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From page to stage in 24 hours

Play in a Day challenges theater groups to produce a piece under a one-day time limit

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Click here to enlarge this photo Charlie Shoemaker⁄The Gazette Justin Purvis (left) and Mark Chalfant, members of the Washington Improv Theater, parody the participants of the third annual Play in a Day, held last weekend. Six professional theater companies from around the area wrote, directed, rehearsed and performed original plays in 24 hours as part of the event that is produced by the Bethesda Arts and Entertainment District.

Is it madness? No.

It’s Play in a Day.

Six professional theater companies from around the area took the challenge of the Bethesda Arts and Entertainment District’s third annual event to write, direct, rehearse and perform original plays in one day.

For the first time, the event was held apart from the Bethesda Literary Festival, attracting nearly 200 people to see the final showcase of plays at the Round House Theatre last Sunday.

In the past two years, Play in a Day was running so successfully that organizers decided to make it a stand-alone event this year, said Stephanie Coppula, spokeswoman for the Bethesda Urban Partnership, which manages the arts and entertainment district.

‘‘It is amazing to see the work that comes together in 24 hours,” Coppula said. ‘‘You see these people perform like they’ve been rehearsing for four to six weeks.”

On Saturday evening, at the Laugh Riot at the Hyatt comedy show, writers were given guidelines for their 10-minute plays.

Audience members chose themes and props, and genres were assigned to each playwright.

In the past, audience members of the Literary Festival’s adult poetry slam chose the themes and props for the event, but this year was the first that the writers were assigned genres.

After receiving their guidelines, the writers were off.

It’s ‘‘extremely exciting and also challenging,” Sandner said at the kickoff event, contemplating how to write a play about scandal and cover-up in the style of a reality show while incorporating a Twister board game.

The result was a 700 Club television show spoof focusing on the evils of sugar performed by four actors from Sandner’s group, the Olney Theatre Center for the Arts.

Maurice Martin, a writer from the Woolly Mammoth’s Playground Playwrights Group, immediately felt the pressure on his creativity after discovering that he had to write a romantic play about scandal with an all-female cast.

Martin said that he vowed not to write about lesbians because his play at last year’s event, which included lesbians, was ‘‘not good.”

‘‘It’s going to be a challenge,” he said, ‘‘Romance, Twister and a three-woman cast with no lesbians.”

The Arlington-based group ended up performing a celebrity talk show spoof with one actress donning the Twister mat as clothing.

Although she usually writes children’s plays, Marilyn Shockey of Adventure Theatre had to take on the action genre for the event.

‘‘I have no idea what I’m going to do until I sit down to write,” she said. ‘‘Once the pencil hits the paper, the ideas start to come.”

In a stretch of its designated genre, the Bethesda-based theater group performed a play about a game show that is rigged, but covered up by its flamboyant host.

Play in a Day is a lot ‘‘like Boy Scouts sitting around a campfire doing skits,” said Michael Bobbitt, director of the event.

The goal, he said, is to entertain each other as much as possible.

‘‘Whatever happens, happens but it’s all in the name of theater and fun,” Bobbitt said.

Sometimes fun means staying up the whole night without a wink of sleep.

Bob Bartlett, of the Bethesda-based Quotidian Theatre group, said his adrenaline kicked into full gear as he stayed awake working on a play that featured aluminum foil with Wonder Woman-like powers.

The hardest part of the process was ‘‘writing a children’s play about despair,” Bartlett said.

He originally started with a story about four kids who couldn’t remember each other’s faces, but ended up scrapping it at 4 a.m. for a tale about a boy who thinks he has the Ebola virus.

Bartlett, who has participated in all of the three past Play in a Day events, said the best part of the experience is testing his creativity to the extreme.

‘‘When you absolutely have to do something in so short a time,” he said, ‘‘What comes out of you?”