Fourth Fridays
The last collaborator is your audience … when the audience comes in, it changes the temperature of what you’ve written. Things that seem to work well — work in a sense of carry the story forward and be integral to the piece — suddenly become a little less relevant or a little less functional or a little overlong or a little overweight or a little whatever. And so you start reshaping from an audience.
–STEPHEN SONDHEIM, interview, July 5, 2005
In a departure (brief, I’m sure) from my Library 2.0 obsession, I want to put in an appeal out to any struggling (or even successful) poets, playwrights, or screenwriters in Mississippi. Kris Lee (a much loved local playwright, poet, actor, and cabaret artist) and I are building a new program at the Starkville Community Theater (SCT) to provide a venue for unrehearsed, script-in-hand readings of works under development on the fourth Friday of each month. We will provide the theater to stage it, arrange for the actors to do the reading, and make any necessary copies of the script. The goal is not to produce the work, but instead to provide an opportunity for writers to include an audience in the writing process and to get feedback. We’ve had two successful trial runs so far, and the official launch is scheduled for January 26, 2007.
If you are interested and/or want more information about Fourth Fridays, please email me.
Tags: actors, Fourth Fridays, playwrights, poetry, SCT
