Thursday, July 31, 2008

Zen Kimchi.com

Another great food/expat site. I found Zen Kimchi while looking for help for the Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern researcher who I have been in contact with.

I just noticed on Zen Kimchi that the Seoul Players (expat theatre group) are hosting A Night of a Thousand Plays on October 11 and 18. They are looking for short (3 minutes of less), original works of theatre. No experience necessary. These short works will be given to volunteer teams to rehearse and perform. Maybe I will participate!

Here is the announcement:

Attention writers or aspiring writers!

Seoul Players will be holding its first ever production of “Night of a Thousand Plays” on October 11 and 18th. This unique theater event jams as many short pieces of original theater as possible into a one-hour program. We would love your involvement!

We are looking for as many written submissions as you can muster. The genre is wide-open, we only ask that your submissions be no longer than 3 minutes in length and the shorter the better!

Submit your pieces to seoulplayers@gmail.com by August 15th. Any writer with a selected piece for the show will be contacted and of course, credited for his or her piece.

We look forward to receiving your submissions and hope to see many of them in the show this October.

Yours in the arts,

Seoul Players

Night of a Thousand Plays - FAQs

What is it?
‘Night of a Thousand Plays’ is a theater event in which the audience can enjoy a heaped serving of short, original theater pieces in one night. Local writers submit short pieces from one line of dialogue or no dialogue at all to no more than 3 minutes in length. We like to call these “short shorts”. The focus is to stage as many “short shorts” as possible in our one-hour program. Local writers will submit their pieces and the best of the best will be chosen for use in the program. Teams of actors will be teamed up with a director to rehearse and perform 5 or so short shorts a-piece. The show will be held on October 11th and 18th with performances at 6pm and 8pm.

Who can be involved?
Anyone and everyone! First time writers, directors and actors are welcome along with seasoned veterans. Teams will be built around the casting needs of the short short pieces. The short short pieces will be bundled in a way to maximize stage time for each actor in a team. Also, anyone who is interested in the technical side of theater is welcome. In fact, to anyone who just wants to lend support, we can probably find something for you to do!

Is this like 24-Hour Theater?
Not really. For this event, each team is given weeks of rehearsal time to prepare their short short pieces. In that way, this show doesn’t have quite the frenzied approach of 24 Hour Theater, however, with the potential for so many short short pieces being staged and so many actors involved, the sense of community is still strong. It will be common to lend a hand to other teams from providing a prop to doing a voiceover during the show. If there’s any way that anyone can make the show better, we say do it!

What are the deadlines?
We will send emails and post announcements for submissions on July 15th with a deadline of August 15th. At the same time will ask for people who would like to be involved at any level (actor, writer, director, tech staff) to let us know. Pieces will be reviewed and final selections will be made by August 30th. In the beginning of September, emails will be sent to each participant confirming their involvement. We will hold a welcoming meeting on September 20th for all participants. The teams lead by the director will develop their own rehearsal schedule and pick up any props or costumes they think will be best for their pieces. We will have a required day of technical rehearsal on the morning of October 11th. Performance dates are October 11th and October 18th at 6pm and 8pm.

How will the teams be picked?
We will ask for any interested people to note their level of theater experience for any role they are interested in (actor, director, etc.). Every effort will be made to provide a mix of experiences in each team, but of course availability will also be a factor in determining teams.

Do I need experience?
No! We want any of you who even had a passing thought to do theater to get involved!

I’m nervous about auditions…
Don’t be, there are none! (See! This really IS for anybody!)

I’m interested in writing. What kind of pieces are you looking for?
Short ones! This is a great opportunity to try theatrical writing for the first time. Any genre is welcome. If you had a funny idea for a short scene or a great idea for a short dramatic one, go for it. From musical to movement only, we welcome any and all ideas. But be careful of length, if your idea lingers beyond 3 minutes it’s unlikely to make the show, but of course, some exceptions will be made. The best guidance we can give is to try to make one dramatic/comedic point in your piece. It is possible however to break a longer piece into a series of short shorts, but we’d like this to be the exception rather than the rule.

I’m not interested in writing. I want to perform/direct/stage hand instead. What do I do now?
Just wait! Once Seoul Players receives and selects the scripts, it will be time to select teams. An email for actors, directors and other help will be sent out in a few weeks from this email address. The number of performers needed will depend on the number of scripts received, so if you know of any wanna-be writers out there (including yourself), please feel free to pass on this email.

More questions? Feel free to email seoulplayers@gmail.com or call 010.2216.7267.

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