Good evening, ladies and germs!
Man, I almost forgot to plug the upcoming Blitz.
Shame. On. ME!
Yep, I'm writing again for Blitz Mania VI, with a couple of new wrinkles. First, I'm writing on Friday, with the bulk of the new writers, and second, I'm writing with a partner (Morey Burnard), and third...(drumroll...)
It's the musical.
Oh, yes. It's the musical.
I've been doing this every year, and I'm damn excited this time. You can't DRAG me away from a Blitz.
What's the Blitz, you ask?
For those of you just joining us, here's the skinny from the Mercury Players website:
What could be crazier than to write, cast, direct, and produce 8 new plays from scratch, all within 24 hours? How about doing it TWO DAYS IN A ROW?
On both Thursday and Friday, May 26 and 27, at 8:00 p.m., eight writers or writing teams will gather at the Bartell Theatre and randomly pick titles out of a hat. Those titles become their parameters for a 10-15 minute original play. The writers then stay at the theatre overnight to write the plays to fit those titles, with an absolute deadline of 8:00 a.m. on Saturday. At that time, the plays are collected and copies made.
On Friday and Saturday mornings, May 27 and 28, the directors arrive at the Bartell. At 9:00 a.m., the eight directors are each randomly assigned to one of the eight plays. Then at 10:00 a.m., the actors are brought in and cast as quickly as possible. Between 10:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m., the casts will rehearse their plays and do their best to learn their lines, with the occasional run home for costumes and props.
At 4:00 p.m. comes the run-through on the Drury Stage, and the final chance to get technical details right.
At 7:30, the house opens.
And at 8:00, the curtain will go up on eight plays that didn't exist 24 hours before!
"Blitz Mania VI" will run for two nights only (with an entirely new slate of plays each time), on Friday, May 27 and Saturday, May 28, 2005 at 8:00 p.m. on the Drury Stage of the Bartell Theatre, 113 E. Mifflin Street, Madison.
Tickets are $12. Call (608) 242-0150 for information. Reservations will NOT be accepted. The Bartell Theatre is fully wheelchair-accessible, and ample parking is available in the neighboring Mifflin Street Ramp.
By the way, here's the lineup of the other writers for Friday:
Patrick Fernan
Ryan Good
Robert Jahrling
Gary Kriesel
Gwen Quirk
Karen Saari & Sunny Shoemaker
Steven Van Haren
Steve, you may remember as Carl, from my show FACEvalue, and oddly, Patrick Fernan wrote and directed the first play I ever saw in Madison.
The Saturday night writers' lineup:
Matt Cibula
George Gonzalez
Phil Heckman
Greg Lawless
Therese Kattner
Jaime Niedermayer
Doug Reed
Andrew Rohn & Catherine Capellaro (musical)
This is really the All-Stars of writing night, where all the veterans come out to play. So please--See BOTH nights. I swear you will NOT regret it.
Yeah. I live for the Blitz, man.
So, for the first time ever, I'm going to be audioblogging DURING THE WRITING PROCESS so that people can get a sense as to how this goes.
Dude.
No, no.
DUDE.
posted by Rob on 11:54 PM |
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2 Comments:
You won't be audioblogging.
No way in hell you'll be audioblogging.
You be trying to figure out how to make "silencer" and "violencer" fit into a 6/8 meter.
Trust me, I been there.
By 
, at
Thursday, May 26, 2005 12:01:00 PM
Sounds like a fun, if incredibly busy time, Rob. I'm planning on going camping, but if that doesn't work out for some reason such as weather, I'll try and make it over Saturday.
