drama Lab but you're not sure if it's ready, there's just one thing to do. Have me add it to next month's slate. There's nothing like a deadline to help you get it done.

Packing them in

Wow! That's all I can say after last night's meeting. (Although I'm sure I'll think of something more.)

We had 26 people show, including one new writer and three new actors. Fortunately, we had five plays to read, so everyone who wanted to act got a chance to do so.

Unfortunately, we ran out of cookies. I was simply unprepared for the number of people who came. But I'm glad they did and I'll be sure to buy more cookies--lots more--in the future.

We started out with the first play by Jeff Schmoyer, a very funny 10-minute sci fi comedy titled It Could Be Hell. We followed this with the latest rewrite of Tim Phillips' fairy tale adaptation Grimmland. It's been fun watching this work develop and tighten. We then dove into the second part of my backstage farce Kill the Critic! Next up was our newest writer David Overbey's wacky one-act comedy about a pair of very spoiled kitties The Return of the vonGoodnesses. And we finished up with a thought-provoking exploration of faith titled The Great Whatever from Washington state playwright Barbara Lindsay.

The only problem? The meeting ran really long. Like three hours long.

Although some people said they were happy to stay as long as we had stuff to read, most of the crowd had left by the time we started the last play and it seemed like enough fatigue had set in that we weren't able to give the script its due.

Which reminded me that once before we had done five plays in one night, and while that meeting only lasted a little over two hours, it also felt long.

I think four plays is the right number, maximizing opportunities for our actors to perform while stopping before people start getting tired.

So I'm going to set a maximum of four plays per meeting. And local scripts must take precedence, so any guest scripts will be postponed if we already have four scripts from playwrights in attendance.

After all, if there's one thing I've learned in life, it's that you always want to leave 'em wanting more.

Hot fun in the summer time

While outside temperatures shattered records--Colorado Springs hit a high of 97 degrees on Monday--the playwrights and actors of the Drama Lab enjoyed the coolness of the MAT's cozy 87-seat theatre.

I was especially pleased that with vacations and all the other activities of summer, we managed to get 13 attendees. The only problem? We ended a half hour early because we only had three scripts. But I've got some ideas to try to up that count for future meetings (more on that in a bit).

We started with a brief excerpt from Tim Phillips' latest take on fairy tales, Grimmland, this time focusing on the fascinating but little-known character of Bearskin. We followed that with the beginning of my full-length farce, Kill the Critic! And we ended with a sweetly funny Christmas story from Ohio playwright Maureen Brady Johnson, The Singular Tree of Deanna and Will.

This month, I experimented with having someone else read the stage directions for my play (thanks, Jeff!). In the past, the playwright has always read their own stage directions, but I know that when I do that, I tend to use the script as a crutch. It was very freeing for once to set down the pages and just focus on the sound of the words. It also helped me catch some problems with the dialogue that I might have missed otherwise. I highly recommend that the rest of you give it a try.

Next month, it sounds like we may have a full slate of scripts, which is wonderful. But in the interest of keeping the flow coming, I'm going to try a couple of things. One is to reach out to more playwrights from around the country to send in scripts. This may never be as satisfying as having the playwright attend, of course, but it will help in one of my main goals: obtaining enough scripts so that every actor gets to read at least once, and hopefully twice.

The other thing is that I'm going to open up readings to screenplays. Jeff Schmoyer brough a screenplay a couple months ago and it was a fun read. Next month, Roy Kieffer wants to bring a screenplay-based monologue that a friend of his wrote. Of course, as a group that gets free use of a theatre, we want to keep our focus on plays. But reading one screenplay a month should help cross-pollinate our writing and will give even more for our actors to read.

Oh, and thanks Paula for the M&M cookies. They were great!

Next month's meeting moved to June 18

I have to do this, but I'm going to have to postpone our next meeting unitl Monday, June 18. I'm moving into a new house the week before and I'm going to need every spare minute putting my life into boxes.

I apologize for the inconvenience. I hope everyone is still able to make it.

Grab bag

Another great meeting on Monday. We had eleven attendees, all regulars.

We started with a pitch by Nancy Holaday for her decidedly non-Disney version of The Beauty and the Beast, to be performed at the Louisa Performing Arts Center on June 8 and 9. The show is produced by BlackBoxTheatre and Nancy's students at the University School of Colorado Springs and is recommended for ages 11 and up. All funds raised will go to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

After that, we dived into the readings. We had a real grab bag this month: the finale of my comedy/mystery The Butler Did It!, the first part of Jeff Keele's adaptation of Paradise Lost (which he's working as an independent study project at UCCS) and Maureen Brady Johnson's children's eco-play A Skinks Tale.

Maureen is the Ohio playwright whose 10-minute play All Things Shall Pass was performed as part of the Six Women Playwriting Festival at the MAT last month. She doesn't have a regular playwriting group and asked if we would read it. I just emailed her the feedback and she wanted to make sure I thank everyone. She really appreciated all the comments. Next month, we'll read her Christmas play The Singular Tree.

I have already talked to some of you about doing a full staged reading of The Butler Did It! The purpose of this is two-fold.

One purpose is to read it all the way through in order to check for continuity, pacing and--horror of horrors!--plot holes. That's almost impossible to do when you read it in 20-page sections over 5 months. The other purpose is to gauge audience reaction.

Actors will be able to read off the scripts, and all rehearsals and performances will be done over one weekend to keep the time commitment down.

I'm just waiting for a date when the MAT will be free. Right now, it looks like it'll be in August or September. I'll let you know when we pin it down.

And I'm happy to announce that the Drama Lab will continue meeting through the summer. Our next meeting is Monday, June 11. See you then!