Playwrights - The Apprentice Anthology Project - The Apocalypse

Oh!

I haven't talked at all about meeting our playwrights, and I'm in the mood to type, so here I go.

So, the apprentices have their own show in the Humana Festival called the Apprentice Anthology Project.
Each year, the theater commissions a group of playwrights to write a play for the apprentices.
This year's theme is, The Apocalypse.
Now, the insanely neat thing about this, is it isn't just some playwrights getting together, writing a play, and then us doing it. The playwrights come to Louisville 2 or 3 times throughout the year and get to know the apprentices and workshop scenes with them that they've written, then they come together one last time and put it all together as one big show. They came for the first time last weekend.
Allison Moore
A. Rey Pamatmat
Dan Dietz
Jennifer Haley
Marco Ramirez

Please forgive me, guerrilla advertising here, but you all need to read 3:59 AM: A Drag Race for 2 Actors by Marco Ramirez and Temp Odyssey by Dan Dietz. Cause they're incredible. The Ramirez piece is a ten minute play and Dan's is full length. Ok, Guerrilla advertising done.

They were here for three days and we got to workshop with them 3 days, and drink with them 2 nights. :)
We did a 2 minute, show and tell of what ever we wanted - so some folks did monologues, some danced, Will Steele told them about how he built a house boat, I did my stripper monologue and played a song I'd written in the dressing room the day before - it goes like this (to the tune of "She's Comin Round the Mountain")
"There's a chocolate water fountain on the mountain
for all the little boys and little girls
it sound so neat
and tastes so sweet
that chocolate water fountain on the mountain"

Then we told them a story about the apocalypse. like, what ever it meant to us. Alot of people talked about what the Y2K scare was like for them or personal apocalypses that happened to them, like if someones mom died and it felt like their world was ending.
I talked about the fact that my family has like 2 years worth of food storage in our basement and when we moved to Iowa, WE PACKED IT ALONG IN THE TRUCK. So, when the apocalypse comes - we'll be able to feed ourselves -For a while at least - Until the zombies break in and trash the place before ripping us limb from limb - of course.

That was the first day. The second and third days were actual workshop days. The playwrights went home that night and worked out scenes for specific people. Like, they all discussed who they wanted to write for cause they thought it would fit for them and then wrote scenes for us. Like damn good scenes. Scenes that would take me 15 drafts and a barrel of bourbon to write. And we worked them the next morning. All of us, reading through were like, "Oh, I know this character, I've played something just like it before." or "Yep, thats me, he just took me, and made a character out of it." It was pretty incredible.

So they left, with all sorts of ideas ranging from: giant tentacles taking over New York, Zombies slowing devouring human kind, depicting Shiva and Ramuh as too, very close roommates who're more concerned with eating samosas that destroying and creating worlds, to a mother leaving her 3 children, all under the age of 6 a heartbreaking video documentary on how to live after the rapture happens and she ascends and they're left because they were too young to be baptized. Like she doesn't want to leave them, but knows she has no control over it.

Now they're writing larger scenes and monologues and sketches, and we will work with them again in December. Then we'll meet with them a few months after that when, theoretically, we will have a show.

So - Thats that. Pretty sweet.

Oh, and buying and eight dollar package of peppered, top shelf bacon with food stamps, i.e. the state's money.... That's pretty sweet as well.

Later all!

Ryan

Oh - Here's a picture the photo intern took at one of the playwright workshops.

Thats Victoria Alvarez-Chacon's arm to the left, then me laughing hysterically to my left is Scott Sweezey, then Shawn Michael Palmer the Will Steel the furthest down.