I’m thrilled to announce that I’ve had another play accepted by the Peninsula Players for their annual “One-act Festival.” This one, “A Conversation with Mother,” (a comedy) practically wrote itself, as I started hurriedly, and clandestinely, jotting notes down during an actual conversation with my 80-year-old mom, bless her heart.
“You want to go see your sister for your birthday?” I asked her.
“I thought we were going to do something fun,” she deadpanned.
“When’s the last time you saw her?”
“I have her picture; I know what she looks like.”
And with that simple exchange, the premise for another one-act comedy grabbed me by the nose and wouldn’t let go until I had it written and ready for the stage.
I began writing one-acts just four years ago this September, when the Willapa Players in Raymond sponsored a playwriting contest. “The Prize” was that the winners’ plays would be performed onstage the following March.
Having never written a play, but having seen dozens of them from the audience’s viewpoint, I began by committing myself to writing seven ideas down in seven days. Just a short synopsis with the potential to expand it to a workable script.
But how to do that? I began by looking around me. There was a book on Lewis and Clark sitting on a nearby shelf. There was a picture of me embarking on a Mississippi Riverboat Dinner Cruise. There were the stubs from Mariner baseball tickets and a fielder’s glove. There was a plastic souvenir “hand grenade” glass from New Orleans. There was a fishing lure sitting on one of my bookcase shelves. With my eyes and ears open, the ideas bombarded me from everywhere, and my seven summaries were completed in no time!
Then I picked the top two ideas, the two that seemed to grab and hold my attention, to flesh out. Step by step, I worked out the characters, and the “conflict” to resolve. And the rest, as they say, is history. Those two plays were both performed in March, 2009.
“A Conversation with Mother,” will be my 10th play to see the boards in just about 3 ½ years. Like I said at the beginning, I’m thrilled to be participating in another community theater production.
Auditions for the four one-act plays selected for this years’ festival will be held July 10 and 11 at 7 p.m. at the River City Playhouse, 127 Lake Street, Ilwaco. We need 11 women, 8 men, and one teen for this year’s event. Join us!