A 24-Hour Play, a 365-Day Inspiration

“Take a line; take a prop; write a play!”: these are the three commands of The MadCap 24-hour Play Festival, a theatrical fundraiser held at a coffee shop and performance space in my hometown of Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Last weekend I followed those commands to write my third play for the festival. My “madcap” experience has inspired some new ideas and resolutions to ponder for the year ahead.

Idea #1: A recipe for a 24-hour play…or a classroom activity:

Here’s how the MadCap Festival works:

Around 7:30PM on a Friday night, actors, writers, and directors gather in the coffeehouse.
The festival director (a dynamic teacher from Sheboygan) assigns actors, writers, and directors to teams.
Writers pull a line from a hat; directors pull a prop name from a hat (the festival director prepares a set of lines and crazy props beforehand).
The writers, directors, and actors meet briefly in their teams to discuss what sort of work the actors are comfortable with and/or what special talents they have. Everyone exchanges contact information.
Playwrights have the next twelve hours to write a 10-minute scene.
The actors and director receive the scenes on Saturday morning and rehearse all day.
All scenes are performed for a live audience on Saturday night.

This theater festival challenge could easily be adapted into a notebook time prompt or larger creative assignment:

Pull a few crazy lines from the novel or short story the class is studying –students can spin their own story or scene from the line.
Bring a collection of objects from home and ask students to incorporate one in a scene, story, or poem.
Work on character analysis–ask students to reflect on how and why the characters in your class text might interact with a particular object or deliver a particular line.
Host a mini-festival in your classroom, perhaps a “One Week Theater Festival,” where writers work for half of the week and the actor-director teams work for the second half.

Idea #2: One student writes, another performs, and literary analysis ensues

Last spring, a friend introduced me to the Modern Love podcast, a series showcasing favorite Modern Love columns performed by famous figures, and since then, I’ve been really intrigued by the idea of students performing each other’s work. What new discoveries could writers make when their written work was turned into a dramatic audio recording? What could the writing, performing, and listening teach us about interpretation? (And could this activity help some of my IB students understand why they should avoid the intentional fallacy?)

Each year I participate in the MadCap festival, I’m amazed at what the director and actors make of the script they receive. This year, I laughed with the rest of the crowd at actors’ inventive (and sometimes unexpected) interpretations of the scene I wrote. Their performance was like feedback in a writing conference; it showed me what they “heard” or understood when they read my work and how they responded to it. A ten-minute play might be a tough place to start, but perhaps students could try writing a monologue for a character played by a classmate. Later, the writer-performer pair (or writer-performer-director trio?) could discuss what they noticed in each other’s art.

Idea #3: Collaborative writing

For my first entry in the festival, I wrote with one of my best high school friends; for the last two festivals, I wrote with the youngest of my three brothers, one of the best actors I know! Jeremy and I write well together because we can be honest with each other, and each time we collaborate, I get to know my brother better and I learn something new about comic timing and crafting characters through dialogue.

My students often discuss together and present together, but I rarely ask them to write together. I wonder what they would learn if they collaborated on a story, poem, or piece of creative nonfiction. Could they identify how their writing voices change when they work with a collaborator? What might we all learn about what it takes to collaborate well? Perhaps a collaborative writing exercise could lead to a list of great moves for collaborators.

Finally, some resolutions:

72 hours after the festival has finished, I’m thinking about personal and professional resolutions that it inspires ( and in the spirit of Hattie’s resolution, I’ll present them as bullet points!):

Write with my students and write for me: Whether tackling a ten-minute scene at midnight or chipping away at a novel, I’m happier when I find time to write for myself about topics that aren’t at all related to the classroom. A happier Ms. Jochman makes for a happier classroom, so I resolve to write beside my students and also write more on my own.
Put students’ work on the public stage: Raised stakes can make writers nervous, but raised stakes also make writers WORK and make writing real, so I resolve to find more opportunities for students to share their work with an authentic public audiences.
Remember the writing process: My scene didn’t start to take shape until 1AM on Saturday morning. Why? My brother and I had ignored the process that had served us well the year before. Way to go, English teacher! No matter how much pressure I might feel to progress a unit or make students meet a deadline, I have to respect the process, and I resolve to address process more deliberately in the year ahead. With any luck, an emphasis on process will help my students and me avoid future all night writing sessions.

The MadCap Theater Festival always falls at a crazy time of the new year: my school’s second semester is just beginning, my IB students are preparing for a major assessment, and the temperature inevitably drops to a lung-freezing degree, but this creative challenge always shakes off my winter doldrums and makes me think about the madcap adventures my students and I could have in the future. As 2017 continues, I’ll let you know how well I keep my resolutions, and I hope you’ll share what new ideas and resolutions you’ve been inspired to try!

Have an suggestions for a 24-hour writing challenge? What are your writing resolutions for 2017? I’d love to hear about them–please comment below or connect with me on Twitter @MsJochman.