Hi folks
Another milestone behind us - 10 days in - we’re a third of the way there!
Well done, everybody!
Hang in there and keep going.
As much as anything, we’re just trying to establish a new habit of writing, even if it’s just a little bit, every day.
If you miss a day, no worries. Don’t beat yourself up. Just write the next day.
Now,
I have the day job, plus I’m overdue to get a review of a show posted
for a theater company, so let’s get you that writing prompt…
************************************
Challenge #11 - Fake Tour Guide
Due: Sunday, November 12th, 12pm noon Central Time
(1pm Eastern Time, 11am Mountain Time, 10am Western Time for the US Time Zones)
My second day job is in the box office at the Guthrie Theater.
The Guthrie used to do backstage tours regularly on weekends.
But then the pandemic happened, and they (understandably) thought it was a horrible idea, even after the theater tentatively reopened to the public, to parade groups of two dozen strangers through the rehearsal areas on a regular basis, as well as the scene shop and the costume shop and the prop shop and the sound studio, and expose all the people working on the shows to whatever the general public was hacking up out of their lungs.
We were having a hard enough time keeping the shows from being canceled every time a new variant popped up in 2021 and 2022. If people in the cast or crew got sick and were (of course) around everyone else in the production, viruses and germs of all types spread pretty fast and could knock out enough people in the wrong combination so that we couldn’t just throw an understudy, or two, or three, onstage and keep moving on with the show.
So, no tours.
They have only just now, in the last couple of months, started to do tours on a more limited basis again.
Meanwhile, someone saw an opening and seized it.
A random guy, not on staff, just some dude off the street, has started doing his own tours of the public spaces in the Guthrie Theater complex.
Not a backstage tour, those “behind the scenes” spaces aren’t open to the public, but still a tour of the Guthrie building.
And it’s a public building, so we can’t exactly stop him.
He’s not pretending he works with the Guthrie or represents the theater in any official capacity.
He just puts on a dark button-down shirt and slacks and a name tag and herds groups of people around the theater complex’s lobby spaces.
And he frequently chooses to do this right after a show goes up. So the lobbies are empty, but the building is still open to the public.
But there’s a show going on. And he’s got his tour guide voice going, herding these people around, spouting whatever Guthrie facts he’s accumulated to his own little audience, listening to him very seriously, as if he’s some kind of authority.
It’s just the weirdest thing, but oddly fascinating.
Dude, you don’t work here. What are you doing?
I started imagining, what if I just showed up unannounced at someone else’s place of work and just started giving a tour?
Choose a work place, any work place.
And while people were working, or trying to.
Or what if I just decided to give a tour inside of someone’s home?
What possesses a person to do any of that?
What if the motive isn’t just money?
Whose attention are they trying to get, and why?
What are they trying to disrupt, and why?
What if someone intervenes?
What if the tour is completely fabricated with information that is not in any way true?
Who are the people following this tour guide around? Where did the tour guide find them? How did he convince them to follow him around? What do they think they’re getting out of this? Why do they follow him? Who do they think he is? Or do they know, and it doesn’t matter for some reason?
Again, why would anyone do this?
Do they get what they want? Or are they always just giving a tour in a place they’re not welcome, unable to achieve their goal?
It was just so baffling I couldn’t stop thinking about it the other day and the more I thought about it, the more ridiculous it got.
Create your own fake tour situation.
Or don’t.
Just write something.
**********************************************
If you’re not interested in this prompt, you can try 2021’s challenge #11:
Punk Monkey, Film Noir and Ride The Pink Horse
Or try 2022’s challenge #11:
Background Music
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 :)
***********************************************
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 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 Thanksgiving
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 #11
You have options. They are:
Save your script as a PDF or Word Doc and send as an attachment to an email sent to ThresholdWritingChallenge@gmail.com
OR
Copy and paste your script in the body of an email and send it to ThresholdWritingChallenge@gmail.com
OR
Post
your script online (as a Google doc, or in a blog post, on your own
personal website, etc.) - email a link to this script to
ThresholdWritingChallenge@gmail.com
(If you’re going to Google doc
route, just make sure to have the document public, or give permissions
to our email address to open it)
When emailing us, make the subject line of your email - Challenge #11
(That just helps us sort through the email more quickly)
(Or, you know, just reply to this email if you want :)
OR
Post the link for the online document option above in the comments
section on this very blog post for this very challenge on the writing
challenge blog below
Again, this is: Due: Sunday, November 12th, 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 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 19 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 make sense to you.
It just needs to be something.
**********************************
And that something can be:
Lights up.
A person guides a group onstage to give a fake tour of the house he used to live in, while the people who now live there are also present, looking on in - Shock? Horror? Amusement? Pity? Compete befuddlement?
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.
Matthew A. Everett
Literary Director
Threshold Theater
(he/him/his)
Now Playing:
The video trailer for Threshold Theater's first virtual
play reading in the New Play Reading series (back in May/June 2021), our
reading of “Spellbound”
by Matthew A. Everett - Thanks to his mischievous friend Jeffrey, who’s
begun dabbling in witchcraft, Micah has accidentally dosed his best
friend Auggie with a love potion. Which might be fine, if Auggie wasn’t
straight, and married, or if Auggie’s wife Sarah wasn’t pregnant, or a
practicing witch. With the help of Duncan, who runs the local
metaphysical supply store, the race is on to whip up the antidote before
anyone does something they’ll regret. Now on our YouTube channel
Support Threshold Theater on Give to the Max Day, November 16th
(Or feel free to give early, any time between November 1st through 15th)
Here's the link: https://www.givemn.org/story/Kssucf
Coming Monday, November 20, 2023 at 7pm:
If you’re local in the Twin Cities in Minnesota, come and join us for Threshold Theater's
seventh live play reading in the New Play Reading series. Like all good
LGBTQ+ theater companies, we begin our new season of programming with
"Mediocre Heterosexual Sex" - which is a play by Madison Wetzell.
Location: The Black Hart of Saint Paul
- 1415 University Avenue West, St. Paul, MN - Doors at 6:30pm, Reading
begins at 7pm, Audience discussion to follow the reading -
About the
play: Four hours after her girlfriend dumps her, Erin switches her
Tinder setting to dudes because she hates herself. She quickly meets
Aaron, who is straight, conveniently nearby, and only too happy to
indulge her masochistic fantasies. To translate this deeply ambivalent
first hetero experience, Erin seeks the advice of the only straight
people she knows, a couple in a Dominant/submissive relationship. A
vexed exploration of gender, sex, power, and kink.
Coming Spring 2024:
“4Play with Threshold Theater”
Dates and venue still TBA
Featuring:
Amsterdam, by Collette Cullen
Bluetooth, by Liz Dooley
Hurry Up and Wail, by Anna Ralls
Just for Context, by Bethany Dickens Assaf
The Weird Ellen Prom Queen Trendsetters, by Elizabeth Shannon
Coming for Pride Month 2024
Monday, June 3, 2024
Monster Girls at Sunshine Donuts, by Dani Herd
A
vampire, a werewolf, and a Frankenstein's monster walk into a doughnut
shop... Meet Louise, Tally, and Elsie: the crew behind Sunshine
Doughnuts! The ghouls have fallen into a pretty pleasant spooky routine
for themselves; pouring coffee, baking doughnuts, arguing over
Scooby-Doo cartoons, having crushes on their regulars. Along comes an
unexpected late night visitor to throw everything into question.
Sometimes it really sucks how much your past can come back to bite you!
"Write. Find a way to keep alive and write. There is nothing else to say."
- James Baldwin
"Writing is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as the headlights, but you make the whole trip that way."
- E.L. Doctorow
No comments:
Post a Comment