The seed of an idea was sown during a class rehearsal which led to the first Creative Writing Club Playfest.
The Playfest was held on Wednesday, Nov. 28, at the Roxy Regional Theatre in downtown Clarksville.
The CWC members were asked to step out of their comfort zones of fiction and poetry writing and to branch out to writing for the stage. This led to eight short plays being chosen and edited by Sarah Key and produced by Renée Ramsey.
“We had a very limited amount of time,” said CWC vice president Key. “We organized this entire event in under two months.”
Inspiration for the plays came in different forms. For Josh Slater’s play, “Trifling,” inspiration was found by writing a semi-autobiographical play, spanning from his childhood to teenage years.
Playing his own lead role, Slater becomes frustrated with his girlfriend’s “valley girl” vernacular and voices this frustration.
Emily Pitts’ inspiration for her play “Department of Motor Vehicles” came from two APSU professors who challenged her in class to visualize two people who meet by happenstance in a room and write about the conversation.
Key’s play, “The Boy with Black Nails,” originally began as a completely different play called “The Knotty Knitters Group.”
Once Key reread the play, she found she was more interested in one line in particular about a boy with painted fingernails.
After thinking about the line, Key started over with a play about the boy with painted nails.
Members of the CWC acted in each other’s plays with writing being the main focus, not props and costumes.
The plays consisted of many different story lines, from a play about how cell phones interrupt quiet activities, as in Stephen Smith’s “Fell Wishers,” to an interesting relationship between an animal rights activist and her boyfriend who accidentally runs over a duck in Andrew Sanders’ “The Day the Duck Died.”
“I have enjoyed all the plays, but ‘Fell Wishers’ really caught my attention,” said APSU student Julie Upshur. “It showed how cell phones are an interruption to life, yet we still continue to use them.”
As an organization, the CWC encouraged writers to further develop their writing skills and open their minds to new forms of writing through the Playfest.
Members were also able to come closer together by understanding each others’ ideas and acting them out in their intended ways.
“I think, as a whole, it was an utter success,” CWC president Chase Davenport said about Playfest. “The performances were all very well done, and used a very diverse pool of talent.”
The CWC was able to raise over $200 for the club from the event, and hopes to use the funds for a literary road trip in the near future.
“It’s fantastic to have a fundraiser that relates to our goal as a club,” Key said.
The CWC accepts members from all academic majors and holds meetings every Tuesday at 5 p.m. in the Honors Commons. TAS
