There’s some midday meetings for work going on, so I’m sending this one out a bit earlier than usual.
21 writing challenges down.
Only 9 to go!
Initial numbers for yesterday’s submissions for Challenge 19 look like this:
76 playwrights, with material totaling 265 pages
(Equally two more full-length plays plus a half-hour one-act to boot)
Now let’s get to the writing prompt for the day…
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Challenge #22 - Childhood
Write Saturday, November 22nd - or earlier if you like
Due: Sunday, November 23rd, 12pm noon Central Time
(1pm Eastern Time, 11am Mountain Time, 10am Western Time for the US Time Zones)
Threshold Theater Literary Associate Maren Findlay didn’t have any suggestions in the mix for challenges last year but she’s more than making up for it this year. Here’s another pair of prompts that center around the concept of childhood:
“Write a scene that conveys something you wish you had heard/learned as a child”
Hard to imagine someone who doesn’t wish they’d known something or heard something when they were younger that could have made things different, easier, more interesting, less scary, any different path that different words might have opened up or urged you to pursue.
That’s just me riffing. What does that prompt say to you?
If that one doesn’t conjure play ideas, how about this challenge:
“Write a conversation with a character that is the personification of the house you grew up in”
How would I personify my childhood home? That’s fascinating.
For me, the first thing that leaps to mind is that, for me, different rooms are different people.
The basement is my grandfather, because that’s where he had his work bench and his photography dark room under the stairs behind his wall of tools. That’s also where he set up the model train sets.
But the basement is also my mother because that’s where the laundry was done, and where she cut my hair when I was a kid.
The guest room is both my grandparents because that’s where they stayed when they visited for Christmas and Thanksgiving.
The living room had the upright piano in it, so that was Grandma.
The driveway and basketball hoop on the garage is imprinted with a guy I knew in high school when we were in the cast of a community theater production of Dracula - he was just out of college and playing John Harker; I was a high school senior playing Renfield. He’d drive me home after the show, we’d talk in his car, then get out and play basketball in the middle of the night.
But who could personify a whole suburban two-story house with a later addition of a family room out in back of the kitchen. A flower garden, a vegetable garden, a back yard, a tool shed, access to the woods and a creek far out back (so much lawn to mow), a swing set, two bathrooms, a powder room, a dining room, a front hallway, a front hall closet full of board games, a living room, three bedrooms, an attic, a sewing room, a one-car garage, goldenrod bushes, towering pine trees, birch trees. White wooden columns, blue shutters, brick trim.
Wild how the details still all so vividly come to my mind’s eye, even after all these years. No one in our family has set foot in that house or even driven by it in over thirty years.
Then again, maybe it’s not so much the place as it is the way the place made me feel.
What kind of person is that?
I’ve got to sit with that one a bit longer. I’m tempted to ask Maren exactly what she meant by this one, but then again, I think I just want to see where it takes me.
Take either or both of those items and do with them what you will.
Or, you know, like all days, just write whatever you want and send it in by the deadline.
Have fun!
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If you’re not interested in this prompt, you can
try 2021’s challenge #22: Left Coast Theatre Prompts
Or try 2022’s challenge #22: Random Sentence Generator
Or try 2023’s Challenge #22: Self-Discovery (from Threshold Theater Technical Director and co-founder Nick Mrozek)
Or try 2024’s challenge #22: Sponge, Rhino, Tire Swing (from Threshold Theater Literary Associate Kate Cosgrove)
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 :)
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How to submit your work for Challenge #22
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 22 :)
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 22nd - or earlier if you like
Again, this is: Due: Sunday, November 23rd, 12pm noon Central Time
(1pm Eastern Time, 11am Mountain Time, 10am Western Time for the US Time Zones)
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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
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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 8 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.
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And that something can be:
Lights up.
A mother in the front hall calls her teenage son down from his bedroom because he has a guest.
The boy, Jeff, descends the stairs.
It’s his (not so) secret crush, Phillip, who somehow figured out where he lived and drove over.
They stand there looking at one another.
JEFF: Hi.
PHILLIP: I figured we should talk.
JEFF: Yeah?
PHILLIP: Yeah.
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)
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