Musical! the Meta-Musical

31 Plays in 31 Days is done! And I have completed it! Today’s entry is Musical the Meta-Musical, a farcical romp that includes silliness, cameos by the playwright, parodies of Broadway shows, and references no one will ever get! Music to come as soon as I get them recorded!

Auditions Are…Rolling Genome…Middleground

So – I have been keeping up with the Challenge but have been super-busy and under-the-weather. Took a health day today and stayed in bed (and on my computer) working. That “time-off” was well spent in that I now have Days 28, 29, and 30 edited and formatted, just waiting for your perusal! Like in all the other posts, read the play by clicking the title. Hope you enjoy!

A Death Redacted

The title of this post is the name of Day 27’s submission, and I regret to inform you that it’s going to stay private. At least for the time being. It took a bit much to write and deals with some personal issues. I’m writing here to let you know that I’m staying up on the Challenge – with just four days left, it’d be a bummer to drop now. In this play I tried to use the prompt of “No stage direction,” and made it most of the way through until the end, because I don’t know that I could have conveyed the final image without directing the actors: fail on the prompt but win on another play down, right?

Also, letting you know that 31of31 is in the works and coming along nicely. I think I’m going to need to collaborate with someone about this one considering there’s an element to the work that is somewhat beyond me.

That’s all for now, gotta get ready for work,

-Mick

Devour

Today’s post, Devour, features a prompt from August 22nd: No dialogue.  Feeling under the weather still: have not slept much the past few days and my body’s rebelling against me, so I needed and easy task, despite starting on a different play for today and beginning tackling 31of31, which is going to be a bit of a process and could probably use a month (at least) to get right. Keep tuned here to find out what it is!

Conception

Yet another idea I’d had at the top of the Challenge, Conception was always going to be between two sperm and an ovum. A recent news report on NPR about vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan’s backing of a bill that would classify zygotes as persons led the play to take on a whole new dimension. Clearly, I kind of think that deeming a single-cell as a fully-righted human being is bullshit. Also pre-conception conception in Arizona would be extremely humorous if it weren’t so utterly senseless.

At any rate, this one here’s a comedy, and certainly has its moments. Took a longer turn than I expected, as did the ending rounding up. A little research at the tail of it yielded the possibility, although the unlikelihood of it (I think writers thrive in low probability fields). Regardless, I think it all tied up together nicely at the end. Also, completed at 3 in the morning at a Blackjack table in downtown Las Vegas, so there’s that to boot.

Please enjoy,

-Mick

Build

Here’s another pre-Challenge prompt I set for myself: a rehearsal goes awry. Build has way more characters than I initially thought it needed, and didn’t quit follow the initial outline, but I think it’s funny nonetheless. It’s called such because the problems keep building on each other. It flowed out pretty quickly – hope you dig.

Monster Speed Dating

This one kicked my ass, just like it knew it would. Last month, before the 31 Plays Challenge began, I wrote a list of prompts for myself. Top of the list was this very simple idea: monsters speed dating. I knew that it would require a level of concentration that I was unaccustomed to, bouncing back and forth between conversations so that they flowed in a reasonable fashion that also built on itself. I picked probably the worst day to work on this one.

Little sleep. A position at work that predicated I could not write. Chores to do between jobs. A near fight at the dinner show. A photo-shoot and a line-through for one of the plays I’m rehearsing. On top of all this I decided to write a fourteen page play? Challenge accepted.

Courting the Issue

Today’s post comes from a recent trip to court, by way of a speeding ticket I received. The outcome of that ticket is unimportant, what is important is that I was in writer mode during that trip, well into the 31 Days Challenge, and public places like that are great places to pick up stories. Every single story told in this play is true: one of them is even mine. Give it a read and leave your guess as to which one it is in the comments section!

Deadfellas

This story started off simply enough. I work in a Mob-themed attraction in Las Vegas (where I’m just about to clock into, huzzah!) and it occurred to me early on in my employment there that a Halloween theme during the month of October might be highly appropriate, or if not appropriate, at least a hell of a draw. Since that sort of experience is never going to be offered, I figured I might as well draw on the idea for inspiration during this play-writing challenge.

Enter Deadfellas, with two characters I modeled on two of my colleagues at the place. This is not to say that the conversations that occur in the play actually occurred, this is merely to say that very similar conversations I had been privy to, and the syncopation in the way the characters speak and how they respond to stimulus is as near reality as this one mind could muster.

Lonely

This play was inspired by a friend’s recent foray into the realm on online dating and his eventual introduction and brief conversation with a chatbot. The question of what makes something human has been bandied about by philosophers great and small and is not one that I necessarily sought to answer with this piece. I just tried to entertain myself.

Aware that it might be difficult to come up with responses for an artificial intelligence, I sought the assistance of Cleverbot, which was greatly informative and from whom some responses were inserted into the mouth of my automaton: Sheila.

Lonely is the meeting of Melvin and said automaton, in a random scenario, wherein Melvin has to leave for a meeting. Only through conversation does he realize that the woman he is talking to is artificial in origin, but at that point is it too late? Somewhat creepy, borrowing elements from Blade Runner as well as Fatal Attraction, this comedic sci-fi tale should hopefully scintillate both the brain and the more naughty senses. Enjoy!