Boston Theater Marathon XVII
The Stanford Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts
527 Tremont Street, Boston, MA
Sunday, May 10, 2015.
12:00 PM – 10 PM
Hear Ye, Hear Ye!
This is the best bang for your buck that you’ll get all year… 50 ten-minute plays, by 50 New England playwrights, produced by 50 New England theater companies…in ten hours…for the measly cost of $25 in advance; $35 the day of the event.
An imaginative Mother’s Day treat! Take your mother for an hour or two then walk out for lunch or dinner at a bunch of nearby cafés and restaurants in the South End. If she really digs the plays, bring her back after dessert.
The 50 plays are chosen from over 400 submissions so you’re getting the cream of the crop. Theater companies are matched with plays. The casts usually have two or three characters and are paired with a New England theater company. The settings are bare bones, perhaps a park bench or a table and chairs, an airline seat, a coat rack, so the burden of making it real to you is on the actors, directors, and the writers.
Actors love this stuff. They’ve got 6000 seconds to make the play work. You’ll recognize many of their names and make it your business to follow the careers of newcomers. Comedy, drama, send ups, high or low camp, on a range of subjects as varied as the styles of the runners in our famous Boston Marathon.
The BTMs (Boston Theater Marathons) I’ve have witnessed have been eye opening. Some plays are more to my taste than others, but in some cases it’s helped me expand my horizons. You can count on being surprised a few times every hour. It’s tricky but a skillful writer and talented actors can make you laugh or cry by connecting to universal truths in ten short minutes. Marathon co-founder Bill Lattanzi’s essay “How Not To Write a Ten Page Play” is a must read for playgoers of every stripe. Read between the lines and you’ll get better in assessing the next play you take in.
http://www.bu.edu/bpt/files/2013/06/How_Not_To_Write_A_Ten-Page_Play.pdf
Lattanzi and Kate Snodgrass, Artistic Director of The Boston Playwright’s Theatre, founded the Marathon in 1999. http://www.bu.edu/bpt/
Every hour, five ten-minute plays with a no fooling around one minute break between each and a precise five minute break to stretch at the end of each hour.
My casting director friend Ann brings her own bag lunch every year. I know exactly where to find her since she and her theater pal Jack camp out in the same seats every marathon. They are a couple of the loyalists who are there for the whole shebang.
I’ve never made it that long. Heck, I could watch 20 or 30 plays, go home and mow the lawn, and come back for the party at 10 PM. In the time it takes to watch a ball game or a couple of episodes of Downton Abbey, you could see over 20 plays.
By the time you leave, you’ll have no doubt that the New England theater scene is as rich as clam chowder and exciting as a Red Sox come-from-behind victory.
The net proceeds from ticket sales to the BTM benefit the Theatre Community Benevolent Fund that provides financial relief for theater artists and organizations that face dire need and require financial assistance. http://www.tcbf.org
For the second year in a row, I’ll be in San Diego at the Gator By The Bay Music Festival on marathon day. I’m counting on you to check out the BTM and tell me what you think.
FLASH! And in case your calendar is full on Sunday, The Boston Theater Marathon will conduct Warm-Up Laps on Saturday, May 9, featuring three staged readings. These readings are free and open to the public. http://www.bu.edu/bpt/2015/04/29/boston-theater-marathon-xviis-warm-up-laps/
BIGGER FLASH! Here is the running order, hour by hour, of plays in next Sunday’s (May 10) Boston Theater Marathon XVII. http://www.bu.edu/bpt/category/boston-theater-marathon-xvii/
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WORTH KNOWING http://www.bu.edu/bpt/our-programs/boston-theatre-marathon/submissions/
Scripts submitted to the Boston Playwright’s Theatre have specific guidelines. A few examples:
• Ten pages maximum. IF YOUR PLAY IS MORE THAN 10 PAGES LONG, IT WILL BE INELIGIBLE FOR THE FESTIVAL.
• No more than two submissions per author. This includes co-authored pieces.
• Minimal sets and props suggested.
• Submissions will be accepted from New England-area playwrights only. The states of New England are: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
• There are no restrictions on subject matter.
• Only permanent residents in New England and/or those who have a New England mailing address are eligible.
• NO NAMES PLEASE on the three copies. Only indicate the title of the play on the first page of the text—nowhere acknowledge the author’s identity (this includes headers and footers). (pt note: this is to ensure the readers who collectively judge the plays will not know the identity of the playwright.)
• Please include a brief synopsis (100 words) with a character breakdown, and the age and the ethnicity of characters, if applicable. This synopsis is for internal use only and may be edited for content.
FINISH LINE: Kate Snodgrass on the tricky process of judging plays submitted for the Boston Theater Marathon every year. http://www.bu.edu/bpt/our-programs/boston-theatre-marathon/judging/
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This is wonderful ! Now if everyone forwards this to a few friends we may get some new bodies in the seats……Thanks.
Posted by: Ann Baker | May 08, 2015 at 12:38 PM
Paul, what a fabulous blog and what a great thing this is for our event. Thank you so much! And I hope you have a great time in San Diego.
Posted by: Kate Snodgrass | May 08, 2015 at 02:13 PM