One Day Only Festival – Jason Hensel

Busted poster — Poster for my play, "Busted," at the One Day Only Festival

I saw my 10-minute play, “Busted,” on Saturday night as part of Rover Dramawerks‘ One Day Only festival. This is the first time anything was performed for an audience that I had written. It turned out great.

I was concerned that what I had in mind, as far as how the dialog should be delivered and how the characters should act, would not come through to the director. That was a needless worry; the director, Ashley White, did a wonderful job. The actors were great, too. The casting was just who I had in mind for the roles.

My play seemed to be shorter than the others. Maybe it was, or maybe I was just concentrating on it so much that time went by quicker. I was confused during one part of the night, because my play was supposed to be the first one after the intermission. It ended up being moved to the second to last play of the night. Nothing wrong with that.

One thing I learned is to make sure I include specific technical directions in the script. For example, I envisioned a quick lights out at the end; however, the play ended with a slow fade out. That’s not a huge issue, though. I just think that a quicker lights out would have made the last line pop more.

I had a great experience participating in the festival, and I’m planning on doing it again in June. I’m not sure if it was recorded (Rover recorded shows from the last one); but if it was, as soon as a copy is available I’ll post it on here.

Now, I need to write more plays and get them on stage.

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I wrote my 10-minute play last night for Rover Dramawerks‘ One Day Only festival. After a meet-in-greet that included a speed-bonding exercise, we writers were stationed with laptops as the directors and actors went home.

The suggestion I drew from the hat was, “When I go walking I strut my stuff. I just might stop to check you out.” Ah, the Violent Femmes, a band I hadn’t listen to in a long time. It made me want to listen to them as I was writing my script; however, I didn’t bring my headphones with me. A couple of the other writers did; that was smart. Another writer changed into soft pants. Maybe smart?

I wrote my script first in long-hand. I kept remembering what my playwriting teacher kept telling me–overwrite at first, then cut. Writing it out long-hand really helped with the pruning round, because when I started to type, I automatically started cutting out lines and merging dialog.

In a 10-minute play, it’s hard to, as people say in improv, burn the leaves (really exploring a topic for awhile). I could have done that; however, I wanted to make sure I told a story while at the same time defining the relationship between the two main characters. I realize, in the end, my script may be brisk.

What I ended up writing about, and what I put as the play’s synopsis, is how being noticed carries a price. There’s some physical fighting between two women, some cattiness throughout, and, I hope, some questions raised about what it means to be noticed in the world and why one would or wouldn’t want to be noticed.

I think that’s a topic that can be explored in a future, longer play. I’ll be keeping it in my back pocket, for sure.

The writing experience was fun. I’m looking forward to watching all the plays tonight. It will be interesting to see how my play is brought alive by others and how they interpret the theme.

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Jason Hensel

One Day Only: Part 3, The Show

Writing at the One Day Only Festival