During my playwriting class last semester, we were charged with writing a complete 2-4 minute play set in an unusual location. Mine was set in my school’s music practice rooms, that are about 6’x8′ big, a piano taking up 3/4 of the space. That might be slightly hyperbolic, but take it from me, they are small. And because it was me, I wrote about a zombie apocalypse. Of course, there was a bit more to it than that, but the important things to take away are these: I wrote a mini-play set during a zombie apocalypse and jammed about ten people into the only rooms on campus smaller than in the freshman dorms.
At the end of said playwriting class, we had to choose one of the pieces we’d written to submit to Pacific’s student run theater troupe, Lunchbox Theater. Every year they do a student playwright showcase that, well, showcases student plays. I bet you can guess where this is going.
My silly little zombie play, Brains, got chosen as one of the four or five pieces they did. And let me tell you, it was one of the most surreal and incredible moments of my life.
Seeing your words performed by brilliant people with “zombie blood” smeared all over their clothes and faces is something I’m having trouble describing. It was hysterical. The actors did such a good job, as did the director (Tiara!), and I couldn’t have asked for a better group of people to produce my work. Not to brag or anything, but my play was the only one where the actors didn’t have scripts and were free to move around the theater space uninhibited. It might have also been because my play was so short and most of the characters only had about two lines, but still. That was pretty freaking cool.
I guess what I’m getting at was that it was an absolute honor to see something I’d written performed by brilliant people. I never fancied myself a playwright, not really. I never had any dreams of my stories being performed, I just hoped that someone would read them. But this was something I could have never anticipated. Seeing Brains performed makes me want to write more plays, because it is such an all-in experience. It’s more collaborative, and gives me the chance to let other people weigh in on my work and transform it into something I could have never even imagined.
Lunchbox theater, thank you so much for this opportunity. I hoped you enjoyed staging my stupid zombie play as much as I enjoyed writing it and my friends and I enjoyed watching it.
