Writing Challenge #30 - Don't Drive Angry (Write Nov. 30th)

Hi again folks

Though this is the last of the challenges, I’ll still be emailing you daily through December 1st, reminding you, if you’re going day to day and not working ahead, which challenge you’re turning in that day by noon, and then which one you work on next :)

(2 of 2)

Again, I’m sending you two prompts from the future again today, so you can work ahead for the holiday weekend if you wish.

This prompt is the one you would be writing Sunday 11/30 to be turned in on Monday 12/1 by noon Central Time, but just fill out the Google form and tag it for prompt 30 and you can turn it early and I’ll credit it ahead.

And of course, you can always use the mini-play at the bottom of the email and blog post as an escape hatch for the day’s writing.

Always remember, if you miss one day, don’t beat yourself up, just write again the next day.


Here it is.

At long last, the final challenge, #30, the finish line for both the month of November and this year’s November Playwriting Challenge.

Whether you wrote just one day, or all thirty, congratulations!  You’ve got some new material to play around with and refine during the other eleven months of the year.  Well done!

For those of you who were new this year, thanks for finding us.  

For those of you who enjoyed it enough last year to come back and do it again, we were happy to see so many familiar names.  

You have more writing in hand than you did on the last day of October, and that’s the primary goal of the challenge.  The habit of writing, the creation of more plays, prioritizing your creativity just a little bit every day.

After the last of the submissions come in on December 1st, I’ll put together a list of all the writers who wrote all 30 days, as well as a list of writers who seem like maybe they only missed one or two, do a little research on that second batch and if I’m still coming up short, I’ll reach out to those writers to see if something got lost in the pipeline somehow and they actually hit all the challenges. (That’s happened in all years past for one or two writers, so it’s not just a this year thing with the new Google form.)

Once I’ve got a confirmed list of those of who wrote and turned something thing all 30 days, I’ll be reaching out to let you know what the payout is going to be (how many writers are splitting the money we accumulated at the beginning, and what everyone’s share of that is) and communicating the process for getting you that money.

Also, I’ll crunch the numbers one last time and have some fun statistics on how this whole month shook out.

And though It’s dicey making pronouncements about anything a year out, the plan is to definitely do this again next November.  So if you found it useful, mark your calendars. And spread the word to anyone you think might be interested.  If it is indeed happening as planned, an announcement should go out in the first half of October.

One last tangent for this preface of mine…

One November, someone in my playwriting group (who shall remain nameless) was… pestering is a negative word so let’s just say enthusiastically and repeatedly suggesting… that “you should let all those writers know about the writing group and see if they might be interested in attending.”

Which wasn’t a bad idea.

But I did remind the person that the majority of the writers doing the challenge often aren’t local, and are situated in states all across the USA, or in some cases even completely different countries.  So the time zones don’t always perfectly align. (Sadly our friend who moved from Minneapolis to Norway for a graduate program isn’t going able to join us - it’s always the middle of the night for her when we meet.  Less extreme time zone differences may be workable.)

In the playwriting group’s time being fully online in 2020-2021 because of the pandemic, we had a number of playwrights and actors in different states sitting in - but sometimes it was challenging because they were either an hour ahead or behind of the Central Time zone meeting hours of 7pm to 9pm.  Still, we did make it work.  Even now, in hybrid mode, with some folks meeting in person, there’s still a number of (even local) people who prefer or need to attend via video conference on the computer.  So we have the capability of including folks wherever there’s internet connectivity.  

A handful of people did join us over the last couple of years after the challenge concluded and a few became regulars, which is fun.

Here’s an overview of how the group works

https://swfringegeek.blogspot.com/2024/09/seeking-writers-and-actors-for-biweekly.html

If you think you might be interested, just drop me a note.

Thanks again for participating, everybody!

Again, well done, one and all!

Now, let’s get you the second, and FINAL, writing prompt of the pair for the day, and for end the of November 2025…

***********************

Challenge #30 - “Don’t Drive Angry” 

Write Sunday, November 30th - or earlier if you like
Due: Monday, December 1st, 12pm noon Central Time 
(1pm Eastern Time, 11am Mountain Time, 10am Western Time for the US Time Zones)



I saved this one for last because it involves a potentially negative emotion.

Anger.

Most of the time, I have the mantra in my head of Bill Murray imploring the groundhog which takes over the steering wheel in the pickup truck during a particularly memorable sequence from the movie “Groundhog Day” 

“Don’t drive angry. Don’t drive angry.”

(The groundhog takes the wheel around the 2:00 minute mark in the clip)
(Don’t worry about the conclusion to the scene.  The man just keeps waking up in the same day over and over again - even this time is no exception.)



But every now and again, “writing angry” can be cathartic for both you and your audience.

Sometimes it’s just cathartic for you and makes your audience uncomfortable.  That’s OK, too.



I recently ran across this little list of advice from Arcana Poetry Press

I feel like it applies to plays as much as it does to poetry.

5 Feral Pieces of Poetry Advice
Write like something’s chasing you.
Because it is.

1. Write the thing you’d never admit in a room full of friends
The secret will rot until you rip it open.

2. Stop protecting the people who hurt you
Let your poem be the wilderness, not their shelter.

3. The metaphor you keep reusing is your avoidance technique
You’ve written a beautiful cage.
Time to break it.

4. You’re not obligated to heal on the page
Not every poem needs to be the medicine.
Some are meant to be the scream.

5. Write for the version of you that didn’t survive
Write the words they needed, not the ones they go.



An example that springs to mind is a poem shared by my actor friend Will, first posted by a queer Palestinian woman from the Instagram account WatermelonBrigades

The words are from the poet Noor Hindi.

It’s entitled, “F*ck Your Lecture on Craft, My People Are Dying”

“Colonizers write about flowers.
I tell you about children throwing rocks at Israeli tanks
seconds before becoming daisies.
I want to be like those poets who care about the moon.
Palestinians don’t see the moon from jail cells and prisons.
It’s so beautiful, the moon.
They’re so beautiful, the flowers.
I pick flowers for my dead father when I’m sad.
He watches Al Jazeera all day.
I wish Jessica would stop texting me ‘Happy Ramadan.’
I know I’m American because when I walk into a room something dies.
Metaphors about death are for poets who think ghosts care about sound.
When I die, I promise to haunt you forever.
One day, I’ll write about the flowers like we own them.”



What makes you angry?
What makes your characters angry?

Let some of that anger spill out over the pages today.
Take a big swing for our final outing.

Or don’t.

Like always, write whatever you want.

Just write.  Something.  For one last day in November (this year).

Again, folks, well done.

Happy (or angry) writing to you all!

************************

If you’re not interested in this prompt, you can 

try 2021’s challenge #30: Magical Realism

Or try 2022’s challenge #30: Storytelling Obsessions

Or try 2023’s Challenge #30: I Don’t Believe In Ghosts, But…

Or try 2024’s challenge #30: Random Things On The Path

Or, you know, just ignore the prompts altogether and write whatever you want - as long as you’re writing and turning it in by the deadline, that’s all that matters for the challenge :)

**************************

How to submit your work for Challenge #30

We’re streamlining the process this year with a Google form, 

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdy-wyjz-IITaNsOkXM1zVQu_yrt_o7E4Vp2eQnr-8VNnu49w/viewform?usp=header

but you still have multiple options for how you submit your playwriting output for the day.

After you enter the required fields of 
email, 
name, 
challenge number (for today, that’d be 30 :) 
and page count, 
you can submit your writing in one of four ways:

Save your script as a PDF or Word Doc and upload that document to the Google form.

OR

Post your script online (on your personal website, as a blog post, or as a Google doc) and put a link to that online script in the Google form.

OR

Copy/paste your work from another source directly into the Google form

OR

Type directly into the Google form.

(Whichever option you choose, you can leave the other ones blank.)



Write Sunday, November 30th - or earlier if you like
Again, this is: Due: Monday, December 1st, 12pm noon Central Time 
(1pm Eastern Time, 11am Mountain Time, 10am Western Time for the US Time Zones)

************************

And because we call can get in our own way so easily, here’s some words of reassurance on the basics of this month:

Friendly Reminders - Answers To Common Questions:
(Follow the links to read me expounding on these items :)

Don’t Stress about November 27th (however you recognize the holiday weekend) - 2025 edition

Don’t Stress About Writing A Full Play

Don’t Stress About Format

Don’t Stress About Sticking To The Writing Prompt

No.  Really.  I Mean It.  Don’t Stress About Sticking To The Writing Prompt

Don’t Stress About Finishing An Idea (You Can Add Later)

Don’t Stress About “Succeeding” or “Failing”

Don’t Stress About What You’re Turning In Each Day

**********************

And, just to reassure you, no, we are not going to be sticklers about you following these directions down to the minutest detail - the important thing is that you write, and then that you share it with us, so we can keep track of who’s writing every day.

Also, no, there is no penalty for finishing and submitting early - but it also isn’t a race, so give yourself all the time up til 12 noon on Monday to write if you need it.  When you’re done, you’re done.

Again, remember, it doesn’t need to be great, it doesn’t even need to be responding to this prompt (the prompt is just there so you’re not staring at a blank screen to start with no idea what to write about :)

Doesn't even need to be complete - you could have the beginning or the middle or the end of an idea, maybe two out of three but not all, that's still fine. This is all about getting things started, you can write more later. 

You have another 11 months (until the next November writing challenge) to build on whatever you come up with today, if you want. 

Just get anything on the page, even if won't make sense to anyone else, as long as it makes sense to you.

It just needs to be something.

*************************

And that something can be:



Lights up.

A person sits in front of a typewriter, or laptop, or pad and paper.

The write or type the words “End of play” or perhaps it’s “Lights up” on a whole new scene or story.

They look up.

They wave goodbye for now.

Lights down.

The End



That’s always your escape hatch, every day.

That’s your base line.

Build on it.

Have fun.

Don’t stress.

Make an impulsive decision and run with it.

Breathe.

You’ve got the day.

Just write.

And take good care of yourselves, and each other.

Matthew A. Everett
Literary Director
Threshold Theater
(he/him/his) 

Writing Challenge #29 - The Land of Cope and 3 Minutes WTF (Write Nov. 29th)

Hi folks

Just a reminder, if you’re doing things one day at a time and not writing ahead, that means the day I’m sending this message to you, Wednesday, 11/26, you’re going to be turning in your writing for Challenge 25 by noon Central Time.

(1 of 2)

Again, I’m sending you two prompts from the future again today, so you can work ahead for the holiday weekend if you wish.

This prompt is the one you would be writing Saturday 11/29 to be turned in on Sunday 11/30 by noon Central Time, but just fill out the Google form and tag it for prompt 29 and you can turn it early and I’ll credit it ahead.

And of course, you can always use the mini-play at the bottom of the email and blog post as an escape hatch for the day’s writing.

Always remember, if you miss one day, don’t beat yourself up, just write again the next day.

The initial numbers for yesterday’s submissions for challenge 24 are:
73 playwrights with material totaling 224 pages
(Or the equivalent of another two full-length plays)

28 down, 2 to go!

(And this prompt is one of those final two :)

We’ve nearly reached the end of November, folks.

Hang in there and keep on writing :)

Let’s get you that first writing prompt of the day…


*******************

Challenge #29 - The Land of Cope and 3 Minutes WTF

Write Saturday, November 29th - or earlier if you like
Due: Sunday, November 30th, 12pm noon Central Time 
(1pm Eastern Time, 11am Mountain Time, 10am Western Time for the US Time Zones)



Sitting in traffic or at a stop light, my brain will often play around with the words on the vehicles around me.  There was a truck recently that had the brand name “Copeland” on it and my brain broke it in two and flipped it around:

“Ah yes, Copeland, the Land of Cope.”

Then I contemplated other words and names I could crack apart:

Maryland, the Land of Mary (which, depending on whether you’re Catholic or gay or both can mean something completely different)

Island, the Land of Is

Hollywood, the Wood (aka, forest) of Holly

Dollywood, the Wood of Dolly

And so on…

How would these kinds of made up places manifest on stage?



The other random item I’ll throw at you is something that was written in chalk on the running path a few weeks back.

The outdoor path passes underneath a major street at one point and it was in this shadowed passage that someone had written

3 minutes wtf
will change
your life

And under that they drew a heart, the peace sign, and the earth

Three minutes of “what the f*ck”

Hmmm…

Of course I always wonder what prompts people to write the things they do in the places that they choose to do so.

It occurs to me that this would be an interesting place to stage a marriage proposal

That’s certainly 3 minutes wtf

In general, a kiss, whether the first or the last or some other significant kissing milestone, the before during and after of a kiss could be an intriguing and life-changing three minutes.

The last time I saw my mother at the funeral home was brief, but certainly impactful.  She was lying in a plain pine box with a simple muslin gown on her body, because she asked to be cremated.  Before I stepped away so my brother could have a moment alone with her, I got out my phone to take a picture.

My brother asked, “Are you sure you want to do that?”

Honestly, it was a weird impulse.  I’m not a person who takes a ton of pictures.  But I figured, I can take the picture and it can just sit on my phone and I might never look at it.  But if I don’t take the picture now, I’m not going to get another chance, and I might regret that.  So I took the picture.

To lighten the mood I will end with the best three minutes of any day, and that is when I interact with a dog. 

The neighbors on either side of me both have dogs.  One is a puppy named Sage who thinks people are the most exciting things he’s ever seen, so that is one living creature who I know is always happy to see me.  

The other neighbor has two older dogs, and one of them, Mila, took an awfully long time to get used to me, but now she will run right over to me whenever we happen to be in the backyard at the same time.  

One of the playwrights in my writing group periodically hosts the group in her home, and her dog, Maple, just vibrates with joy whenever I approach their home and for the entirety of my visit.  Apparently she doesn’t do that with everyone, and no one has a clear explanation for why this is, but for some reason I am just the sort of person Maple finds irresistible. 

My trainer friend Tim has two enormous dogs, Peppa and Charlie, who I’ve mentioned before.  Peppa is the younger, noisier, friendlier one - she just loves attention.  Charlie is the older more reserved one, with more guard dog instincts.  But they’ve both gotten so used to me now that when a contractor pulled up one day in a car very like my car, Tim reported that the dogs got very excited, and then were very confused when I was not the person who got out of the car.

Three minutes with a dog will turn my whole mood around, so it’s nice I have a regular ensemble of them in my life.

So, what three minute snippet of time could alter your characters’ lives?  

Three minutes isn’t a long time.  But a lot can happen.

It’s three pages.

What life-altering event can you fit in three pages?



Or, as ever, write whatever you like.

Just write.  Something.

Just two days more to the end of our challenge marathon.

**************************

If you’re not interested in this prompt, you can 

try 2021’s challenge #29: The Best of Times, The Worst of Times, and The Future

Or try 2022’s challenge #29: Messages After You’re Gone

Or try 2023’s Challenge #29: Snapshots 5 (from Threshold Theater co-founder and Managing Director David Schlosser)

Or try 2024’s challenge #29: Aptronym

Or, you know, just ignore the prompts altogether and write whatever you want - as long as you’re writing and turning it in by the deadline, that’s all that matters for the challenge :)

*************************

How to submit your work for Challenge #29

We’re streamlining the process this year with a Google form, 

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdy-wyjz-IITaNsOkXM1zVQu_yrt_o7E4Vp2eQnr-8VNnu49w/viewform?usp=header

but you still have multiple options for how you submit your playwriting output for the day.

After you enter the required fields of 
email, 
name, 
challenge number (for today, that’d be 29 :) 
and page count, 
you can submit your writing in one of four ways:

Save your script as a PDF or Word Doc and upload that document to the Google form.

OR

Post your script online (on your personal website, as a blog post, or as a Google doc) and put a link to that online script in the Google form.

OR

Copy/paste your work from another source directly into the Google form

OR

Type directly into the Google form.

(Whichever option you choose, you can leave the other ones blank.)



Write Saturday, November 29th - or earlier if you like
Again, this is: Due: Sunday, November 30th, 12pm noon Central Time 
(1pm Eastern Time, 11am Mountain Time, 10am Western Time for the US Time Zones)

**************************

And because we call can get in our own way so easily, here’s some words of reassurance on the basics of this month:

Friendly Reminders - Answers To Common Questions:
(Follow the links to read me expounding on these items :)

Don’t Stress about November 27th (however you recognize the holiday weekend) - 2025 edition

Don’t Stress About Writing A Full Play

Don’t Stress About Format

Don’t Stress About Sticking To The Writing Prompt

No.  Really.  I Mean It.  Don’t Stress About Sticking To The Writing Prompt

Don’t Stress About Finishing An Idea (You Can Add Later)

Don’t Stress About “Succeeding” or “Failing”

Don’t Stress About What You’re Turning In Each Day

*************************

And, just to reassure you, no, we are not going to be sticklers about you following these directions down to the minutest detail - the important thing is that you write, and then that you share it with us, so we can keep track of who’s writing every day.

Also, no, there is no penalty for finishing and submitting early - but it also isn’t a race, so give yourself all the time up til 12 noon on Sunday to write if you need it.  When you’re done, you’re done.

Again, remember, it doesn’t need to be great, it doesn’t even need to be responding to this prompt (the prompt is just there so you’re not staring at a blank screen to start with no idea what to write about :)

Doesn't even need to be complete - you could have the beginning or the middle or the end of an idea, maybe two out of three but not all, that's still fine. This is all about getting things started, you can write more later. 

You have one more day to build on whatever you come up with today, if you want. 

Just get anything on the page, even if won't make sense to anyone else, as long as it makes sense to you.

It just needs to be something.

*************************

And that something can be:



Lights up.

Two people out walking come upon some words and symbols on the path.

They stop and look at them, trying to decipher their meaning.

Then one of the pair gets down on one knee in front of the other, and produces a box with a ring in it.

Surprise!

Lights down.

The End



That’s always your escape hatch, every day.

That’s your base line.

Build on it.

Have fun.

Don’t stress.

Make an impulsive decision and run with it.

Breathe.

You’ve got the day.

Just write.

And take good care of yourselves, and each other.

Matthew A. Everett
Literary Director
Threshold Theater
(he/him/his) 

Writing Challenge #28 - Quilts (Write Nov. 28th)

Hi again folks!

(2 of 2)

27 down, 3 to go!

We’ve nearly reached the end of November.  Well done, everybody!

This prompt is the one you would be writing Friday 11/28 to be turned in on Saturday 11/29 by noon Central Time, but just fill in the Google form and tag it for prompt 28 and you can turn it early and I’ll credit it ahead.

And of course, you can always use the mini-play at the bottom of the email and blog post as an escape hatch for the day’s writing.

Now, let’s get you the second writing prompt of the pair for the day…


************************

Challenge #28 - Quilts

Write Friday, November 28th - or earlier if you like
Due: Saturday, November 29th, 12pm noon Central Time 
(1pm Eastern Time, 11am Mountain Time, 10am Western Time for the US Time Zones)


Most of the time when I wake up in the middle of the night I can go back to sleep.  But every now and again my brain gets going and it’s hard to shut it off.

Recently, as the cold sets in, one night I woke up because the bedroom had suddenly gotten quite colder since the time I’d first turned in and gone to sleep (the kind of night that makes you realize, reluctantly, you’re going to have to turn on the heat again, summer’s over, now fall is over, too)

As an intermediate measure, just so I could comfortably get back to sleep, I broke out a couple of old quilts sown by my late Aunt Ida.  They were originally my dad’s possessions but when he went into the nursing home, where they crank the heat up mighty high, he no longer had need of them.  And my stepmother had plenty of bedding of her own, and she realized I lived in Minnesota (something she had done for a few years during her marriage previous to my father) and she figured I could make good use of them, which I have.  She shipped them, along with some other furniture pieces - my dad’s old chest of drawers from when he was a kid, my great grandmother’s rocking chair (on dad’s side), which they’d refurbished but had no need of (and I had a new home that could use furniture).  The quilts themselves where packed into and old steamer trunk, which great grandmother brought over with her to America from Wales.  That steamer trunk is now my coffee table and work station in the living room when working from home (with laptop computers and a printer that would no doubt have blown great grandma’s mind, just as the voyage she made from Wales would have blown my mind).

So breaking out these quilts got me thinking of all of that for starters.

And Ida and her husband Harry and their long marriage out in Colorado.

How both my mother and stepmother had to be run by Ida for approval when Dad wanted to marry them.

How Ida was likely a woman ahead of her time, with all kinds of intellect and skills that the family didn’t allow her to fully utilize, putting all their hopes for the family on my Dad, her brother, instead.

Ida helped raise my Dad, because their parents suffered a devastating loss when the children were younger.  Ida and my Dad had an older brother and sister, both of whom died in a tragic train accident.  Though they still had two children left, the parents never really recovered from the loss of having the family cut in half like that.

One of the weirder things about the family that my Mom remembered the first time she was taken out to visit the family was that they had a picture of the train crash, from the newspaper coverage at the time, framed and hung on the wall, along with other pictures of the family, both living and dead.

Again, my brain is cycling through all of this just because I got out the quilts.

And then I thought of an old movie from back in 1995, How To Make An American Quilt, a romantic comedy/drama with an absolutely insane ensemble cast doing what was essentially a piece of fluff but just acting their asses off.  It starred a young Winona Ryder, only 24 at the time, now the matriarch of the Stranger Things series on Netflix.

Also in the cast, the poet Maya Angelou, who has my favorite line from the film that I still remember, mostly because of the way she said it:

“I never liked full moons.  They give people an excuse to do *foolish* things.”

(At around the 1:10 mark in the trailer)

She meant in a romantic way, not a supernatural werewolf kind of way, of course.  These days we have to clarify such things.

This then reminded me that Maya Angelou once visited the Indiana State University campus where I went to undergrad and she came and spoke to our little theater department.  I didn’t even fully understand who she was at the time, I just remember being dazzled by her presence, which then made me research her afterward and, wow.  What the heck was she doing in Terre Haute, Indiana talking to a bunch of us theater kids?  I think she had a friend in the English department, and those folks knew our professors so that got her to do a little side trip to see us as well.  Still blows my damn mind.

Also in the movie, a 26 year old Jonathan Schaech, who also did the insanely different Gregg Araki movie “The Doom Generation” that same year, and the completely different That Thing You Do in 1996.  Plus another oversexed  but less homicidal Araki movie, Splendor, in 1999.  (That man’s filmography is nuts.)

So my brain was pinging all over the place for about an hour because of those quilts.


If you did an emotional tour of your apartment or house, what items would be overflowing with either personal memories and/or family history?

How do the ghosts of memory, good and bad, manifest themselves onstage?

Play around with that
Or don’t.  
Whatever you like, do that.

Just write.

************************

If you’re not interested in this prompt, you can 

try 2021’s challenge #28: Companion Plays

Or try 2022’s challenge #28: Atmosphere

Or try 2023’s Challenge #28: Contronyms

Or try 2024’s challenge #28: Moving People Along

Or, you know, just ignore the prompts altogether and write whatever you want - as long as you’re writing and turning it in by the deadline, that’s all that matters for the challenge :)

***************************

How to submit your work for Challenge #28

We’re streamlining the process this year with a Google form, 

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdy-wyjz-IITaNsOkXM1zVQu_yrt_o7E4Vp2eQnr-8VNnu49w/viewform?usp=header

but you still have multiple options for how you submit your playwriting output for the day.

After you enter the required fields of 
email, 
name, 
challenge number (for today, that’d be 28 :) 
and page count, 
you can submit your writing in one of four ways:

Save your script as a PDF or Word Doc and upload that document to the Google form.

OR

Post your script online (on your personal website, as a blog post, or as a Google doc) and put a link to that online script in the Google form.

OR

Copy/paste your work from another source directly into the Google form

OR

Type directly into the Google form.

(Whichever option you choose, you can leave the other ones blank.)



Write Friday, November 28th - or earlier if you like
Again, this is: Due: Saturday, November 29th, 12pm noon Central Time 
(1pm Eastern Time, 11am Mountain Time, 10am Western Time for the US Time Zones)

*************************

And because we call can get in our own way so easily, here’s some words of reassurance on the basics of this month:

Friendly Reminders - Answers To Common Questions:
(Follow the links to read me expounding on these items :)

Don’t Stress about November 27th (however you recognize the holiday weekend) - 2025 edition

Don’t Stress About Writing A Full Play

Don’t Stress About Format

Don’t Stress About Sticking To The Writing Prompt

No.  Really.  I Mean It.  Don’t Stress About Sticking To The Writing Prompt

Don’t Stress About Finishing An Idea (You Can Add Later)

Don’t Stress About “Succeeding” or “Failing”

Don’t Stress About What You’re Turning In Each Day

***************************

How to submit your work for Challenge #28

We’re streamlining the process this year with a Google form, 

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdy-wyjz-IITaNsOkXM1zVQu_yrt_o7E4Vp2eQnr-8VNnu49w/viewform?usp=header

but you still have multiple options for how you submit your playwriting output for the day.

After you enter the required fields of 
email, 
name, 
challenge number (for today, that’d be 28 :) 
and page count, 
you can submit your writing in one of four ways:

Save your script as a PDF or Word Doc and upload that document to the Google form.

OR

Post your script online (on your personal website, as a blog post, or as a Google doc) and put a link to that online script in the Google form.

OR

Copy/paste your work from another source directly into the Google form

OR

Type directly into the Google form.

(Whichever option you choose, you can leave the other ones blank.)



Write Friday, November 28th - or earlier if you like
Again, this is: Due: Saturday, November 29th, 12pm noon Central Time 
(1pm Eastern Time, 11am Mountain Time, 10am Western Time for the US Time Zones)


*************************

And, just to reassure you, no, we are not going to be sticklers about you following these directions down to the minutest detail - the important thing is that you write, and then that you share it with us, so we can keep track of who’s writing every day.

Also, no, there is no penalty for finishing and submitting early - but it also isn’t a race, so give yourself all the time up til 12 noon on Saturday to write if you need it.  When you’re done, you’re done.

Again, remember, it doesn’t need to be great, it doesn’t even need to be responding to this prompt (the prompt is just there so you’re not staring at a blank screen to start with no idea what to write about :)

Doesn't even need to be complete - you could have the beginning or the middle or the end of an idea, maybe two out of three but not all, that's still fine. This is all about getting things started, you can write more later. 

You have 2 more days to build on whatever you come up with today, if you want. 

Just get anything on the page, even if won't make sense to anyone else, as long as it makes sense to you.

It just needs to be something.

***************************

And that something can be:


Lights up.

Claire gets out a quilt to put on her bed.

She unfurls the quilt and several people come tumbling out, startling her.

Then she recognizes them, and breathes a little easier.

She takes a moment to sit with her ancestors.

Lights down.

The End




That’s always your escape hatch, every day.

That’s your base line.

Build on it.

Have fun.

Don’t stress.

Make an impulsive decision and run with it.

Breathe.

You’ve got the day.

Just write.

And take good care of yourselves, and each other.

Matthew A. Everett
Literary Director
Threshold Theater
(he/him/his) 

Writing Challenge #27 - Sidewalk Poetry and the Whimsical Astronaut (Write Nov. 27th)

Hi folks!

A reminder, if you’re staying on the day to day schedule, the challenge you’re turning in today by noon central time is for Challenge 24.

Then you move on to work on Challenge 25, which you turn in by noon central time tomorrow.

Whatever challenge you’re turning in, for present or future days, just make sure you tag it with the right number :)  That’ll help my sorting here in the flurry of the last week.  Thanks!

Initial numbers on yesterday’s submissions for Challenge 23 look like this:
71 playwrights with material totaling 243 pages
(or the equivalent of two full-length plays with a couple of extra pages to spare)

You folks are remarkably consistent!  Keep up the good work :)

(1 of 2)

Again, I’m sending you two prompts from the future again today, so you can work ahead for the holiday weekend if you wish.

(Remember, you don’t have to work ahead, you can just keep plugging along day by day if that’s what’s working for you.  I’m just giving you the opportunity to bank a day or so ahead of time if you want to take some holiday time off and not get tripped up here in the home stretch but do writing for the full 30 days.  You don’t have to work ahead if you don’t want to.  It’s a marathon, not a sprint, and we’re rounding the final turn :)

This prompt is the one you would be writing Thursday 11/27 to be turned in on Friday 11/28 by noon Central Time, but just fill out the Google form and tag it for prompt 27 and you can turn it early and I’ll credit it ahead.

And of course, you can always use the mini-play at the bottom of the email and blog post as an escape hatch for the day’s writing.

Always remember, if you miss one day, don’t beat yourself up, just write again the next day.

Let’s get you that first writing prompt of the day…

Including this daily prompt, there are only four left to share with you before our work is completed for the month.

Well done, everybody!  

We can all see the end of November dead ahead on Sunday, 

with the last work to be turned in by noon Central time on Monday, December 1st.

******************  

Challenge #27 - Sidewalk Poetry & The Whimsical Astronaut

Write Thursday, November 27th - or earlier if you like
Due: Friday, November 28th, 12pm noon Central Time 
(1pm Eastern Time, 11am Mountain Time, 10am Western Time for the US Time Zones)


Recently, I ran across two unexpected sources of unsolicited advice and/or inspiration.

As often happens when I’m on a run on the weekends, I invariably find something that I hadn’t noticed before.

Two things had to do with the sidewalk around my regular route.  One of them is singular and I don’t actually know the source of it.  But someone somehow arranged to imprint the stencil of the following words directly into wet cement that later dried permanently into a section of the sidewalk.  The words said:

“I don’t know enough about balance to tell you how to do it

I think, though, it’s in the trying and the letting go

that the scales measuring right and wrong - quiver and stand still”

(Photo of the sidewalk message can be found here on the blog.)

This isn’t spray-painted or carved into the sidewalk.  It’s like some kind of giant poetry cookie cutter was placed there for the sidewalk to form around.  Unsigned.  No idea who did it or why.

In the same vein, a less mysterious person, a poet going by the name of Boots, spray painted stencils of two of their messages onto sidewalk in the same area.

One said, “Your best life won’t seek validation.”

The other said, “Accept people for who they are.  Expecting them to change will only cost you peace.”

Apparently Boots isn’t a local.  According to their instagram, they’re based out of Chicago and travel the country, leaving these words of hers behind wherever she goes, including a stop in Minneapolis.

Her profile says, “I write poetry, travel, spray paint sidewalks, explore abandoned places, & give unsolicited advice”

Other bits of spray painted advice to be found on sidewalks and lamp posts around the country include:

“No one is busier than someone who is not interested in you.”

“Feeling aren’t that complicated. They either want you or they don’t.”

“Imagine the love we could all have if we left our egos at the door.”

“Stop settling for less than you deserve just because you’re lonely.”

“We’re all damaged.  It’s how we still love with a broken heart that matters”


Another female artist I ran across on Instagram creates images using something I’ve taken to calling the whimsical astronaut.  The artist is based in Iran, goes by the name of either Luna or Mahsa, and since they’re a digital artist/AI designer, I immediately begin to wonder whether they’re real or not.  (Mention of AI in general prompts all kinds of misgivings.)  Still, this account has a pretty long trail for someone who was (potentially) born yesterday, and their work is funny, so give it a look.

The basics, whether they’re still images or video, is someone, face unseen, dressed in a full astronaut suit, complete with closed helmet.  Sometimes, I think we’re meant to think it’s the artist herself who’s in the astronaut uniform, sometimes it could be literally anyone.

Sometimes the astronaut is sitting on a chair or a park bench, sometimes it’s inside a record store or bookstore or laundromat or apartment.  If they’re sitting they might be reading a newspaper, a book or scrolling on their phone.  And there’s a sign next to where they’re sitting, or sometimes it’s in their lap.  Sometimes they’re standing in the middle of the road, holding up a sign for attention, or to get a point across.  Sometimes they’re spray painting their message on a wall.

The thing I appreciate most about it all is the sense of humor, or resilience, depending on the subject.

I have lost a lot of time scrolling through these images but a selection of my favorites include:

Astronaut sitting on a bench reading a newspaper.  A sign next to them says:
“No one’s jealous of you, go take a bath.”

Astronaut sitting on a bench working on their laptop.  A sign sits next to them, saying:
“I’m not free tomorrow.  I’m expensive everyday.”

Astronaut standing in the middle of a neon lit city street at night holding up a sign declaring:
“Listen up f*cker!  You are a magical piece of f*cking stardust and you deserve the f*cking world"

Astronaut sitting on the hood of a car in the middle of a suburban neighborhood with a sign saying:
“But darling, you need music to dance, not a partner”

Astronaut sitting among the library shelves, holding a sign in their lap that reads”:
“I like your weird brain very much!”

Astronaut standing outside a bakery holding out a box of cupcakes, next to sign that says,
“Not all ex’s are bad.  Look at me, I’m someone’s ex and I’m the best.”

A Halloween season astronaut sitting on a bench next to their friend the ghost who’s eating pizza under a neon sign that reads:
“Oh sweetie, monsters are real and they look like people”

Astronaut standing in the middle of a busy city street at night, holding a sign that says:
“Forget nudes. Send me a photo of your bookshelves.”

Astronaut sitting on a cabinet reading a book, between a lamp and an old-fashioned TV set, with framed poster behind them saying:
“I love acting dumb. It helps me to see people’s real intentions”

Astronaut sitting on a folding chair in the middle of the street, scrolling through their phone, next to sign on an easel that says:
“Tell me about the things you think don’t matter to anyone else.”

Astronaut taking a selfie in front a of spray painted wall that says,
“When they say you can’t do it, do it twice and take pics!”

From behind, two astronauts sitting side by side on a bench in the middle of a field of cows, with hills and mountains in the distance at sunset.  Next to them a sign reads:
“Imagine you and me as cows in Switzerland enjoying the view and saying “moo” every day”


Something about the melancholy loneliness and the out of context nature of the astronaut suit and the messages fascinates me and makes me smile, and sit and think for a bit.  There are so, so many more images, give the feed a look.

Write a scene duplicating how the images or the messages make you feel.

Or ruminate on the sidewalk poetry.

Or think about what makes someone turn into a traveling sidewalk poet, or don an astronaut uniform to express themselves.  What is someone who communicates or connects with either of those artists like?  Or are they just a catalyst, an observer, of their effects on other people’s lives?  Does anyone ever thank them, or damn them, and how could they?

Whatever strikes your fancy.

And if none of that doesn’t do it for you, you can always ignore this prompt and do whatever you want, just like every other day in November.

Just write.  Something.

***********************

If you’re not interested in this prompt, you can 

try 2021’s challenge #27: She Blinded Me With Science

Or try 2022’s challenge #27: Code Words

Or try 2023’s Challenge #27: The Ex Files (from Threshold Theater’s co-founder and Technical Director Nick Mrozek)

Or try 2024’s challenge #27: …Until All You Can Remember Is A Name

Or, you know, just ignore the prompts altogether and write whatever you want - as long as you’re writing and turning it in by the deadline, that’s all that matters for the challenge :)

******************************

How to submit your work for Challenge #27

We’re streamlining the process this year with a Google form, 

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdy-wyjz-IITaNsOkXM1zVQu_yrt_o7E4Vp2eQnr-8VNnu49w/viewform?usp=header

but you still have multiple options for how you submit your playwriting output for the day.

After you enter the required fields of 
email, 
name, 
challenge number (for today, that’d be 27 :) 
and page count, 
you can submit your writing in one of four ways:

Save your script as a PDF or Word Doc and upload that document to the Google form.

OR

Post your script online (on your personal website, as a blog post, or as a Google doc) and put a link to that online script in the Google form.

OR

Copy/paste your work from another source directly into the Google form

OR

Type directly into the Google form.

(Whichever option you choose, you can leave the other ones blank.)



Write Thursday, November 27th - or earlier if you like
Again, this is: Due: Friday, November 28th, 12pm noon Central Time 
(1pm Eastern Time, 11am Mountain Time, 10am Western Time for the US Time Zones)

***********************

And because we call can get in our own way so easily, here’s some words of reassurance on the basics of this month:

Friendly Reminders - Answers To Common Questions:
(Follow the links to read me expounding on these items :)

Don’t Stress about November 27th (however you recognize the holiday weekend) - 2025 edition

Don’t Stress About Writing A Full Play

Don’t Stress About Format

Don’t Stress About Sticking To The Writing Prompt

No.  Really.  I Mean It.  Don’t Stress About Sticking To The Writing Prompt

Don’t Stress About Finishing An Idea (You Can Add Later)

Don’t Stress About “Succeeding” or “Failing”

Don’t Stress About What You’re Turning In Each Day

******************************

And, just to reassure you, no, we are not going to be sticklers about you following these directions down to the minutest detail - the important thing is that you write, and then that you share it with us, so we can keep track of who’s writing every day.

Also, no, there is no penalty for finishing and submitting early - but it also isn’t a race, so give yourself all the time up til 12 noon Central Time on Friday to write if you need it.  When you’re done, you’re done.

Again, remember, it doesn’t need to be great, it doesn’t even need to be responding to this prompt (the prompt is just there so you’re not staring at a blank screen to start with no idea what to write about :)

Doesn't even need to be complete - you could have the beginning or the middle or the end of an idea, maybe two out of three but not all, that's still fine. This is all about getting things started, you can write more later. 

You have 3 more days to build on whatever you come up with today, if you want. 

Just get anything on the page, even if won't make sense to anyone else, as long as it makes sense to you.

It just needs to be something.

********************************

And that something can be:



Lights up.

A turkey runs for its life across the stage.

Followed by a potato, also running for its life.

Followed by a squash, also running for its life.

Followed by a box of stuffing, also running for its life.

Followed by a cranberry, also running for its life.

The End



That’s always your escape hatch, every day.

That’s your base line.

Build on it.

Have fun.

Don’t stress.

Make an impulsive decision and run with it.

Breathe.

You’ve got the day.

Just write.

And take good care of yourselves, and each other.

Matthew A. Everett
Literary Director
Threshold Theater
(he/him/his) 

Writing Challenge #26 - Kidnapping/Reunion (Write Nov. 26th)

Hello again!

(2 of 2)

This prompt is the one you would be writing Wednesday 11/26 to be turned in on Thursday 11/27 (however you choose to recognize or re-invent the national holiday) by noon Central Time, but just fill in the Google form and tag it for prompt 26 and you can turn it early and I’ll credit it ahead.

Now, I’m going to say this probably a couple of times over the course of the week, but you don’t have to do any of these challenges ahead of schedule.  

You can keep writing one day and submitting by noon central time the next day, just like you’ve been doing the rest of the month up until now.

I’m only giving you the prompts early so if you want to write some ahead of time and bank it for a later date so you can take a holiday date or two off, you can.

It’s not requiring a sprint to the finish several days ahead of time.

Keep doing whatever works for you.  We just didn’t want the holiday to trip anyone up in terms of submitting, so we’re giving you another option.

And of course, you can always use the mini-play at the bottom of the email and blog post as an escape hatch for the day’s writing.

Let’s get you that second writing prompt for today…

**************************

Challenge #26 - Kidnapping/Reunion

Write Wednesday, November 26th - or earlier if you like
Due: Thursday, November 27th, 12pm noon Central Time 
(1pm Eastern Time, 11am Mountain Time, 10am Western Time for the US Time Zones)


And we arrive at our last writing challenge suggestion from Threshold Theater Literary Associate Maren Findlay:


“Scenario: you kidnapped someone but they turn out to be someone you know from high school”



As usual, I have so many questions.

Why would you kidnap someone?

Why would you kidnap someone you thought you didn’t even know, and how did the name not come up?

Once you realize it’s someone you know from high school, what do you do?
I suppose it depends on whether or not it’s someone you knew well.
And if you liked them, or didn’t like them.
And if you might enjoy, or be horrified of being in a position of power and control over them.

And what happens when the other person realizes they know you?
Were you the person in high school voted most likely to turn to a life of crime and kidnap people?  Or is this very unlike you?

What exactly Is supposed to happen to resolve this kidnapping scenario?
And how does the fact that you knew this person in high school complicate that?

Do you have to call for ransom the parents of someone you knew in high school, and I assume you probably knew the parents, too?

Or is it the spouse of the person, who might have been their high school sweetheart, so you know them, too?
Think of all the many ways your relationship with the significant other, or the two of them as a couple back in the day, might complicate matters.
 

So take any or all of that as a jumping off point.

Or, as usual, just write whatever you like and turn it in by the deadline.  Up to you.

Just write something :)

**************************

If you’re not interested in this prompt, you can 

try 2021’s challenge #26: Random Phrase Generator part 4

Or try 2022’s challenge #26: Visual Writing Prompt

Or try 2023’s Challenge #26: Impossible Set (from Threshold Theater Literary Associate Kate Cosgrove)

Or try 2024’s challenge #26: Chat GPT, Gmail AI, and Off Book

Or, you know, just ignore the prompts altogether and write whatever you want - as long as you’re writing and turning it in by the deadline, that’s all that matters for the challenge :)

***********************

How to submit your work for Challenge #26

We’re streamlining the process this year with a Google form, 

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdy-wyjz-IITaNsOkXM1zVQu_yrt_o7E4Vp2eQnr-8VNnu49w/viewform?usp=header

but you still have multiple options for how you submit your playwriting output for the day.

After you enter the required fields of 
email, 
name, 
challenge number (for today, that’d be 26 :) 
and page count, 
you can submit your writing in one of four ways:

Save your script as a PDF or Word Doc and upload that document to the Google form.

OR

Post your script online (on your personal website, as a blog post, or as a Google doc) and put a link to that online script in the Google form.

OR

Copy/paste your work from another source directly into the Google form

OR

Type directly into the Google form.

(Whichever option you choose, you can leave the other ones blank.)



Write Wednesday, November 26th - or earlier if you like
Again, this is: Due: Thursday, November 27th, 12pm noon Central Time 
(1pm Eastern Time, 11am Mountain Time, 10am Western Time for the US Time Zones)

*************************

And because we call can get in our own way so easily, here’s some words of reassurance on the basics of this month:

Friendly Reminders - Answers To Common Questions:
(Follow the links to read me expounding on these items :)

Don’t Stress about November 27th (however you recognize the holiday weekend) - 2025 edition

Don’t Stress About Writing A Full Play

Don’t Stress About Format

Don’t Stress About Sticking To The Writing Prompt

No.  Really.  I Mean It.  Don’t Stress About Sticking To The Writing Prompt

Don’t Stress About Finishing An Idea (You Can Add Later)

Don’t Stress About “Succeeding” or “Failing”

Don’t Stress About What You’re Turning In Each Day

*************************

And, just to reassure you, no, we are not going to be sticklers about you following these directions down to the minutest detail - the important thing is that you write, and then that you share it with us, so we can keep track of who’s writing every day.

Also, no, there is no penalty for finishing and submitting early - but it also isn’t a race, so give yourself all the time up til 12 noon Central Time on Thursday to write if you need it.  When you’re done, you’re done.

Again, remember, it doesn’t need to be great, it doesn’t even need to be responding to this prompt (the prompt is just there so you’re not staring at a blank screen to start with no idea what to write about :)

Doesn't even need to be complete - you could have the beginning or the middle or the end of an idea, maybe two out of three but not all, that's still fine. This is all about getting things started, you can write more later. 

You have 4 more days to build on whatever you come up with today, if you want. 

Just get anything on the page, even if won't make sense to anyone else, as long as it makes sense to you.

It just needs to be something.

**************************

And that something can be:



Lights up.

KIDNAPPER, in a basic Halloween mask, pulls hood off the head of their HOSTAGE.

KIDNAPPER: Don’t worry, this’ll be over soon.

HOSTAGE: So why won’t you face me?

KIDNAPPER: The less you know the better.

HOSTAGE: Wait a minute.  Cooper?

KIDNAPPER: Nice try, buddy.

HOSTAGE: No.  Cooper Marshall?  From East Side High?

KIDNAPPER: The don’t sell “Cooper Marshall” costumes, weirdo.  Whoever that is.

HOSTAGE:  It’s not the mask.  I’m Stuart Draper.  I sat behind you in calculus class senior year.  I spent a lot of time staring blankly ahead of me not knowing what the hell I was doing.  I’d recognize the back of your neck anywhere.

KIDNAPPER turns to face HOSTAGE, still doesn’t take off his mask.

KIDNAPPER: Stuart Draper?

HOSTAGE: We’ve gotta stop meeting like this.

Lights down.

The End

That’s always your escape hatch, every day.

That’s your base line.

Build on it.

Have fun.

Don’t stress.

Make an impulsive decision and run with it.

Breathe.

You’ve got the day.

Just write.

And take good care of yourselves, and each other.

Matthew A. Everett
Literary Director
Threshold Theater
(he/him/his) 

Writing Challenge #25 - Storefronts and Marquees (Write Nov. 25th)

Hi folks

24 writing challenges down.

Only 6 to go!

Keep up the good work :)

(1 of 2)

Yes, I’m going to send you two prompts a day on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, so you have all the prompts early to take you through the holiday weekend (oddly enough, also the end of the month, and the challenge).  That way, if you want to write extra ahead of time and bank it in order to give yourself a day off or two over the holiday stretch at the end of the week, you can do that.

This prompt below is the one you would be writing Tuesday 11/25 to be turned in on Wednesday 11/26 by noon Central Time, but just fill in the Google form and tag it for prompt 25 and you can turn it early and I’ll credit it ahead.

And of course, you can always use the mini-play at the bottom of the email and blog post as an escape hatch for the day’s writing.

Speaking of writing, as we always do, here’s the initial tallies for yesterday’s submissions for challenge 22:
71 playwrights with material totaling 251 pages
(or the equivalent of two full-length plays plus another ten minute play besides)

Happy writing to you all, in the meantime.

Let’s get you that first writing prompt…

******************************

Challenge #25 - Storefronts and Marquees

Write Tuesday, Nov. 25th - or earlier if you like
Due: Wednesday, November 26th, 12pm noon Central Time 
(1pm Eastern Time, 11am Mountain Time, 10am Western Time for the US Time Zones)



The intersection of Lyndale Avenue and 26th Street in Minneapolis has a nice long traffic light so I can pause and take in that particular crossroads of the weird neighborhood.

The pandemic forced a lot of turnover in the restaurant industry and this one corner has cycled through a couple of different names in the same building.  For years it was a locally sourced eatery called Common Roots.  Then it had a period after the pause where it was called Hi Flora, which I thought was a florist but was also a restaurant, plant-based food and a temperance bar (which meant things like mushroom steaks and potion-like zero proof cocktails.  Now it’s about to open with yet another set of owners under the evocative name of

Dreamstate Cafe

(Not to be confused with the short-lived 1992 sci-fi/horror series from Wes Craven, Nightmare Cafe)

And they’ve rented out the back half of the building facing away from the street to Boneshaker Books, which calls itself your friendly neighborhood bookstore

Across the street on the same side of the road is an old neighborhood dive bar called the CC Club that appears to be as unkillable as Rasputin.

Across the road is Lucky Cat Records, which was itself two previous record stores over the years - Treehouse Records, and Oar Folkjokeopus (where the band The Replacements were discovered by the store manager at the time).

So that’s at least three of the nine lives so far…

On the other corner, a much newer ALDI grocery store attached to and topped by a building of apartments and/or condos.

And just down the block is Oddmart

The O in their name is an eyeball on the storefront.

A weird little store that features comic books, T-shirts, art, gumballs, and monster finger puppets, along with a weekly Sunday event where they feature nine local artists there to sell their own wares.

Their website is a hoot (the pictures really give you a feel for the place) but to give you a taste of their vibe, here’s some of the way they present themselves in words (which is what we’re playing around with this month, after all):

"Welcome to Odd Mart!
Discover an Enchanted Oasis of Sophisticated Elegance.
Experience Luxury Through the Lens of Local Craftsmanship and fart stuff.

Opulent events for the birth of limitless creativity? Affirmativly yes.
Explore the veiled intricacies of your innermost musings with beguiling comix and finger monsters.
Explore the Intriguing Sphere of Glorp Gum - Where gumballs Merge with the opulence of the future. 

Tired of your gum not coming with a free T-shirt? The Glorp Gum family of products is here to help! Each and every piece of our hand crafted “aged to perfection” bubble gum comes with a high quality limited edition T-shirt. So when you think of gum, think of GLORP! America’s CHEW value!

Please pass the sophisticated elegance, please.

Imagine yourself in a world of possibilities....
....where possibilities become maybes in a dream.

TASTE.
Sofistication.
Eleganphants."
(all their spelling, not a typo :)

Finally, to round things out, the old Uptown Movie Theater is now a music venue instead and their marquee sports some fun band name sometimes.

The most recent that caught my eye:

Wookiefoot

(that comes from the minds of a very specific fanbase, I’m sure)

Checking out their website is even wilder, however.  Again, the photos are a delight but so is the text explaining and what they heck they are…

“Wookiefoot is a band, a non-profit charity organization (BeTheChangeCharities.org), a circus, a philosophy, and a community of globe trekking bliss junkies and believers that are the fuel to keep this Tribadelic Spaceship going! Their charity organization (with the support of their community) has donated over $600,000 to international relief efforts, as well as other environmental and social justice causes. Wookiefoot invites their community home every September… when they host and headline their own Global Conscious Gathering called Shangri~La Festival at Harmony Park in southern Minnesota.

Wookiefoot’s live sets are an entertaining barrage of sonic and visual stimulation. The fast paced circus like set has been called “Short Attention Span Musical Theater”. These live performances are a one of a kind experience that mixes Reggae, World Beat, Hip Hop, Irish, Funk, Folk, Rock & more with a large band featuring everything from a vintage Hammond Organ to Bag Pipes! Combine that with a mind-blowing stage show that may include anything (such as a wild light show, projection, costumes, fire, dancers, aerialists, magic, clowns, puppets, etc) 

Welcome… and thank you for riding Wookiefoot!”


So,
Dreamstate Cafe
Lucky Cat Records
Boneshaker Books
Odd Mart
Wookiefoot

There must be a weird store in your town (or your mind’s eye) that seems like a good place to set a scene, or a whole play.  Play around with that.


And as always, feel free to just ignore the writing prompt, write whatever you want, and turn it in by the deadline.

Just writing something :)

*****************************

If you’re not interested in this prompt, you can 

try 2021’s challenge #25: Unstageable

Or try 2022’s challenge #25: Fun With Homophones

Or try 2023’s Challenge #25: Mood Music

Or try 2024’s challenge #25: Power

Or, you know, just ignore the prompts altogether and write whatever you want - as long as you’re writing and turning it in by the deadline, that’s all that matters for the challenge :)

****************************

And because we call can get in our own way so easily, here’s some words of reassurance on the basics of this month:

Friendly Reminders - Answers To Common Questions:
(Follow the links to read me expounding on these items :)

Don’t Stress about November 27th (however you recognize the holiday weekend) - 2025 edition

Don’t Stress About Writing A Full Play

Don’t Stress About Format

Don’t Stress About Sticking To The Writing Prompt

No.  Really.  I Mean It.  Don’t Stress About Sticking To The Writing Prompt

Don’t Stress About Finishing An Idea (You Can Add Later)

Don’t Stress About “Succeeding” or “Failing”

Don’t Stress About What You’re Turning In Each Day

*****************************

How to submit your work for Challenge #25

We’re streamlining the process this year with a Google form, 

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdy-wyjz-IITaNsOkXM1zVQu_yrt_o7E4Vp2eQnr-8VNnu49w/viewform?usp=header

but you still have multiple options for how you submit your playwriting output for the day.

After you enter the required fields of 
email, 
name, 
challenge number (for today, that’d be 25 :) 
and page count, 
you can submit your writing in one of four ways:

Save your script as a PDF or Word Doc and upload that document to the Google form.

OR

Post your script online (on your personal website, as a blog post, or as a Google doc) and put a link to that online script in the Google form.

OR

Copy/paste your work from another source directly into the Google form

OR

Type directly into the Google form.

(Whichever option you choose, you can leave the other ones blank.)



Write Tuesday, November 25th - or earlier if you like
Again, this is: Due: Wednesday, November 26th, 12pm noon Central Time 
(1pm Eastern Time, 11am Mountain Time, 10am Western Time for the US Time Zones)


*************************

And, just to reassure you, no, we are not going to be sticklers about you following these directions down to the minutest detail - the important thing is that you write, and then that you share it with us, so we can keep track of who’s writing every day.

Also, no, there is no penalty for finishing and submitting early - but it also isn’t a race, so give yourself all the time up til 12 noon Central Time on Wednesday to write if you need it.  When you’re done, you’re done.

Again, remember, it doesn’t need to be great, it doesn’t even need to be responding to this prompt (the prompt is just there so you’re not staring at a blank screen to start with no idea what to write about :)

Doesn't even need to be complete - you could have the beginning or the middle or the end of an idea, maybe two out of three but not all, that's still fine. This is all about getting things started, you can write more later. 

You have 5 more days to build on whatever you come up with today, if you want. 

Just get anything on the page, even if won't make sense to anyone else, as long as it makes sense to you.

It just needs to be something.

***********************

And that something can be:



Lights up.

Mary is putting on a monster finger puppet show for Louise.

Louise is enchanted.

They kiss, even though Mary still has the monster puppets on her fingers when she takes Louise’s face in her hands.

The End



That’s always your escape hatch, every day.

That’s your base line.

Build on it.

Have fun.

Don’t stress.

Make an impulsive decision and run with it.

Breathe.

You’ve got the day.

Just write.

And take good care of yourselves, and each other.

Matthew A. Everett
Literary Director
Threshold Theater
(he/him/his) 

Writing Challenge #24 - Gas Station/Dystopia (Write Nov. 24th)

Hello folks!

23 writing challenges down.

Only 7 to go!

Yes, we are entering the final week of the November Playwriting Challenge :)

Yesterday’s submissions for challenge 21 turned out as follows:
73 playwrights with material totaling 248 pages
(The equivalent of two full-length plays with a couple of extra pages to spare)

Week three’s numbers
Average playwrights per day: 77
Total play bits submitted: 536
Total pages for the week: 1,813
The equivalent of 15 full-length plays, plus a 10 minute play

Overall numbers for the first three weeks
Average playwrights per day: 82
Total play bits submitted: 1,729
Total pages for the first three weeks: 5,856
The equivalent of 48 full-length plays, plus another long one-act of 96 pages

Heads up - starting tomorrow (Monday) through Wednesday, you’ll be getting two prompts each day in order to give you enough material so if you want to submit material early and bank it for the long holiday weekend this week, you can - so you’re not writing on Thanksgiving Day, for instance, if you don’t want to :) Each challenge will be marked with what day it’s for, when you should write, if not earlier, and when you should turn it in, if not earlier.

This year the holiday is odd again because it’s falling in the last week of the month, and the month actually ends on Sunday of the holiday weekend, so you’ll be turning in that very last challenge, that you’re writing on Sunday, November 30th, by 12noon Central Time on Monday, December 1st. (Normally we get at least a partial post holiday week inside of the month of November, but the calendar’s just a weird one this year.)

But for now, let’s get to today’s writing prompt…

**************************

Challenge #24 - Gas Station/Dystopia

Write Monday, November 24th - or earlier if you like
Due: Tuesday, November 25th, 12pm noon Central Time 
(1pm Eastern Time, 11am Mountain Time, 10am Western Time for the US Time Zones)



We have reached the penultimate set of suggestions from Threshold Theater Literary Associate Maren Findlay.

Here’s a couple of items from her list of suggestions that I grouped together for consideration:


“Write a dystopian play set in a world after the AI takeover.”

(I think that’s just the Terminator movies or Battlestar Galactica but, hey, dystopia is a whole cottage industry of possibilities these days, right?  

As sci fi author N.K. Jemisin says in The Fifth Season, 

“Let’s start with the end of the world, why don’t why?  Get it over with and move on to more interesting things.”  

Or as Douglas Adams wrote in the prologue for the fourth book in the five book trilogy(?) of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, “So Long and Thanks for All The Fish” - when a young woman has a flash of inspiration about how humanity can fix what’s wrong with the world and live in harmony at last: 
“Sadly, however, before she could get to a phone to tell anyone about it, the Earth was unexpectedly demolished to make way for a new hyperspace bypass, and so the idea was lost, seemingly forever.
This is her story.”

How about a title song?

“The earth’s about to be destroyed,
No point in getting all annoyed...”



The other prompt in this pair is as follows:

“Write a scene/play set at a gas station at 3am”


Now, this could also be part of the dystopia, or it’s own evocative time and place in a less grim reality.
 
You could go the dramatic route, like any number of William Inge plays about Bus Stops and Picnics

Or a more modern character study like the play by Sam Walsh, The Visible, which we presented as part of Threshold Theater’s New Play Reading Series back in September 2022

But just to remind you that you can always go in a comedic direction, there’s a particular gas station and convenience store on one of my routes whose name always makes me giggle.  It’s called

Pump ’N Munch

Take that however you will.

Also, some interesting recent license plates I’ve seen out in traffic

DIE 992

HUG 265

O BLA D
(A deep cut for the Beatles fans)

Then there were a couple of plates that had an interesting combo going with their license plate frames.

One plate read:
MRSPNUT
And the frame explained this was because they were associated with:
AmericanPistachios.org

One unintentional juxtaposition was a guy who had a Minnesota WILD sports team license plate frame, with the team’s name in all caps like that.

But the license plate was
LUVWIFE

However the frame with the WILD below it made it look like it was saying
LUVWIFE WILD

Sounds like a very happy marriage :)


As always, if these prompts don’t do it for you, you can always feel free to just write whatever you want and turn it in by the deadline instead.

Just write something today :)

***************************

If you’re not interested in this prompt, you can 

try 2021’s challenge #24: Alternate Timelines

Or try 2022’s challenge #24: Band Name

Or try 2023’s Challenge #24: Snapshots 4 (from Threshold Theater co-founder and Managing Director David Schlosser)

Or try 2024’s challenge #24 - Leftovers from David (from Threshold Theater co-founder and Managing Director David Schlosser)

Or, you know, just ignore the prompts altogether and write whatever you want - as long as you’re writing and turning it in by the deadline, that’s all that matters for the challenge :)

*************************

How to submit your work for Challenge #24

We’re streamlining the process this year with a Google form, 

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdy-wyjz-IITaNsOkXM1zVQu_yrt_o7E4Vp2eQnr-8VNnu49w/viewform?usp=header

but you still have multiple options for how you submit your playwriting output for the day.

After you enter the required fields of 
email, 
name, 
challenge number (for today, that’d be 24 :) 
and page count, 
you can submit your writing in one of four ways:

Save your script as a PDF or Word Doc and upload that document to the Google form.

OR

Post your script online (on your personal website, as a blog post, or as a Google doc) and put a link to that online script in the Google form.

OR

Copy/paste your work from another source directly into the Google form

OR

Type directly into the Google form.

(Whichever option you choose, you can leave the other ones blank.)




Write Monday, November 24th - or earlier if you like
Again, this is: Due: Tuesday, November 25th, 12pm noon Central Time 
(1pm Eastern Time, 11am Mountain Time, 10am Western Time for the US Time Zones)

*****************************

And because we call can get in our own way so easily, here’s some words of reassurance on the basics of this month:

Friendly Reminders - Answers To Common Questions:
(Follow the links to read me expounding on these items :)

Don’t Stress About Writing A Full Play

Don’t Stress About Format

Don’t Stress About Sticking To The Writing Prompt

No.  Really.  I Mean It.  Don’t Stress About Sticking To The Writing Prompt

Don’t Stress About Finishing An Idea (You Can Add Later)

Don’t Stress About “Succeeding” or “Failing”

Don’t Stress About What You’re Turning In Each Day

Don’t Stress about November 27th (however you recognize the holiday weekend) - 2025 edition

************************

And, just to reassure you, no, we are not going to be sticklers about you following these directions down to the minutest detail - the important thing is that you write, and then that you share it with us, so we can keep track of who’s writing every day.

Also, no, there is no penalty for finishing and submitting early - but it also isn’t a race, so give yourself all the time up til 12 noon Central Time on Tuesday to write if you need it.  When you’re done, you’re done.

Again, remember, it doesn’t need to be great, it doesn’t even need to be responding to this prompt (the prompt is just there so you’re not staring at a blank screen to start with no idea what to write about :)

Doesn't even need to be complete - you could have the beginning or the middle or the end of an idea, maybe two out of three but not all, that's still fine. This is all about getting things started, you can write more later. 

You have 6 more days to build on whatever you come up with today, if you want. 

Just get anything on the page, even if won't make sense to anyone else, as long as it makes sense to you.

It just needs to be something.

*************************

And that something can be:



Lights up.

A car pulls up to a gas station in the middle of the night.

The license plate reads O BLA D

While pumping gas, the driver looks at the blighted city skyline in the distance.

Suddenly, the city in the distance erupts in a big ball of fire.

DRIVER:  Hmmm.  I guess maybe life doesn’t go on after all.

They keep pumping gas, trying to figure out where else to go instead now.

Lights down.

The End



That’s always your escape hatch, every day.

That’s your base line.

Build on it.

Have fun.

Don’t stress.

Make an impulsive decision and run with it.

Breathe.

You’ve got the day.

Just write.

And take good care of yourselves, and each other.

Matthew A. Everett
Literary Director
Threshold Theater
(he/him/his)