Next Semester

So I've talked about plays and scene studies that are assignments I actually enjoy doing in my Theatre Workshop English class next semester. The superhero play I wrote is now finished, and I titled it Splash Page. And I even have two or three ideas for potential Scene Studies! But I'm going to start by telling you about the play, since I was kind of sparse on details last time.

The last time I wrote about this play, I expressed concern about how big it was. The outline made it out to be seventeen scenes long, which was pretty big. Well, I managed to take care of the length of the play. It's still seventeen scenes long, but I was able to shorten each scene. Original script was nearly forty-two pages long, but I managed to cut it down to twenty-three pages. How? With extreme difficulty. But the plot still exists, I still haven't cut out entire scenes, so I'm happy with it. This way I'm more likely to be able to put it on in TWE as a Final Showcase.

Basically, the story is about this guy (Josh) who lives a regular life. He's got a crappy apartment, a desk job, the works. And then by unforeseen circumstances, he gets bathed in this chemical. The next morning, he wakes up, and he has super powers. He adapts to these new powers rather well, but there are some times where he doesn't have much idea of what's going on. The idea is "How would your average Joe do things if he had super powers?"

I cover three powers in this play; Strength, Speed, and Flight. There is a scene where a bullet is caught, but you don't need invulnerability for that. You just have to be fast, and know the physics behind it. And with the main character having super speed, it's understandable as to how he caught the bullet. I won't say how I've figured out to portray these three powers on stage, but I will at a later point. That, or I'll record it like I did for Nameless Love and then post it here.

The difficulty in putting on this play still exists in set changes, but I was able to map out what sets are used when, and what order they're in. By doing this, I figured out the simplest way of doing the sets, and the fastest ways to change them. There are two sets that have no set pieces at all either, which helps my cause just a little bit.

Now that I'm finished the play and it's just twenty-three pages long, I realize that I'm still being ambitious with the scene changes and the "effects" used for the power, but I sacrificed the length of the show, so it won't be revolutionizing Final Showcases by how long it is. HOWEVER... I'm tempted to write a sequel.

The sequel would be called Cover Art, continuing the theme that these titles come from comic book speak (example; a splash page in a comic book is when an entire page is just one pane of art). The story of the sequel would pick up either six months or a year after the events of Splash Page, and allow me to further explore what powers can be portrayed on-stage, as well as deal with the plot of "what would happen when a superhero that the world is dependent on is losing his powers?"

Now, the beauty part of a sequel lies in two things. I either (A) save it for next semester, and keep the entire cast commited to it so that I can bring back the same actors and such, or (B) get a friend of mine who will be in this class to hand it in as his own. I really want to go with option B though, because this way we can say that we both collaborated on the two plays, and this way both can be performed this semester. While I won't revolutionize Final Showcases with one long play, I can mix things up and do two plays of a series in the same semester, which is something that hasn't been done in TWE. There was a case where someone wrote a sequel to their play, but it was put on over two semesters. If I can write a sequel quickly, I can put them both on in one semester just a week apart instead of MONTHS apart.

Cool, eh?

As for Scene Studies; one idea is a clip from an episode of Angel (the Buffy spin-off show about a vampire with a soul), this musical I found online, and a Saturday Night Live skit. We'll see what I get permission to do (as I emailed the writer of the musical inquiring permission to do it), and thus see which ones I do. More details will follow.