So yesterday we did our version of a one minute play festival here at OU. The goal was 30 short plays in 60 minutes or less. We came in a whopping 10 minutes ahead of schedule. Which was unexpected and unbelievably fun! The audience was in control of the order of the plays. They were shouting, jumping up and down. The plays were done in a completely random order.  There were face slaps, under dressing, awkward silences. It was a madness to remember for sure! 

For me this was also a beautiful challenge as a writer. First, I had to figure out if I could even construct a play that was so short without writing a sketch? Secondly, could I keep my artistic voice and gravitas at that length? And lastly, could I do this well....three times in one night? I was pleasantly surprised by my results. I have included them below so you can judge for yourselves. Hope you enjoy them. (sorry that i couldn’t seem to format them into proper play format on this blog.)

B

TINY BUNDLE OF TWIGS by Bianca Sams

Nelson 4 years old, lies on the floor playing with his toys when his mother Linda walks in.

LINDA: Come on Nelson. If you finish those sprouts we can go to Daniel’s birthday party.

NELSON: I hate fucking sprouts.

LINDA: Nelson Winston Hastings! I will wash out your mouth with soap little boy! 

NELSON: Sorry mama, but I don’t like brussel sprouts.

LINDA: That very well maybe but we do NOT use that kinda language in this house.

NELSON: Daddy does.

LINDA: I said this house. My house. My rules. Mama’s gonna have to have a talk with daddy about using the word F.U.C.K  in front of a four year old. Lord knows what other kinda bad words he uses.

NELSON: He uses lots of them. 

LINDA: I’m sure he does. 

NELSON: Is that why you won’t let daddy come back home? He says all those bad words?

LINDA: No sugar that’s not how it works. Although I can’t believe he says them to you.

NELSON: Not to me silly goose. He says them birdy. He calls him an F word too. 

LINDA: Your parrot?

NELSON: No, uncle birdy. 

LINDA: You don’t have an uncle sweetie.

NELSON: Ugh huh! 

LINDA: Finish your sprouts so we can go.

NELSON: I do too have an uncle. He lives with daddy.

LINDA: You mean Barry baby. And Barry is not your uncle. He’s daddy’s upstairs neighbor. He’s married to Ms. Eloise remember? 

NELSON: Then why does he kiss him then? 

LINDA: Kiss him?

NELSON: Yeah. Like you kiss grammy. Or I Kiss you. Quick on the lips. Except when they think I’m not looking. Then daddy kisses uncle Barry like he use to kiss you mommy. Uncle Barry sometimes gets mad cause he don’t want Ms. Eloise to know and yells at daddy. Then Daddy call him a closeted faggot. What’s a faggot mommy?

LINDA: Well, um. It’s a um. It means a tiny bundle of twigs baby.

NELSON: What’s a twig?

LINDA: A branch. It’s a branch like on a tree except small.

NELSON: Uncle Barry’s a branch?

NELSON: Just finish your sprouts baby. Mommy’s gonna go call daddy.
End of Play

END FLIGHT by Bianca Sams

Clara and Ken stand and aisle width apart and talk to the audience.

CLARA: There was just this one moment.

KEN: One single moment. The clearest second of my life.

CLARA: One minute we were soaring carefree

KEN: Oblivious through the clouds. Two total strangers sitting side by side, 

CLARA: Without a care in the world. And in a blink of an eye it all changed. I felt it

KEN: I heard it. Like the earth cracked in half. My first impulse was to maybe scream out. But, I looked into her eyes and we both just,

KEN AND CLARA: Knew. That it would be better to just be there, in the moment, together.

CLARA: In that second as time stopped as our stomachs dropped. As we dropped.

KEN: And dropped

CLARA: And Dropped. The feeling is a sick and twisted thrill. Like a roller coaster except we knew we weren’t on any tracks. Not up here. There wasn’t any net to catch us up here.

KEN: And yet that human touch, just skin on skin, her touch on mine, in that moment as we were falling

KEN: Falling

CLARA: Falling out of the sky. Faster and faster. One touch, one real human touch, takes all the fear away...

KEN: I could hear it.

CLARA: I could feel it. 

KEN: And then impact. As the crunching, twisting, metal bird collided with the ground. I knew in that moment.

CLARA: In that one moment. 

KEN AND CLARA: The clearest second of my life...that for once I wasn’t alone. 

The End

DON’T WORRY YOUR PRETTY HEAD BY BIANCA SAMS

Jim is getting dressed for work when his wife Denise enters.

JIM: Hey babe. You’re up early -

DENISE: I made your favorite, eggs Benedict-

JIM: Baby you shouldn’t have. I’m running-

DENISE: To work. I know. I just thought we could just eat and chat --

JIM: I have a meeting --

DENISE: Just SIT! Let’s eat. Let’s talk. 

JIM: I wish I could but, Janice is waiting for me, this deal is so close so very close. We’ve been working all day and night for weeks on it  --

DENISE: I bet..

JIM: Don’t. I’m sorry. Don’t pout. I promise I promise I will make it up to you. I’ll buy you that Cuisinart

DENISE: I don’t care about the Cuisinart-- 

JIM: Well then just buy whatever you want then. Okay? Anything at all. Here’s the card. It’s just that Janice is waiting--

DENISE: Then let Janice wait!

JIM: Do you like this house? 

DENISE: Yes

JIM: Do you like having clothes, and being able to stay home to write, sew, or whatever the hell it is you do all day while I’m working?

DENISE: I wasn’t saying that--

JIM: Cause I’d love to sit here and twiddle my thumbs eating eggs Benedict, chatting or whatever but, my boss is waiting. So whatever it is, we can just talk about it when I get home. Ok.

He turns to leave before she can answer. When he is nearly out the door.

DENISE: But--

JIM: What the fuck is it Denise?!! I gotta go to work.

DENISE: I just thought you should know that Janice gave us AIDS.

The End

The past week’s short play festival will be particularly interesting. I am working on a brand new challenge... One minute plays. As part of our ongoing workshop of projects that push as as writers, we have decided to try to write and produce a Blitzkrieg Midnight Festival this week. The challenge is to do 30 plays in 60 minutes. Normally we do 11 five minute pieces. So that mean 30 one minute to one and a half minute pieces. They will be timed and done in a completely randomized order. There will also be a stop watch so the audience can see the time counting down. IF we make it through all 30 there will be pizza for all. If not...well not sure what will happen. The light will go out during the middle of the show maybe? But, the core of the idea is can we write well crafted actual PLAYS that are only one minute long? Can we move, disturb, corrupt, entice or show a particularly dynamic part of human existence in just one minute? So far I’ve written two. I will keep you posted. And next week they will be here on the blog!

The Oakland Post Article
15-Year-Old Civil Rights Heroine Inspires New Play by Bianca Sams
Oakland Post Friday, January 4, 2013
By David Scott

Playwright Bianca Sams is presenting ‘’Battle Cry,’’ a play based on the life of little known civil rights heroine Claudette Colvin. At the age of 15 in the Deep South, Colvin refused to give up her seat to a white woman on a Montgomery Alabama bus, nine months prior to the arrest of Rosa Parks that led to the bus boycott that changed history. Her case was briefly considered as the test case for the cause that eventually sparked the Civil Rights Movement but, was quickly discarded by its leaders. She became a social outcast for a time.

Claudette Colvin might not have been the face to launch the Montgomery Bus Boycott, but   her voice helped silence segregation on buses. She was the star witness in the Browder vs. Gayle lawsuit, a case that reached the Supreme Court and eventually ended the system of separate and unequal laws.

“Battle Cry” tells the personal story of a naive but passionate 15-year-old girl who made an impact on the world. Playwright Bianca Sams is a Bay Area native who is currently pursuing her MFA at Ohio University.

“As a female playwright of color, I am drawn to stories that question the roles of women, ethnicity, and family in modern society, that deal with the search for self in the collective identity and which explore underlying connective threads of mankind,” she said.

In her work she focuses on whether the stress and pain we inflict upon ourselves and others actually purifies or destroys the fabric of humanity. Her plays are lyrical investigations of found stories out of today’s headlines or the pages of history that ask audiences to face their own complex love affair with misery.

Her full-length plays include “At The Rivers End,” “Battle Cry,” and “Summer Nights and Fireflies.” Join Sams at the Footlights Reading Series Presentation of” Battle Cry,” Monday, Jan. 7,  at 6:30 p.m. at The Tides Theater, 533 Sutter St., 2nd Floor, San Francisco.

Tickets are free, but donations are appreciated.  
RSVP at Eventbrite or via e-mail@[email protected].

Five more days until Battle Cry experiences it’s first professional workshop reading at the Tides Theater in San Francisco as a part of the Footlights Reading Series. It’s quite exciting! I just learned there will also be a write up in the Oakland Post. I am also negotiating another reading in Ohio for February. Soo it appears great things are brewing in 2013.