PlayWrite Newsletter May 2024
A nice blend of prediction and surprise seem to be at the heart of the best art. —Wendy Carlos
Coming Up! 24-Hour PLAY-a-Thon, June 22, 7:30 pm
PlayWrite, Inc.’s high-wire, race-the-clock 24-Hour PLAY-a-Thon will light up your night. In our second annual Play Festival and Fundraiser, Portland theatre professionals—playwrights, actors, directors, and stage managers—write, cast, rehearse, and perform eight short plays within 24 short hours. The event’s compressed timeframe challenges participating creatives to take more risks, with unpredictable results that thrill, surprise, shock, delight, and entertain the artists and audience members alike. Poison Waters returns as emcee for the exhilarating event.
This year’s 24-Hour PLAY-a-Thon kicks off Friday, June 21, at 7pm when participants gather for the first time. (Registration is now open!) Writers draw genre, number of actors, a must-use line and prop, and then have overnight to write a 10-minute play. The company reconvenes Saturday morning at 10am, directors draw their scripts and actors, and rehearsals begin.
At 7:30pm Saturday night, June 22, the curtain rises on the culminating public performance of original short plays at the Judy Kafoury Center for Youth Arts (aka “The Judy”), 1000 SW Broadway T-100, Portland. (Tickets are now available!) Doors open at 7 pm.
Portland theatre professionals–step up to the 24-Hour challenge and flex your creative muscles. Theatre goers and supporters–get your 24-Hour PLAY-a-Thon tickets for June 22 today.
Participant Registration Fee: $20 (Covers food and props)
Audience Tickets: $20 / $35 / $50 (Proceeds benefit PlayWrite's youth playwriting workshops)
Click below to register as a 24-Hour PLAY-a-Thon
participant or purchase show tickets
Student writer Cody Jensen talks about his PlayWrite experience
In March, PlayWrite did a playwriting workshop at Mt. Scott Learning Center, an accredited nonprofit high school contracting with Portland Public Schools to offer an alternative path to graduation. We held the capstone performance at Kickstand Comedy Club, where our students directed professional actors in their original one-act plays.
Jon San Nicolas and Darius Pierce in Cody’s play, The Earthquake, at Mt Scott workshop final performance, Kickstand Comedy Club.
We asked one of those writers, Cody Jensen, to tell us his thoughts on working with PlayWrite
(Note: We cosign a confidentiality agreement with all our students to protect their privacy. The agreement applies to persons under 18. Cody is nineteen, and legally qualified to consent to an interview and permit [or not] the use of his name. We’re delighted that he cheerfully agreed to talk to us about his PlayWrite experience.)
Interviewer: How did you get involved with a PlayWrite workshop?
Cody: I heard about it from my school. They said PlayWrite was going to come and do a two-week playwriting workshop, and at the end there would be a performance of what we wrote. I thought, “Why the heck not?” Because I like creating stuff, and I had an idea for a play already. Turned out I had to throw that idea completely out the window and do something completely different.
At the performance, we had the opportunity to stand up and introduce our plays, let the audience know the place and time at rise. (The term “at rise” refers to the beginning of a play—the “curtain rise.”) I thought this would be really hard for me, so a few days before the performance I asked my girlfriend to come to the performance, thinking she’d motivate me to do this. She did come, and it definitely helped me to stand up in front of the crowd and introduce my play. She didn’t say anything out loud, but she did hand gestures (he demonstrates a two-hand heart gesture).
Interviewer: In the beginning of the workshop, did you have a sense of what to expect?
Cody: No. I thought we’d be writing plays that we had in mind or created… I did not expect that we’d have to create completely new characters that weren’t human but had human characteristics. (Note: the PlayWrite process begins with developing characters that can be animal, vegetable, mineral… something that occurs in nature like a tree or a fox or the wind, or a man-made object like a watch or a hammer. Cody’s play featured Jarid, a geode, and Faun, a bluebird.) We started off with sensory exercises, like “What comes to mind when you smell this?” When we started creating characters, part of what we did was describe how the creature looks.
Interviewer: So, once you have the characters, what comes next?
Cody: We think about the time and place, and the story. Your characters have to have some kind of conflict, and you can resolve that by the end of the play… or not. Mine is a cliffhanger. I didn’t really want to end it that way, but I thought if I didn’t, it would get too long.
When the professional actors come in, they begin working with the characters and the creator, the playwright, thinks about whether to make changes. I was thinking “Okay, if I change this, so it works with that… “ stuff like that.
When it finally came together, I didn’t realize how funny it was. I was there at Kickstand, watching it, and I looked over at my peers, and I see my girlfriend dying of laughter. It made me feel good—hey! I did a good job!
Interviewer: If you can make people laugh… what a talent that is.
Cody: I didn’t know it was funny, not at all.
Interviewer: Tell me what it’s like to work with a coach.
Cody: Working with a coach is fun. In the second week of the workshop, you work one-on-one with the same coach every day, you get to know them a lot better than in the beginning, when you work with everybody.
Interviewer: So, you’ve got the process of developing the characters, and then the process of writing the story, and then the process of directing the actors. Which part was the hardest?
Cody: Developing the characters. Because I came in with an idea, and characters I’d already thought about, and they (the coaches) were like… No. Create new characters. So, I did.
Interviewer: After you develop the characters, and think about time and place… how do you develop the story/plot?
Cody: In this case, I wanted to do something to express my love to my girlfriend, so I made it in a way she’d see, like diamonds, and light.
Interviewer: Any surprises along the way?
Cody: At the Kickstand performance, I worked with two actors, and I knew what I wanted to do with them, everything went well. A month later, my play was performed as part of PlayWrite’s Write.Voice.Play! student showcase in the Fertile Ground Festival, in the lobby of Artists Repertory Theatre. This time I had two new actors, and it was a completely different experience. I wasn’t as certain how to direct them.
Interviewer: I saw both performances of your play, and they were different… one more serious, one lighter. But they were both good, it worked both times.
Cody: I made one edit for the second set of actors.
Interviewer: What did it feel like, to direct professional actors? Were you scared, or did you get frustrated, or…?
Cody: It wasn’t frustrating at all. It felt like they knew the solid part of it.
Cody at Fertile Ground performance of his play
Interviewer: If you had to choose between writing and directing, which would you choose?
Cody: Writing.
Interviewer: Now that a little time has passed, do you find yourself thinking about things you learned in the workshop or the performance?
Cody: Yes. Like when they said, “keep writing.” I learned you just write, and you can go back and edit it or change it. Every now and then I’d get stuck… like “What am I going to do, how am I going to write this?” Knowing that you can just write, and then go back and edit; that helps me keep going.
Interviewer: Have you always been a writer?
Cody: I’ve always written short stories. And when a friend passed away, I started a book. I’m already up to page 14.
Interviewer: Are you going to write more plays?
Cody: Maybe. We’ll see what happens. I might get a group of friends together; I already have two people who might want to do it.
Interviewer: Do you notice any changes in yourself as a result of the workshop?
Cody: Just getting better at writing. And I’m able to send writing off to someone for review and editing.
Interviewer: Would you do it (the workshop) again?
Cody: Yeah! I signed my girlfriend up for next year as a going away gift. (“Going away” refers to Cody graduating this year; his girlfriend won’t graduate for a few years yet, so this is one way of continuing their bond.)
Read Cody’s script, The Earthquake, here.
PlayWrite Workshops
We just finished a PlayWrite workshop at Donald E. Long (DEL), an accredited juvenile detention education program located at the Multnomah County Juvenile Justice Complex that provides educational services to students currently detained by the legal system from Multnomah, Clackamas and Washington counties. Often the DEL kids begin by saying “I don’t want to do this,” and finish with hugs and gratitude; this workshop was the same and produced some fine work.
One more PLAY-a-Thon MENTION…
Just so you don’t have to scroll all the way up again. The deets:
Event: PlayWrite, Inc. 24-Hour PLAY-a-Thon
Writer/Director/Actor Participant Dates: Friday-Saturday, June 21-22, 2024
Public Performance: Saturday, June 22, 2024, 7:30pm
Location: “The Judy,” (NWCT), 1000 SW Broadway, T-100, Portland, OR 97025
Participant Registration Fee: $20 (Covers food and props)
Audience Tickets: $20 / $35 / $50 (Proceeds to benefit PlayWrite’s programs for “youth at the edge”)
PlayWrite Inc. 24-Hour Play Festival 2023