Monday, July 26, 2010
Weekend with water (and yatchs)
Nah, I didn't go for some sea adventure over the weekend.
I was at the 24-Hour Playwriting Competition 2010, organised by TheatreWorks. (I'd wanted to join last year but couldn't find the time.) This year's venue was the SAF Yatch Club Changi (located in an extremely obscure part of the island, next to the Naval Base. I saw a submarine!).
It was a pretty amazing experience. As the name of the competition suggests, you camp at the place for 24 hours and attempt to churn a play out. There are creative stimuli given at regular intervals and you have to incorporate them into your play, in order of release. The stimuli could inspire or ruin you, depending on your luck.
There're two types of stimuli, specific and non-specific. The specific ones could be dialogue or an object or anything concrete. The non-specific ones are totally experiential and up to you to interpret. But you have to make them noticeable enough in your play for the judges to pick it up (if they don't, they suppose you left the stimulus out and you're disqualified).
We sat at round tables and my table had three 20/30-somethings and two 50/60-somethings. The age gap didn't facilitate communication much. And of course, I was there alone, which really made everything much less mortifying. It is always ideal for greenhorns to sit with older, wiser people and people who've joined the competition for over 5 times.
The competition lasted 24 hours, but I left 2 hours early for the SYCO concert. So that's 22 hours. I slept for about 3.5 hours, took a shower, about 5 tea breaks and 10 toilet breaks. That's about 17 hours of hardcore sitting, thinking, rejecting your ideas, and sometimes, writing. But it's a great feeling to be there to write. I'd never force myself to finish writing anything if not for the competition.
Plus, the food was pretty awesome. Totally helped. I think I drank 5 to 6 cups of hot tea. (In the end I mentioned tea in my script. I love tea.) Surprisingly I didn't eat much, but they bought us cheng tng at 12 midnight. And they had the best carrot cupcake (I swear) I've ever eaten. Like, the cupcake of my dreams. Dense, moist, not too sweet, topped with icing sugar... I won't go on.
The venue was a bit small but very pretty. When I was feeling burnt out around 6.30am I took a nice walk along the marina and totally got inspired, if that's what inspiration feels like. For some reason, the more visual something is, I tend to ignore it. I pay more attention to smells and sounds. I was going to kill off my character (morbid much), then I realised a person like that wouldn't kill himself. (Epiphany? Hahaha)
And I need to dedicate my eternal gratitude to Valentia Angelin, who gave me tons of wholesome advice and encouragement over the phone and MSN (it's not cheating, right?)! As a reward I named one of the characters after her haha! Let's join next year!
Ah, there's too much to say on my part! It's as if so many things (or nothing at all) happened in that short day. Let's just say I left the competition with more than a script.
My play is titled Repair. It's about the Oedipus complex. (I wonder why myself.) It's not something I had enough time or energy to do, but I guess it's a decent attempt to vomit stuff out. Nevertheless, it's been a pleasure to write. I'm inspired! (:
I was at the 24-Hour Playwriting Competition 2010, organised by TheatreWorks. (I'd wanted to join last year but couldn't find the time.) This year's venue was the SAF Yatch Club Changi (located in an extremely obscure part of the island, next to the Naval Base. I saw a submarine!).
It was a pretty amazing experience. As the name of the competition suggests, you camp at the place for 24 hours and attempt to churn a play out. There are creative stimuli given at regular intervals and you have to incorporate them into your play, in order of release. The stimuli could inspire or ruin you, depending on your luck.
There're two types of stimuli, specific and non-specific. The specific ones could be dialogue or an object or anything concrete. The non-specific ones are totally experiential and up to you to interpret. But you have to make them noticeable enough in your play for the judges to pick it up (if they don't, they suppose you left the stimulus out and you're disqualified).
We sat at round tables and my table had three 20/30-somethings and two 50/60-somethings. The age gap didn't facilitate communication much. And of course, I was there alone, which really made everything much less mortifying. It is always ideal for greenhorns to sit with older, wiser people and people who've joined the competition for over 5 times.
The competition lasted 24 hours, but I left 2 hours early for the SYCO concert. So that's 22 hours. I slept for about 3.5 hours, took a shower, about 5 tea breaks and 10 toilet breaks. That's about 17 hours of hardcore sitting, thinking, rejecting your ideas, and sometimes, writing. But it's a great feeling to be there to write. I'd never force myself to finish writing anything if not for the competition.
Plus, the food was pretty awesome. Totally helped. I think I drank 5 to 6 cups of hot tea. (In the end I mentioned tea in my script. I love tea.) Surprisingly I didn't eat much, but they bought us cheng tng at 12 midnight. And they had the best carrot cupcake (I swear) I've ever eaten. Like, the cupcake of my dreams. Dense, moist, not too sweet, topped with icing sugar... I won't go on.
The venue was a bit small but very pretty. When I was feeling burnt out around 6.30am I took a nice walk along the marina and totally got inspired, if that's what inspiration feels like. For some reason, the more visual something is, I tend to ignore it. I pay more attention to smells and sounds. I was going to kill off my character (morbid much), then I realised a person like that wouldn't kill himself. (Epiphany? Hahaha)
And I need to dedicate my eternal gratitude to Valentia Angelin, who gave me tons of wholesome advice and encouragement over the phone and MSN (it's not cheating, right?)! As a reward I named one of the characters after her haha! Let's join next year!
Ah, there's too much to say on my part! It's as if so many things (or nothing at all) happened in that short day. Let's just say I left the competition with more than a script.
My play is titled Repair. It's about the Oedipus complex. (I wonder why myself.) It's not something I had enough time or energy to do, but I guess it's a decent attempt to vomit stuff out. Nevertheless, it's been a pleasure to write. I'm inspired! (:
# posted at 11:41 PM
