There was a one-act that HSSP did a LONG time ago, but I can't remember the name of it--it was an all-girl cast though and one of the characters was catatonic.
Personally, I like mixing up genders and playing for the laughs. Life needs more laughs.
I would bet large amounts of money that you are thinking of Chamber Music by Arthur Kopit, with Amelia Earhart, Joan of Ark, Queen Isabella, and others.
Theatre@First (the theatre group I'm involved with) does an evening of one-acts every summer. The first was David Ives' "All in the Timing", which I recommend (I'm particularly fond of "Universal Language.").
Since then we've done mostly unpublished works. We did a couple of years of assembling one-acts from multiple playwrights, and a couple of years of working with specific contemporary playwrights whose work we showcased. If you're interested in that sort of thing, I can toss you contact info of current and previous Festival Directors who can in turn put you in touch with the playwrights.
Oh, and to answer the questions... we basically cast straight up, though sometimes we gender-swap or otherwise mess around with the play as written because of the realities of auditions. (I also directed a deliberately mixed-gender version of "twelve angry men", but that's not a one-act.) If you're teaching a class on directing, it's probably worth at least explaining the laws around directors "modifying" plays before you ignore them. (Most licensing agreements explicitly prohibit any modifications to cast of characters or to any of the dialog, even removing lines for time. That said, I have NEVER been in a production that followed those rules, and in my case I rewrote the script wholesale.)
TOST and Turned, my student theater troupe from undergrad, did a full length professional play every fall, and a night of student-written one acts every spring. We usually aimed for 4-5 one act plays, 15-20 minutes each. Exceptions were made each year, obviously, depending on the length and awesomeness of the particular student-written plays submitted. We also strongly encouraged co-directing for these plays - it was sort of the way that we "auditioned" directors for the full length fall play
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That would be cool. I'd be interested in hearing about some of those shows. And you should also mention to them the link I just gave in my next post.
I'm not inordinately worried about the casting/line issues. The raunchiness factor is there for this particular group, I think. I directed Veronica's Room (Levin) twice with the MIT High School Studies Program, dropping the necrophilia, and they handled the incest all right (as well as the murder). But this group is... not quite the same, I think.
Some time, we'll try the student-written play approach, but I know *I* am not ready for that this term.
So, whatever TOST stuff you can/would share with me will be appreciated. And, while I won't promise that we'll perform any, I can assure that the plays will at least get read.
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Personally, I like mixing up genders and playing for the laughs. Life needs more laughs.
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http://books.google.com/books?id=eGTDI9j3BKcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=kopit&ei=wI1rSZXcHImsNtystZ4I#PPA6,M1
And that, too, is one of the plays I have been thinking about from having seen the same HSSP production of it that you did!
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The other one-acts I've been involved in (and there have not been many) were definitely too raunchy for high school.
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Since then we've done mostly unpublished works. We did a couple of years of assembling one-acts from multiple playwrights, and a couple of years of working with specific contemporary playwrights whose work we showcased. If you're interested in that sort of thing, I can toss you contact info of current and previous Festival Directors who can in turn put you in touch with the playwrights.
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I'm not inordinately worried about the casting/line issues. The raunchiness factor is there for this particular group, I think. I directed Veronica's Room (Levin) twice with the MIT High School Studies Program, dropping the necrophilia, and they handled the incest all right (as well as the murder). But this group is... not quite the same, I think.
Some time, we'll try the student-written play approach, but I know *I* am not ready for that this term.
So, whatever TOST stuff you can/would share with me will be appreciated. And, while I won't promise that we'll perform any, I can assure that the plays will at least get read.
Reply
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