If you’re not doing anything else, why not write a play for PlayFest?

||| FROM AAIMEE JOHNSON for ACTORS THEATER OF ORCAS ISLAND |||

If you are like most of us, you are bored out of your mind. Do something! Exercise your mind! It’s PlayFest time! Write a play!!

There were almost 600 views of our 2020 Playfest (Titled PlagueFest) on YouTube. If you haven’t seen it, click here:  PLAGUEFEST . We haven’t determined just how the 2021 PlayFest will unfold. We can record it on Zoom then transfer it to YouTube (which we did last year) but we are talking May. Maybe enough people will have their vaccinations and the Grange might be reopened. We may make a video of a closed performance then transfer the video to YouTube. Before we make those decisions, we need plays!!!

What we do know is that we need your play. Deadline for submissions is January 31st.   E-mail it in either MS Word or PDF format to: playfest@orcasactors.org

If you have written for our PlayFest before, you know what is wanted. If not, we have included some guidelines below:

GUIDELINES FOR SUBMISSIONS:

1. The Playwright must live on Orcas Island and must be available for the first few rehearsals.
2. Plays should be approximately ten minutes in length. That works out to around ten typewritten pages. Read it out loud and time it.
3.  Cast should be two to four characters. Monologues are not normally accepted.
4. Keep the set (furniture and props) requirements simple. Remember we may have to do your play on Zoom.
5. Limit the number of scenes. The audience tunes out for three to five minutes every time there is a scene change. You only have ten minutes to work with.
6. Remember that children frequently attend the PLAYFEST so keep your language suitable for pre-teens.
7. When you submit your play, it will be reviewed and you will receive a list of suggested changes. It is up to you whether you incorporate them or not.
8. You can resubmit plays if you have modified them. You can submit more than one play.
9. Above all: HAVE FUN!! Writing plays is fun. Enjoy yourself.
10. Questions: Submit them to us at playfest@orcasactors.org.

Remember plays MUST be e-mailed to us by 11:59 p.m., January 31, 2021. Please send us your work!

EDITOR’S NOTE: I had never written, nor considered writing, a play until I wrote one.