Rough Magic pulls off first-ever, 24-hour play project

The look on Mary Gaetz’s face was priceless or, in this case, worth the $20 admission.

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln graduate student had just pulled a slip of paper from the fish bowl, revealing what prop, object or line would be required for the one-act play she was going to direct.

It said “bear dressed as a ghost,” and, yes, you read that right.

“I knew it was in there,” she said, four days after Rough Magic Productions completed “Just Add Water,” its first 24-hour play project.

“I was hanging around when I heard the people talk about putting it in,” she added. “I was like, ‘Yeah, right. Nobody is going to get that one.’ Then I was the one to pull it out.”

Playwright Axel Arth, who was paired with Gaetz, managed to incorporate a spooky teddy bear into his four-person script, “Divine Intervention or A Hallucinogenic Episode due in Part to an Allergic Reaction to Peaches.”

It worked.

“I thought so, too,” Gaetz said. “I was pleased.”

In fact, everything seemed to work for Rough Magic last week with the inaugural project. So much so, company members are considering doing it again.

But only after they regain their sanity, Rough Magic artistic director Jack Carpenter said.

“Just Add Water” was a play festival in which four teams wrote, rehearsed and designed 15- to 20-minute one-act plays in 24 hours. The project culminated with two performances at The Loft at The Mill.

The festival began at 7 p.m. Jan. 18 with a reception, which allowed audience to submit theme ideas and enjoy pizza and cookies.

The clock began ticking at 8 p.m. when directors and playwrights learned how many characters (two, three, four or five) they needed and what their object, prop or line would be. The other three teams also picked objects: a bishop’s miter, Converse All-Stars and a candelabra.

Next came the theme, which was universal. Everybody had to use it. It was “heartbreak,” one of 11 themes submitted.

My favorite was “high school reunion, where football hero Jack Smith returns as Jane Smith.” It would have made for some funny, “Tootsie”-like moments. Sadly, it didn’t get picked.

Once the theme was in place, directors and playwrights watched 20-plus people audition for 14 roles.

Auditioners, who included Methodist ministers Doyle Burbank-Williams and Stephen Griffith, had 60 seconds and could do anything they wanted as long as it had some text.

There wasn’t a bad audition in the bunch.

Jonathan Irons spoke the lyrics to an old America hit and added a few of his own while strumming the guitar.

“I rode through the desert on a horse with no name,” he said. “Let me tell you it was hard to get that #$@&’s attention.”

Katie Streeter ended her monologue with a walkover handstand backward.

“Thank you for that,” Rough Magic member and emcee Jacob Heger said as she left the stage.

“The auditions were a lot of fun,” Carpenter said later. “I don’t think a lot of (audience members) had sat through them before.”

Not surprisingly, Irons and Streeter both landed parts — opposite each other in Arth’s play. Irons played a guardian angel, and Streeter was a demon and the angel’s jilted lover.

As for the other plays:

— “Heartbreaker” was a two-man play about a prison escape written by Trace Vardsveen and directed by Carpenter

— “Masquerade,” written by Matt Harrell and directed by Taylor Bendgen, featured three young adults in a hospital waiting room

— and “Solving Mysteries” featured a corporate problem-solver (Griffith) straightening out the love lives of his nephew and his friends.

I was quite impressed. At times, the dialogue in each dragged, but, hey, the plays were written in about six or seven hours. There was no time for edits.

Even more impressive was the work by the actors, who had to memorize lines and blocking in as many hours. I have trouble remembering where I put my gloves.

The only major drawback to the project was scheduling. The talent pool was limited because Rough Magic could only get The Loft for Thursday and Friday, meaning actors with weekday jobs were unable to audition because they didn’t have their entire Fridays free.

Spreading it over a Friday and a Saturday would increase the number of actors. It also would make it easier to find other sites for rehearsal spaces.

Still, the talent pool, while small, was extremely capable as evidenced by the performances.

I, for one, hope Rough Magic tries it again — with or without a bear dressed as a ghost.

Reach Jeff Korbelik at 473-7213 or jkorbelik@journalstar.com.