AN AFFAIR -- OR TWO -- AND THE BELLY BUTTON THING

Who had an affair with whom and what is the belly button thing? For those of you who missed seeing my play, Elevator (and the answers to these questions), live on stage, click on the link. It was part of a great line-up of ten-minute plays in Mendocino College's 6th Annual New Plays Festival on May 9 & 10. This is my third involvement in this festival and it's always such a fun event. I loved my cast! They were wonderful to work with and very talented. Also, many thanks to my director, Maria Monti, who has such a great creative eye and truly has a knack for comedic timing. Plus, she gets my humor! The response from the audience was gratifying, and after some disappointments in the book world (see my blog, "Into the Black Hole"), it's nice to have my ego stroked a little.

For those of you who have been thinking of or are writing a ten-minute play, check out these resources:

http://www.10-minute-plays.com/how_to_write_a_10_minute_play.html
http://www.ehow.com/how_2102436_write-ten-minute-play.html
http://www.ehow.com/how_2102436_write-ten-minute-play.html

What do you do after you've written a ten-minute play? The increasing popularity of the ten-minute play format (cheap to produce because of minimal sets, lighting etc., gives the audience a sample of several plays in one night) has seen ten-minute play festivals crop up all over the world.

Here are a few:

http://www.10minuteplays.com/
http://www.shortandsweet.org/
http://www.inspiratofestival.ca/write-a-play.php
http://www.fusionabq.org/TheSevenSubmissions.htm

And the granddaddy of the ten-minute play festival: 

http://www.actorstheatre.org/humana_contest.htm

Here's another great writing site that is chock full of useful information and resources:

http://www.burryman.com

Look under play submissions, and you'll find a list of places that publish plays, contests, festivals, plus submission guidelines.