24 Hours at Available Light gives me 'The View at the End'

Over the weekend, two pretty amazing things happened. We had a baby shower for the future Baby Sony. And I did a 24 hour theatre show. It was probably an insane thing to do, writing a play the same weekend that we had a baby shower, but sometimes insanity breeds creativity. It was a fantastic experience, produced by the wonderful folks at Available Light Theatre. You can see from their tweet below that we had a fantastic house for this one-night only event. 

Packing them in like sardines. At least no one will get cold tonight ! #24HRTheatre #AVL... http://t.co/lWyFBcJCN1 pic.twitter.com/ED2CHPO5h4

— Avlbl Lght Thtr (@avltheatre) November 9, 2014

Every 24 hour theatre event is different in execution, but the base plan is the same: gather a bunch of playwrights, directors, actors, and designer, and then give them 24 hours to write and stage a bunch of short plays. Yep. One day. An actual 24 hours. We gathered on Friday night, where the playwrights found out how many actors we'd get, our directors, and some inspiration in the form of costumes and props.

Then we (the playwrights) went off and wrote all night (writing time officially commenced at 8pm on Friday). On Saturday morning (about 7am), scripts were done and emailed to AVLT, given to the directors and actors (who arrived at 8am), and they worked through the day to stage each show. We're talking some light and sound design, blocking, memorizing lines... like a fully rehearsed play, only they did it in about 12 hours.

These plays were each about 15 minutes, give or take. I didn't time mine, as I was too busy enjoying everything AVLT and my team put into it. The entire night was a good ride. Lots of variations in terms of play styles, comedies, dramas, etc. There was even a musical! A musical, people. Yeah. Overall, I think AVLT should be extremely proud of the event. They brought together a grand assortment of theatre artists from around Columbus, Ohio, so it was a thrill to see how everyone came together --- many who had never worked together before --- to create a full evening of brand new plays.

Since a one-night only theatre event (that looks from the AVLT tweet above to maybe have sold out) means not everyone could be there to see the results of our insanity, I wanted to share my script. Or hey, maybe you saw it and you're interested to see what the show looked like on the page when the actors and director picked up and set to work. Either way, here is what I wrote this weekend, which AVLT staged beautifully. Special thanks to my director, Brant Jones, and my amazing actors Beth Josephsen, John Connor, Audrey Rush, and Chris Austin.