Take four fly-by-their-seat playwrights, give them a four-hour writing deadline, and ridiculous opening and closing lines, and you get the theatre-sports-ish gist of Scriptease.
The Prime Stock Theatre event that sees four original plays written in the morning performed before a live audience on the same evening not only tests the wits of playwrights, but also directors, actors and designers, said organizer Chantal Vaage.
The cast and crew get only a few hours to figure out how to bring the freshly written plays to life on Sunday at the Scott Block in Red Deer.
Audience members can vote for which play they like best. A panel of judges will select best male and female performances, best costumes (which must be monochromatic in one of the primary colours for each play), and best set (which must incorporate esoteric things like red beer cups or green balloons).
“It’s a lot of fun,” promises Vaage, who recalls the last Scriptease plays started with a submitted first line about somebody falling into a vat of purple jello.
This year’s opening and closing lines will be drawn early on Sunday from the contents of various public submission boxes left around the city, including at Red Deer College and the public library.
Vaage said the neat thing about Scriptease is that, while each play starts off and ends the same, they are guaranteed to spin off in different directions according to the playwrights’ imaginations.
“All four of our playwrights are very different,” said Vaage. The latest contenders are: Ignition Theatre’s artistic director Matt Grue, Rosebud Theatre’s Rachel Peacock, RDC Theatre Studies alumni Jeremy Robinson, and local novelist Andrew Kooman.
The last Scriptease plays ranged from a western to a play with a sit-com vibe, said Vaage. There were also plots about orphans and the “b-word,” or calling someone a bastard.
“We encourage people not to come into this with any preconceived notions because we want people to get inspired by the (submitted) lines.”
The whole Scriptease process takes 12 hours. The four yet-to-be written plays will be performed at the Scott Block from 8 p.m. Tickets are $20 ($10 students/seniors) at the door.
lmichelin@www.reddeeradvocate.com