Author: Doug Rutherford

You’ll notice that the playwriting festival ended at 11 am and I’m only posting this now. Needless to say, a certain degree of napping was required before I slaved over a hot wok to make supper. OK, I slaved over driving to the restaurant to pick up my order but you get the point.

I entered last year and had a great time. This is an excellent way to spend a whole day. You have the marvellous benefit of a deadline to force you to work. And, given the short time frame involved, your expectations don’t have to be incredibly high. No one is expecting a finished product after such a short period of time. And, you get a chance to bounce ideas off people who are also bouncing ideas off you, as well as a dramaturg on site to provide advice on how to get unstuck on this or how to fix that. And, at the end, there’s a breakfast provided.

I had quite high, read “unreasonable,” expectations on the amount of work I’d get in. I did get to the list of main points I wanted to deal with and need some more tweaking to get it finished. (I think my ability to see typos and bizzare grammar also degrades with lack of sleep. At 3 in the morning, for some reason, “3hdir” is a perfectly acceptable word.) As I mentioned, I’m at the point where I need to hear it read to move on. This will come in the near future.

I now get to wait to hear the results. I also get to present 5 minutes of the play at the cabaret they hold for the competition and this is when the winners are announced. Patience must rule until November 25th…

That’s probably a misnomer in the title. I’ve found that editing and revision involve way more thinking that actual writing. I’m working on a laptop and brought a USB keyboard with me to make extensive typing easier. I could probably have left it home since the major writing is usually adding to dialog, changing a word or two, or moving dialog from one place to another. I’d rather type lots, as thinking can be taxing and I don’t have the stamina I used to.

The joys of moving text? There’s one section of dialog that I wanted to move to a location where it may have more impact and be more memorable. It’s had three new homes so far. I’ve looked at it again and concluded that, with a sentence or two added, it was probably best in the place it was. Oh, well. That’s just part of what makes it fun.

I have been making progress, though, faster than I thought I would. Many of the major issues have been dealt with to some extent or another. Some need a bit more consideration and haven’t been ticked off my list yet. What I really need though, it to have several people read it out loud and run through it. It’s a lot easier to have the dialog in the open, rather than having it imagined through the little voices in my head (you’ll notice that it’s only when I’m writing that the little voices get mentioned). That, however, won’t happen until after the playwriting competition is long over and is the second next step.

The next step is to find someone to read the second part in the Playwriting Cabaret in two weeks. You do a five or so minute excerpt from your piece from the competition and is a lot of fun. I don’t think I’ll have trouble. After all, how many actors in town will turn down the following question: how would you like to be a female, promiscuous Baptist minister? I mean, there’s no way anyone could misinterpret a request like that one…

One more sleep!

I have most of what I need done before I go and lock myself in a hotel room for the annual Nakai Theatre 24 hour playwriting competition. I still haven’t packed clothes yet but that’s a quick job when you’re only gone for a day.

The competition has two components. One is for writing a new play from scratch and this was the one I entered last year. I had this thing on the back burner and would have entered earlier except I was in rehearsal or performance of plays for several years at the time when it’s held. Last year, I auditioned for a part and didn’t get it so I was free to do the competition. Actually, when I started, I really only had a concept and a setting but this seemed to develop without a lot of thought. I have another idea for a new piece in mind and did considering working on that for the competition.

The second component is for revising existing pieces that have never been produced. I decided, after some thought, to enter this one and see if I can finish the play I have on the go at the moment. Largely, the decision was made out of guilt. “Finish what you’re doing before you start a new project” spoke the little voice in my head. OK. Maybe, I shouldn’t bring the little voices into the conversation…

Moving on, I have spent copious hours making notes on what I have left to do. I’ve had two playwrights go over earlier drafts and both offered excellent suggestions. I also do have some tightening up to do and should be able to coalesce all this between 11 am tomorrow and 11 am Sunday. How far along am I? I actually started looking at another aspect of its creation: a production budget.

The competition is a really neat thing and I heartily endorse anyone interested in getting ideas out of your head and onto a piece of paper try it. There’s simply being locked away from distractions and spending your time working on your project. This alone makes this a worthwhile venture. There’s also lots of support, a dramaturg available to help you with your sticky bits, and, of course, the famous midnight whiskey tasting. The emphasis has been heavily oriented to Scotch so I’m bringing a wee bottle of Irish to raise the level class for the event.

Of course, the hotel does have internet access so I won’t be completely cut off from the world and the odd “brain break” does come in handy…