Well we had pulled off another fantastic night of our 21 hour theatre festival - Who Wears Short Shorts (Cubed).

On Friday night, Blake and I ran around trying to find the perfect prop to give to all of the directors.  We ended up in the big Toys R Us in Times Square (Blake’s first time in there ever!) and picked up 6 frisbees as we were not able to find the good old fashioned slinkys that we were looking for - they don’t make the metal ones any more apparently.

Then over dinner at Bubba Gumps, we divided the casts, assigned writers and directors and came up with the line.  By the time we hightailed it back to theatre, all of the writers were there with notebooks in hand.

So the theme this year was music from a particular decade (50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and 2000s).  Each writer drew a decade out of Blake’s hands.  They just somehow had to incorprate music from that decade into their piece. 

The line was essentially a mad lib:  Our love is like a BLANK (insert an appliance of some kind here) - BLANK, BLANK and BLANK; but I’m okay with that. 

So off the writers went.  Jen Spragg got the 50s, Nora Vetter the 60s, Zach Rothman-Hicks the 70s, Bill Bria the 80s, Kendall Rileigh the 90s and Michael Weems the 2000s. 

10:30 the next morning, they all showed up looking massively sleep deprived, but with scripts in hand.  Blake then threw even me for a loop and changed the prop from frisbees to a deck of playing cards.  Just as much fun though!

Eventually everyone showed up - only one late actor that had us a little panicked for a second there, and off everyone went.

I was off making programs during tech so I didn’t see any of the shows until they actually went up and I’m not going to lie.  I laughed my ass off!

Jen’s piece "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat", directed by Ashley Marinaccio, was about a beatnik poetry slam.  There were fun wigs, accents abounded and the playing cards were turned into rolling papers.  Makes sense right?  And the cross dressing made for some good fun as well!

Nora’s "Obscure Edition Episode 12", directed by Patrica Drozda was a television show looking back on a girl group of the 60s - the Curly Sues.  Not going to lie here, when Blake and I were putting together this group, we purposefully put 3 curly brunettes together with a blond straight haired girl.  It ended up working out really well!  The girls sang and rocked it like any 60s girl group cover band would!

Kendall wrote "The Fish Can Dance" directed by Vallen Pilgrim.  I have to say first that the image of Pete Kilcommons clad in a T-shirt and a towel around his waist to be a kilt will haunt me forever.  This one was another accent heavy piece that involved a lot of making out between actors (including two men) - I give them big points for bravery - and some Swedish folk dancing which is apparently meant to be done in groups and not solo.

Michael’s "Ready to Shine", directed by Tanya Fazal was about a Christian singing group that goes sour and splits up.  Yes, it required more singing, some great dancing and an inexplicable addiction to Certs that was pretty damn funny.  As well as the need for the group to be multi cultural because you know, being caucasian isn’t quite enough.

"A Totally Bitchin’ Time" written by Zach and directed by Aimee Todoroff also turned cards into rolling papers (apparently this thought goes through a lot of people’s minds) and was essentially a tribute to the Village People.  One girl was trying to study and the other three were blasting out VP songs at practically every opportunity.  More happy accents - one of the guys played a sort of Austin Powers-esque kind of character and there was a girl fight!

And Bill’s piece rounded out the night with "Hall & Oates & Doc & Starla" directed by Glenn English.  Apparently, all the writers wanted the 80s so there was a lot of anticipation about what he was going to be able to pull off.  It was great.  Hall and Oates in the height of their fame in 1982 (Christopher and Steve rocked a great version of ManEater!) just recognize their feelings for each other when Doc (yes of Back to the Future) whizzes in, takes them 1989 to meet Starla, their adopted child.  They have to keep her from going to University of Washington where she would subsequently meet Kurt Cobain, break his heart and usher in the grunge sound of the 90s that would kill Hall & Oates future.  Insanity ensues when Hall falls in love with Starla. 

So the awards:

Hottest cast: "Obscure Edition Episode 12"

Cast that looked like they had the most fun: "Hall & Oates & Doc & Starla"

Best Script: "Totally Bitchin’ Time"

Best Use of Prop: "Ready to Shine" - the band was called Funshine United Children of Kindness.  They used the cards to spell out the first letter of each word and wore them around their necks.  And of course, they had to stand in order.  It was ingenious!

Best Use of Decade: "Good bye Pork Pie Hat"

Best Use of Line: "The Fish Can Dance"

"Our love is like a furnace: hot, steamy and closeted; but I’m okay with that."

Best in Show: "The Fish Can Dance"

The awards?  Blake, Michael, Nora and I went over to Vnyl before our tech that day and undoubtedly they may have realized by now that they are short three menus (they use record covers as menus).  Lord love Jefferson Starship, Olivia Newton-John and Joni Mitchell...

Words can’t describe how funny all of the scripts were and what an amazing job all of the actors and directors did with so little time!

So thank you to all of the people who worked so hard to put together such a great show!  It looked like everyone had a great time.  I hope so because god knows, I did!

Christine