Ready or not, at Play in a Day, the curtain comes up. The festival, produced by the Bethesda Urban Partnership and Bethesda Arts and Entertainment District and now in its 15th year, features six professional theater companies that have to do in 24 hours what might ordinarily take months. On Friday night, the playwrights representing all of the participating companies will receive a line of dialogue, a theme and a prop that they must use. Then it’s a sprint to write, rehearse and mount a 10-minute play — in front of a panel of judges and a paying audience, no less — at Imagination Stage just 24 hours later. The winners get cash, fame and hopefully a long nap. We talked to four participants from four theaters — past winners all — who are returning this year, ready to rumble. They’ve got strategies, they’ve got advice, and one can only assume they have a lot of caffeine at the ready.
Imagination Stage, 4908 Auburn Ave., Bethesda; Sat., 8 p.m., $15.
Stick to who you are
Jason Schlafstein, the co-founder and producing artistic director for Flying V Theatre, says Play in a Day is just another opportunity for his company to do what it does best. “We do primarily offbeat and original work. [Play in a Day] is not different than our mission,” says Schlafstein, who is returning to the festival for his 10th year as a director and his ninth with Flying V (he’s won the event’s award for best director five times). “This isn’t a side thing for us. This is an opportunity to showcase what Flying V is.”
Keep moving
Playwright Patrick Flynn has a simple tip for Play in a Day success. “Set a schedule for yourself and stick to it,” says Flynn, who’s returning for his fourth year as the writer and director for Adventure Theatre MTC. “Also, a good idea now is better than a perfect idea later. If you say, ‘Oh, that’s a good idea, let’s build on that,’ not, ‘That’s a good idea, but I think there might be a better idea,’ and then sit around and talk about that for 45 minutes, you might discover no, there isn’t a better idea — and now we have 45 minutes less.”
Sometimes an ironing board is just an ironing board
Last year, Imagination Stage’s team kept it simple, according to Joanne Lamparter, director of the theater’s education and community programs. “We were given an ironing board as a prop, and we thought we could turn it into a rocket ship or whatever, and it turned out a lot of people [on the other teams] did that,” says Lamparter, who’s back competing for a fourth time as an actor and team captain this year. “[But] we thought, well, it could just be an ironing board, and that really worked. Sometimes the simplest idea is the best one.”
Forget it’s a competition
“Beyond the competition, there’s camaraderie,” says Joe Baker, a company member at Keegan Theatre. “All the other people involved are going through the same stresses as you.” And keep in mind that, in the end, the play’s the thing. “[Play in a Day] is some of the most pure, creative entertainment that you can do,” says Baker, who is returning as Keegan’s team leader, writer and director for his eighth year. “I’d do it all the time if they’d let me.”