For the past several years, Old Pueblo Playwrights has produced a Play-in-a-Day event. Each time it has been enthusiastically supported by both artists and audiences.

While we continue to ‘tinker’ with specific elements of the event, Play-in-a-Day (PAID) – generally unfolds as follows:

On opening night, usually Friday, the audience is treated to a series of short plays written by OPP members. These plays are stage-read and played out with some props and set pieces. Local actors rehearse the plays previous to their productions.

After these ‘warm-up’ acts, OPP members introduce a number of props. By audience applause, three are selected. These three must be in every play to be written overnight.

Following this, the audience is asked to select a line that must be written into every play as well – again by applause. (These lines were submitted by individual audience members at intermission.)

Playwrights are then introduced and paired by a random drawing of names from the proverbial hat.

Finally, the audience leaves and the paired playwrights are excused to write their play. They have until early the next morning.

Once scripts are in hand, directors are assigned a script. An hour later, actors arrive and ‘auditions’ occur.

During the day the plays are rehearsed. Saturday evening the audience returns to see what has been wrought.

A cash prize is given to the play the audience, by applause, ‘judges the best-of-show. A second prize has been provided in memoriam. The drama winning this award has been determined by a panel made up of leaders in the Tucson arts community

For more information about this dynamic event, call Gavin at 520-297-3317 or watch for announcements in local periodicals and on line.