Yesterday was the first rehearsal for the 26th annual Madison Young Playwrights Festival. This was the first meeting of the cast and we did a read-through of all five plays in the order that they will be performed on Saturday. That will be the only time that we have to go through the play in order. Scheduling conflicts and play size have created a fairly scattered schedule where we will be jumping around from play to play over the next two days. I'm hoping to get at least one walk-through at least at the end of the day tomorrow.
We enjoyed reading through the pieces and I was impressed with the quality of the revisions that the playwrights made. After plays were selected for the Festival, I did a full response for each and offered the playwrights suggestions for revisions, which was informed by the structure of the staged reading and the physical space in which we would perform. Of course the exact space was not known at the time, so I had to estimate what it might be using the three or so possibilities that we had.
Of course, we've confirmed that the Festival will take place in the auditorium of the Madison Junior School. That performance will be this Saturday, March 17 beginning at 1:00 pm. We hope you'll join us then to celebrate the playwrights' excellent work!
And please stay tuned as we post updates from rehearsals over the next few days!
