2 AM and Done

Well, the tough part of Spontaneous Combustion is over. I've gotten my assignment (including prepicked first line, location, and cultural reference), written my five-minute play, and read it out loud a few times to make sure it sounds good. It's another odd one, but I think it works.

For those who don't know, Spontaneous Combustion is an impromptu theater festival, in which playwrights write plays on Friday night for actors to have up and running by Sunday. Nothing about the plays -- not the cast, the the script, zilch, nothing, nada -- is known at the beginning of the weekend. Then, given certain parameters (outlined above), playwrights go home and pound the keys until something coherent comes out. Then, on Saturday at noon, we give the scripts to the cast, who read them with horror. They memorize their lines, we block 'em out, and everything starts humming along by Sunday night, when the show opens. Exactly 50 hours from when we first met to get our instructions, as it turns out.

Spontaneous Combustion is a little bigger this time, in a number of ways. For one thing, we have the theater through Thursday, so there are five nights on which you can see the show. Also, it's a fuller night of theater, with several more plays than usual. If you're anywhere near New York City, please come. I'm writing, my friend Jen Thatcher is writing, and I've seen enough of the actors in this bunch perform before, so I expect great things.

Curtain is at 8 p.m., and tickets are $15 (except for Thursday night, which is $25, but with a free party afterward). You can reserve seats (sometimes it sells out, so it's wise to do so) by calling 212-501-4751. Here's the Theatresource website, so you can find directions and whatnot. And I know how you love your whatnot.

So come out and be surprised. I always am.

Rob