Post Card Plays Week 1

First week of Post Card Plays

7 plays were written and mailed.

The plays were 100 – 140 words long featuring 2 – 3 characters.

Here’s the process:

Draw a card out of the box.

Write a play.

Find out who the card is going to.

Address the card.

Mail it.

Unexpected discoveries:

Mining material off of the postcards themselves.  From the image of a single mom as a hero…

…to using words off of a synthesizer as the key words in a play.

The brief time each day focusing on writing and working to express complicated ideas with brevity, little to no character names, and no room for error when writing out the play has proven meditative.

 I enjoy thinking about the people who may receive these plays (and also  hearing that they have safely reached their destination) .  I also hope that the opportunity to check the mail and find something other than junk mail–something you asked for, but didn’t expect—resting in your mailbox gives a bit of joy to the audience members receiving the plays (if you do a public or living room reading, please post it on facebook).

 Connecting with people online; then getting to connect with again via a handwritten play—I cannot quite articulate why this particular transaction is satisfying, but it is–making the virtual actual is satisfying.

I have reversed my writing process—rather than handwriting my drafts and doing a revision as I type them, I am typing the drafts and then revising them as I hand-write them onto the postcards—either way, nobody is getting a first draft.

And so after the first week, I’m energized by the daily focus on writing, on putting aside enough time to craft one idea a day.  Let’s see what happens in the next 173 plays in 173 days.

So…if you’d like a card:

Private message me your address either via facebook, twitter, or davewhiteplaywright(at)gmail.com; I will write a short play on a card and mail to it you (at no cost to you!).

There are 180 cards (maybe more) so from Fall Equinox to Spring Equinox I will write one card a day.

You are welcome to send me a writing prompt or request, but this is not required.

You could have a play sent to a friend.

I will most likely document this project online, but would love to share some work in a form replete with smudges and the impressions left by a pen.

As always, it’s good to be in touch.