Thursday, May 21, 2015

The Last Few

Over the last couple of days, I've read the last few plays I was assigned as a reader for the Frostburg State University New Play Festival. And here are my super generic thoughts:

Play #120 - A sort of overwrought drama about a young couple and their terrible loss. Mostly, it sort of felt like a Lifetime movie.
Play #121 - An attempt at religious symbolism with some interesting stage directions and not much else. No real payoff to the cool title. But this writer is clearly a visual thinker... in a longer piece s/he might have more time to flesh out the world created by the visuals.
Play #122 - A clever play in the not-so-distant future with a few people caught in a catastrophe. Good characters, good arc - probably the best play in my pile.
Play #123 - Not terribly written, but I don't have a lot of time for the "No, Christians are the persecuted ones!" argument. So... big ol' nope from me.

And with that...I'm 18 plays behind my goal of one play every day of 2015. And I open Nunsense tonight, which means I don't have to spend so much of my days memorizing and such, so I should have time to get back on the horse! 

Sunday, May 17, 2015

Not Game of Thrones

Even though I may or may not have spent six hours watching Game of Thrones today, I also managed to come up with some time to read play #116: a sort or boring historical piece; and #117: a charming little family drama - easy on the schmaltz. Then there was #118: a family drama about which I had a little hope early on, but its too pat and, frankly, insensitive resolution made me pan it pretty hard. Reading as many new plays as I have in my life, I can usually feel when a play is probably autobiographical... and I can almost always tell when that autobiographical story is intended to argue an unpopular position as being reasonable. Perhaps it's unfair of me to pan a mediocre play for its clashing with my own ideology... but I guess that's what the "wild card" rating category is for. Then there's #119: a sort of interesting - if a little ham-handed at times - historical crime piece.

Thursday, May 14, 2015

Continuing On

Though I am unable to post the titles of my current Play a Day tasks, I do want to keep my tally going, so today I have a very boring #114, and a very enjoyable #115. So, here on the 134th day of the year, I'm only 19 plays behind. And this does not include the two plays I've attended, and a play by a friend of mine that I read, and definitely should have posted about... so maybe I'll post about his play later, just to keep my count complete.

Wednesday, May 13, 2015

New Play Festival

As I've mentioned on my twitters, I've had to take a bit of a hiatus from my ambitious project of reading one play every day - mostly by women playwrights - because I've been cast in a production of Nunsense with an exceedingly short rehearsal period, so most of my time is spent working on choreography and songs and lines, oh my!

That said, I'm also participating as a reader for the annual Frostburg State University New Play Festival, so I'm reading more than a few plays in this role. Of course, I'm reading them blind, so I don't know who wrote them. And I'm supposed to remain anonymous as well, so I won't be able to post the titles. But... I'm back! So...

Yesterday was #112
Today I read #113... and will probably read a couple more!

Here's to getting back on the horse!