A friend of mine had the idea of posting 10 second plays. So here’s mine. Please leave, as your comment, your own 10 second play, and perhaps I’ll do something cool with them some day or something. Have fun!
ABACUS by Michael A Rose
TONY
(Sits playing with an old abacus)
What fun! I certainly enjoy my abacus!
MAC
(Entering from wings)
I hate math!
(Smashes the abacus)
And I hate you!
(Smashes TONY, exits)
TONY
If only I’d listened to my mother and become a cancer patient!
(Lights fade to red, then blue, then chartreuse, then back to red again as the National Anthem plays.)
(END OF PLAY)
jesse_dylan said,
December 6, 2005 at 5:47 pm
It’s goofy, but I like it.
iheartfiber said,
December 6, 2005 at 7:06 pm
A 10 second play seems short enough to mask a lack of talent on the author’s part, eh? Maybe I’ll try to write one 😀
jesse_dylan said,
December 6, 2005 at 11:04 pm
Or it can even make a talented write look like a hack. 🙂 I don’t think Mike was trying very hard, but I did still like it.
Michael Rose said,
December 6, 2005 at 11:07 pm
Fair enough. 🙂
That one was sort of an experiment. Next time try a bit harder I think, will be the order of the day. We’ll see where these go…
jesse_dylan said,
December 6, 2005 at 11:17 pm
I think they’re really a great idea, honestly. Although neither your play nor Veronica’s could possibly be completed in 10-seconds, you know. I think they should be 1-minute plays instead. Or 2-minute plays. Or really short plays.
I love the motif. Lately I’ve been interested in and thinking about super short stories, like a page, half a page in length, just little blurbs. These are like play versions of it. There’s something Zen about something so short. It’s sort of like a haiku.
I think it would be interesting if you wrote one that tried to pack as much as possible into its short length. It would be interesting because I don’t know if it would be a successful play or not! Simplicity is probably the order of things here.
Keep posting them?
jesse_dylan said,
December 6, 2005 at 11:17 pm
I think V should keep writing them, too.
iheartfiber said,
December 6, 2005 at 8:23 pm
Bored Stiff by Veronica ~ahem~ well, you know 🙂
GRANT
(sitting on a maroon beanbag chair, staring absent-mindedly at a dingy white wall)
Ho-hum…
GRACE
(enters with bright pink tiger lilies in her hand, places them in a vase on a table in the center of the room)
(looks at Grant for a moment)
What are you /doing/?
GRANT
Nothing.
GRACE
(naggingly)
Are you going to do nothing all day?
GRANT
(annoyed)
I’m going to do nothing for the rest of my life.
GRACE
(sarcastically)
Well, soooo sorry!
(Grace walks off stage, lights fade, then rise again)
(Grant is replaced by a skeleton in the beanbag chair. A crow caws in the background. Grace re-enters, this time carrying a large ham. She looks in Grant’s direction).
GRACE
Well, at least he finally did /something/!
(END OF PLAY)
***
Haha, I’m lame. Clearly not a writer 😉
jesse_dylan said,
December 6, 2005 at 11:06 pm
Don’t say that you’re not a writer, dorkface. The only thing seperating writers from non-writers is their attitude!
Personally, I liked it and thought it was very clever.
The title “Bored Stiff” is interesting. It could be about a zombie as well. Ya know, since a ‘stiff’ is a corpse and a zombie is too.
I’m not gonna write one though.