Jumping "Out of the Box" - Celebrating the Short Stage Play in Southwest Michigan

How to support your community theatre? Show up!

On the evenings of Friday, November 30, and Saturday, December 1, the Box Factory for the Arts will host the Out of the Box Playfest.

Eight ten-minute plays, selected from submissions to the first Out of the Box Playwrighting Competition held earlier this year, will be performed in a reader's theatre format.

The contest was open to playwrights in Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois. It emphasized creating plays suitable for community theatre actors and audiences. (Translation: smaller casts, manageable props, few explosions, no elephants. That sort of thing.)

Judges will evaluate and score the plays during the performances, naming the top three plays at the end of the second evening. An Audience Choice award will be presented to one play each evening.

Last Friday, Berrien Artist Guild President Judy Sokolowski, actor Chase Samuelson, and I were featured on WSJM's "In the Spotlight" with Brenda Layne, talking about the playfest and our roles in it. I suspect I was invited because everyone else they asked, including Director Greg Ladewski and Artistic Director Lisa Kelleher was away for Thanksgiving. No matter. It's always fun to be in a radio studio.

I am honored that one of my plays is in the running. I'm really looking forward to seeing something I've done performed live before an audience and seeing the reaction it gets.

The plays that will be performed each evening are:

Community theatre: few explosions. No elephants.

Cleaning Up by Pearl Ahnen
Divorced Playwright by Maureen Perideaux
Detection by Greg Ladewski
The Interview by Ami Hendrickson
Beep by Bob Lawrence
Laundry Day by Debra Davis
Conversation by Sandra Thompson, and
What Dog by Lynn Spear.

Hare & Tortoise (and a Pair of Ducks), an additional play by Greg Ladewski, will also be performed, though it is not entered in the competition.

Good luck to all contestants!

Doors open at 7:00 p.m. both nights, with performances beginning at 7:30. General admission tickets are $10 each; seniors and students get in for $8. If you're in the Southwest Michigan area and enjoy the energy and camaraderie of community theatre, come on out and see the premieres of these eight original short works.

*  While writing this, I had hoped to include a link to each playwright's website and a short blurb about each play. Every attempt was made to do so, but with -- as you can see -- minimal success. If you are one of the playwrights listed and you have an online presence, let me know in the comments and I'll remedy the situation with an appropriate link in this post. A.H.

Six Words of Fleeting Fame

Fleeting magazine (Now Fleeting Books, see note below), publisher of made-ya-think fiction, poetry, and "X Questions for ____" interviews with Interesting People, ran a Hemingway-inspired six-word short story contest this summer.

Almost 5,000 entries poured in. On a whim, I sent in what is essentially the six-word pitch for a short story I was thinking of tinkering with but didn't have the time to really flesh out because client work kept calling my name while stamping its feet. I hate when it does that.

Well -- cool beans! -- my entry is one of eight that got shortlisted. (Which makes me think maybe I shouldn't expand the piece into a short story at all. Sometimes less is more...

Conversely, perhaps this means I should delve into the idea deeper and see how rich the story ore is.

Odd, how I never do this kind of vascillating with client projects. Maybe it's that dratted foot stamping that keeps my focus sure.)

The shortlist entries are worth a read. They're all quite individual. Some rely on witty banter. Some on nuance. Some on subtext. Active verbs do their thang. Linking, passive verbs are nowhere to be seen. (Huh. Irony. ::wink, wink; nudge, nudge::) It's fascinating how, when offered unlimited words from which to choose, with a mandate only to reduce word count, each author's unique voice shines through in just six strokes.

I wonder if there is a tipping point where voice would be lost. Five words? Three words? Two? I suspect if one had to tell a "story" in just one word, the word chosen would speak volumes -- if only about the one who chose it.

Congratulations to my fellow finalists. It is an honor to be in your company.

Have a six-word story? Share it below!

*** Update: Imagine my surprise after writing & posting this to receive a note from the lovely contest Grand Poobahs informing me that I had won! I was sitting in Panera, sipping an overly-acidic cup of coffee & chowing down on a chocolate babka when I read the e-mail. "Holy Cow!" I said aloud, though I was alone. Other patrons immediately gave me a wider berth. Anyway, it's always nice to hear one has won something. Here's the official version of the story from Fleeting.  A.H.  

****Update, October, 2013: Fleeting Magazine is officially now "Fleeting Books," a literary consultancy. See Editorial Assistant Charlotte Seymour's comment below. Here's wishing them all the best!

Words of Writerly Wisdom: The Search for Inspiration Continues

I love reading blogs about writing.

(Reading food blogs is also a favorite activity. Which explains the crumbs on my kkkeyboard that occasionally cause the "kk" kkkkey to stickkkk. But I digress.)

I enjoy the blogs that offer tips and suggestions for writing better. Or cleaner. Or clearer. Or faster. They help me add to my writer's toolbox and improve my craft.

I adore blogs that cheerlead and encourage other writers. They form a vital, global support system that shines through our laptops and illuminates the recesses of our solitary writing dens. These blogs celebrate successes. They applaud milestones. They w00t and hoot-n-holler over things like achieving word count, solving plot problems, and landing publishing contracts. They reach out to other writers. They enable us to realize that we are not alone.

Photo by Lisa Solonynko.

I am grateful for the blogs of agents, editors, and publishers. These act as spotlights and spyglasses into the weird, wonderful world of publishing. Because of them, I can readily discover my agent of choice's query letter preferences. I can stay up-to-date on the vagaries of Penguin, Amazon, Barnes & Noble and British tabloid law. I can sympathize with the overqualified, underpaid intern wading through the slush pile. I can (and do) lurkk, listen, and learn.

Photo by Mark Miller.

Finally, I appreciate the blogs that use humor to illustrate the strange subculture we writers inhabit. Because, really, who in their right mind chooses a career that is so difficult to wriggle one's way into and that carries so little clout?

Q: How does a manuscript get published?
A: Someone forgets to say "No."

Writing blogs inspire me. They provide hours of entertainment, allowing me to rationalize that I'm not really procrastinating. Honest! I'm... uh... doing research. Yeah. 

Write to Done is currently hosting their 6th Annual Top 10 Blogs for Writers Contest. Do you have a favorite writing blog -- one that consistently enriches your writing life? Mention it below. Linkkkk to it, if you wish. I'd love to checkkk it out. Then, once you've finished your practice run, go to Write to Done's contest and make your nomination. (Only 1 nomination per person counts at Write to Done. I, however, don't care how many writing blogs you wish to name.) It's easy:

1.) Go to Write to Done's Writer's Blog Contest and tell them your favorite writer's blog in the comments.

2.) Include the web address of the blog you nominate. (http://museinks.blogspot.com for example. Just sayin'.)

3.) Tell them why your chosen blog is so fabulous. (Hint: "She promised me Heath Bars if she wins" is probably *not* going to help your favorite place well in the polls...)

4.) Do it now. Or at least before December 10, 2011. That's when contest entries close.

A poem to commemorate the occasion (ahem):

Go spread the wisdom 
And the holiday cheer. 
What's your favorite writing blog? 
Tell the world here.