Challenge 28 – Due 01/03 at 09:59:59am GMT
Write a surrealist, shit, K-Pop musical saga for your favourite venue, adapted from a famous work about a brave little sporty soldier going on a date, referencing the women’s vote. Give yourself 10 strict rules for the structure (or use the ones I’ve already given you – don’t say I’m being too mean), but do start the play with “Take off the girdle, Gertl, and tell me everything about Onun’s onions, or else little Dicklberg here will get it with this!” and end it with “So there really were 50 of them buying groceries in Panama!”. Work to a strict time restriction, and start with 10 ideas, every time you half your time, also eliminate two of the leastestiest inspiring options. For the dialogue, use verbatim interviews from people about their time as teenagers, and their experiences of maths, emojis and blue whales (pastoral or existential). Name the play, “I will/would/I’d do anything for love (but I won’t do that)” and offend your audience, whilst writing from the point of view of your political enemies (please make sure we sympathise with them). Set the play in your utopia and reference something you observed out your window or on your day to work. Don’t make the play truthful, or naturalistic, or do make it truthful, or whatever the heck truthful even means. Maybe just stop for a moment to ponder about it as you examine your body and see what body part wants a part in your body of work.
And here comes the tricky bit. Don’t finish the play! Instead, put it to one side and re-do the task all over again (with a completely new concept). Only when you finish the second version, pick up the half-completed project and complete it.
I am of course jesting.
We started with a “Brave Little Soldier” so let’s end with a “Coward Big Pacifist”.
Bonus points to anyone who knows how many bonus points they have and incorporate that in the play.
2018
Rainy Day
Challenge 27 – Due 28/02 at 09:59:59am GMT
I feel like I know so much about all of you, so I’ll share back an anecdote (and apologies to veterans from Y1 and Y2 that have heard this before):
Opening night for my first ever full length London run.
I sit in the audience
Tension is filling the air
Excitement
The lights go down
And as the lights go down, the penny drops!
I figured out what I needed to do to the play to make it work.
And then I had to endure three weeks full of disappointment!
I mean, how frustrating is it when you have to deliver something to a deadline, only to realize afterwards what you could have done better.
So this is your opportunity to re-do a challenge. Pick any of the previous 26 challenges we’ve done and write a NEW play following that brief.
I bet you’ve thought of a few better ideas since sending in your first version.
But don’t just re-do the play you did – it has to be a completely different concept!
Bonus point if you re-do the challenge you found most… uhm… challenging!
Challenge 4 - Due 05/02 at 09:59:59am GMT Today we're going to adapt. Find a short story, or a film, or a poem, or a song, or a... uhm... TV show... or... whateves. Make it into a play - try to ensure it's all there - all the characters, all the plots, all the small details, all the dialogue. Sounds impossible in one day? Naaaa... you can do it! You're 3 challenges down... Easy peasy lemon squeezy! Bonus points to anyone who manages to modernise the adaptation and make it their own (whilst still retaining the original) Oh darn it! We're not meant to have bonus points on weekends... uhm... don't tell anyone!
Dancing
Challenge 26 – Due 27/02 at 09:59:59am GMT
Step 1: Walk around and choose 10 inanimate objects (write them all down in a nice and tidy list).
Step 2: Out of those 10 objects, pick the 8 that inspire you, and give them a character name, a background story, and anything else to help you make the object come alive in your head.
Step 3: Out of those 8 characters, pick the 6 that inspire you the most, and write a one paragraph idea, for each of those plays, featuring that character.
Step 4: Out of those 6 ideas, pick the 4 that inspire you the mostest, and write the opening stage direction and opening line for your play.
Step 5: Out of those 4 openings, pick the 2 that inspire you the mostestest and write a full one-page treatment for the play.
Step 6: Out of those 2 treatments, pick the 1 that inspires you the mostiestestetestiestest and write the play.
I loved this exercise more than words can say!!!
In a Room Full of People
Challenge 25 – Due 26/02 at 09:59:59am GMT
Every writer has started working on something and then gave up halfway through. We all have somewhere an incomplete idea or play.
Your challenge for today, should you choose to accept it, is to find one of those ideas and complete them!
If you manage to do that – you will become a god!
It will be like raising the dead!
So go – my little Lazaruses… (Lazarusi? Lazari?) fly like the immortal wind that you… breathed… uhm… life into? I don’t know what I’m talking about. On to the Whiskey (third year I’m copying and pasting this, and it still applies).
I know some of the people on this year have never written anything before this project – so your challenge (and maybe those of you who are doing this for a fourth year and are running out of incomplete projects) would be to take one of the plays you’ve written for this project and develop it – make it longer, make it bigger, make it better, make it stronger.
As always with weekends – your only bonus points is to be happy with your result!
Idea that has been bouncing around in my head forever. First attempt. Not perfect, but it’s written. So much more to do with it yet…
Rage Against the Art Machine
24-Rage Against the Art Machine
Challenge 24 – Due 25/02 at 09:59:59am GMT
Today I’m taking you on some philosophical musings… I don’t know where they will lead any of us! Exciting stuff!
So, as you’ve gathered, I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of whether art should be truthful, or indeed should attempt at representing truth (or perhaps it does so inherently), and if it does, why? And what does it even mean to be truthful? Perhaps it’s all nonsensical.
The clichéd artist in a film or modern novel always seems to be obsessed with this idea of finding a truth. But is that just becoming boring? Should we look at pastures anew? On top of that, it’s that idea of art trying to get closer and closer to being truthful that has led to naturalism and potentially to snuff (If one wants to call that art… which I’m sure there are some ‘ones’ that do) (And llet’s not argue about whether snuff is indeed a direct result. I’m just putting it out there as an argument).
So I wonder, why are we so concerned with this idea of truth? And more importantly, what would happen if we stop?
The philosophical argument is concerned with the question of whether one can derive knowledge from art (as Truth is a criteria for Knowledge).
In the Republic, Plato declared that an artist is “an imitator of images and is very far removed from the truth”. And seeing as several arguments (namely the Epistemic and the Aesthetic) claim that artists are incapable of showing truth anyway, it does make one wonder if art even needs to reflect truth at all. And besides… who gave the artists the right to claim they are able to comment on any truth to begin with? And if I may generalise slightly more, should art even have any purpose whatsoever?
Well, how does any of that lend itself to theatre? That’s a very good question.
If I bring this directly into theatre and the current trends of uber-naturalism, it makes me wonder if watching a well-executed naturalist piece of theatre isn’t a bit like watching a beautiful Trompe L’oeil painting – which certainly requires highly impressive skills (the making it, not the observing it) – because it fools you into believing that it’s real, but at the end of the day, what does it add to our life experience that watching a ‘real’ version of it wouldn’t have added? So why favour that which is naturalistic over the real? Particularly when art can do such greater things and take us to completely new places, that we wouldn’t be able to see in the real world. In the same way, I would ask what the point is of watching a verbatim piece of theatre (particularly one of those that uses fed-recordings) if we can just watch a documentary or just look outside our window?
“Sebastian! What’s the frigging challenge?”
oh… uhm… I have no idea!
Good luck!!!
For more thoughts and perhaps inspiration (or lack thereof), feel free to read this page: https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/art-truth
Perfect World
Challenge 23 – Due 24/02 at 09:59:59am GMT
I am completely at a loss!
I mean, what more do they want?!
We tried loving them!
We tried offending them!
We even tried showing them compassion!
But this world just sucks!
It’s not that interesting! And God knows it’s full of lots of terrible things. Terrible people… terrible events… terrible prospects… terrible traumas… just terrible!
And besides, who even wants to write about the real world?! We’re writers, creators of worlds. We should make things up. Why would anybody be interested in art that’s “true”?! (still brewing here…)
Plus, I think we all deserve a good holiday! If only we had a skill that can help with that! Oh wait … we do!!!
So let’s create the best world ever! I think we can all do with a nice Utopia, right?
I mean, if Carlsberg can do it – surely we can too…
Mmmmm… beer…
So get your idealism out there…
What should you put in your perfect world? Well, that’s clearly down to you… Whatever you think makes the best world… And with that – whatever you think makes the best plot… or the best life… (if you’re so inclined in having either of these things).
“Bonus points,” you say? Well, you can’t have a perfect world without some, right?
So to get them – stick as many stage directions as you possibly can. If we’re creating a world – we might as well explore it properly, am I raaaaaaait?
High fives all around!
Sermo in Monte
Challenge 22 – Due 23/02 at 09:59:59am GMT
Compassion… understanding… open-mindness… aren’t we all so friggin’ awesome (!) But can we truly be tolerant and respectful of people who are wron… I mean, people who have views that differ from ours?
So let’s try and see the world from their point of view? All you lefties out there, can you try and right a Tory play? Or for your Republicans, you are left with writing an ode to the Democrats?
But – you have to make sure that you do this without being sarcastic, without trying to prove them wrong… but from an honest place of understanding and acceptance!
Can we write a play from the point of view of an ISIS fighter? What about from the point of view of a racist? a misogynist? a… Hitler?
And let’s open this Pandora box (why the hell not!) Whatever you voted for Brexit – can you write a play supporting the other side?
I could not bring myself to follow this prompt. With everything going on in my life, I don’t have the bandwidth to be compassionate right now. Someday I’ll revisit it. But not today.
Generated
Challenge 21 – Due 22/02 at 09:59:59am GMT
Snowflakes, snowflakes, everywhere, and not a drop of land to ski in!
Are we all too sensitive? Has theatre lost the power to shock, to hurt, to amaze and disgust because we’re so worried about offending others? Or even worse, offending ourselves. Shouldn’t we upset people by forcing them to face things they disagree with? Otherwise, aren’t we just preaching to the choir? (And isn’t that how we found ourselves in 2016 with some shockers?)
I mean, what we consider to be totally acceptable today used to be offensive and tabboo. Just think of A Doll’s House, Spring Awakening, Angels in America, Hair, and the list can go on for yonks.
In fact, The Lord Chamberlain’s office once banned the phrase “up periscopes” from being used on stage because they believed that more impressionable minds than theirs might be incited to “commit buggery” if heard that phrase… and dare I even mention Mary Whitehouse.
But… surely it was the fact that artists dared to offend, that helped bring change forward.
So let’s do that! Let’s write a play with the intention of offending others.
Now, before you start saying that you are not the kind of writer that upsets people – may I just remind you that you are not writing something to be produced. This is for your eyes only!
As always, I don’t read plays when asked not to – and as always – they are deleted at the end of the month.
Make it unethical… immoral… horrendously insulting to everything and everyone! And obviously – the fouler the language – I guess, the better!
And following on from Jelinek in Challenge 8 – this time I will refer you to her compatriot, Peter Handke’s “Offending The Audience”.
For bonus points – write something that offends you! But like – TRULY makes you scream in anger and upset!
P.S (anger, anger everywhere, but please don’t direct it at me… or at each other… lay it all in the play! 🙂 )
I intentionally did something to offend myself for this one. Everything in it is randomly generated.
Stigma
Challenge 20 – Due 21/02 at 09:59:59am GMT
Remember that little love fest we had last Wednesday?
Modern amour and digitalised cupid arrows are far better than sacrificing a goat and a dog, then whipping the person you fancy with the slain animal skin (the less-spoken-of origin of Valentine’s Day…), but does ‘swiping right’ really leave the same footprint as love at first sight?
Let’s find out!
So, I’d like you to write about dates. Blind dates, speed dates, pub dates, stood-up dates and ‘my kids mustn’t know I’m here’ dates. And for all you clever-clogs, if you’re writing about the fruit, then dates on a date.
And the closer you can identify with one of the characters, the better. Let one of the characters be the same age as you, the same ethnic and cultural background, same religion and beliefs, same marital status, and have the same sexual orientation.
Think about that moment when an online profile or an app photo, becomes a real human being. And when do our online habits and communication style transform into connection with another person (or not).
And for those golden bonus points, find a reason why the date has to end after 15 minutes, even if the datees are having a wondrous time.
I will do anything for love… (but I won’t do that!)
Challenge 19 – Due 20/02 at 09:59:59am GMT
The title of your play is:
“I will do anything for love… (but I won’t do that!)”
For bonus points – stick a meatloaf in there somewhere!