Courthouse Theater Company

By Channing Gray
Journal Arts Writer
The Providence Journal
August 3, 2006

Call it instant theater, a play created from scratch, written, rehearsed and performed in 24 hours. That's what's going on this weekend at the Courthouse Center for the Arts in West Kingston.

A half-dozen writers will gather at the former courthouse at midnight Friday and begin penning 10-minute skits for two actors, one male and one female. Then at 8:30 in the morning, the writers will each be randomly assigned a director. The writer-director teams will have about a half hour to confer over breakfast, then the directors get to pick the two actors, mostly college students from the South Kingstown area.

The actors will read something for their auditions. Nothing is prepared in advance.

For the next nine hours, directors and writers will rehearse at the courthouse and the Kingston Free Library, breaking for lunch and dinner. At 8 p.m. Saturday, they will put on the six plays. Audience members will vote for the best one.

The marathon play festival is the brainchild of Chris Simpson, a Princeton junior who runs The Courthouse Theater Company, a nonprofit that works closely with the Courthouse arts center. Simpson was in a similar project at Princeton, where he was one of the directors.

The idea, he said, is not so much to come up with a "finished product," but a piece of live theater, a "work in progress with a seat-of-your-pants feel." Simpson said that such a project is also a good way to meet other theater people from the area.

The writers are mostly college students who live in the area but attend schools such as Boston University and Emerson. One, Lily Mathews, is a junior at South Kingstown High School. Simpson said that each writer will be given a dramatic device such as a play within a play or a car ride to weave into their script. They will also have to incorporate several non-sequiturs, he said.

"The lines will stand out and provide a window into what the writers are doing," said Simpson.

There is a small room of props at the disposal of the directors. And if someone needs a specific prop that is not on hand, people are available to run out and get it, as long as it doesn't cost more than $50.

The plays themselves will probably last about 90 minutes, including transitions. But the festival is supposed to run until midnight Saturday. Simpson said the rest of the time will be taken up by giving awards, possible refreshments, and cleaning up.

"The whole idea is to promote friendship and camaraderie between theater people," said Simpson.

Tickets for the play festival are $10. The Courthouse Center for the Arts is just west of the University of Rhode Island on Route 138 in West Kingston. Call (401) 782-1018 or go to www.courthousearts.org .