No Experience Necessary--Now Experienced

As promised, I personally took part in the No Experience Necessary Competition/Festival on Friday. And thank goodness for the prompt listed on the theatre website; I had not actually started work on the project until around 2 am. (Like I said, it's a good project for procrastinators.) But the prompt was open enough to allow a great deal of freedom, and yet specific enough to generate some really great ideas. So I developed the idea for the play in about half an hour and spent the rest of the time writing and working out the kinks.

Around 5 am, I submitted the play--shortly before passing out due to sleep deprivation. All things considered, I'm very pleased with the results. For those of you who have never experienced this feeling--and this was my first--as critical as we typically are of our own work, there is no comparison to seeing the words you've written, the characters you've created, coming to life on stage. Even if you think you've written crap, the actors and director make it wonderful. I really can't say enough about the director and actors; they really did a fantastic job putting something like this together, a quality production, and in such a short amount of time. They made my work seem like so much more than I thought it could be.

I'm told that there were six or so submissions for the competition, and three of them were chosen to be performed. It was really incredible to see what the other playwrights had come up with, how much different their works were than mine. Their talent was readily apparent, seeing it on stage. There was a small audience, but I feel they greatly enjoyed the event.

I sincerely hope that this becomes a regular event in the future, and that it grows little by little. If we can get this kind of talent from just the few who have submitted this year, who knows what dozens or hundreds of others can produce. It has been a wonderful opportunity for me to interact with other, very creative individuals and learn about a different art form. It was certainly worthwhile.