Chapter 15
Observations about the Ten-Minute Play
One secret I’d like to share is, if you can write a one minute play or a ten-minute play you can write a full-length play. The structure is exactly the same. There is always a beginning, a middle, and, of course, your grand finale. Sounds simple, right? It is, if you follow a few rules, or at least know them so that you may toss them to the wind if need be (for the sake of your artistic expression).
Here are some rules that I find quite handy: first, I ask myself the question, “Why is this night different than any other night?” Then I jump right into my story. I like to keep my audience guessing, but I never want them to feel lost. Remember: we are all drawn in by the unknown, but too many unknowns lead to a distracted audience.
Then there is the little thing I like to call action, action, and then more action, meaning, keep it tight and moving. There is absolutely no time for long ramblings or dawdles that would diminish your already flowered words! Meaning, every word counts, builds, and develops your story! Also, a very good thing to remember is that all characters have dreams, wants, and needs. These things are what make your character one-of-a-kind and most importantly memorable. His or her hopes and ambitions will hopefully drive them to the climax of your play.
And finally, for me, the most important part of the play is . . . will my character win or lose? Will all the struggles have been worth the journey—a journey that will inevitably bring the characters back to where they started but with an awareness that changes them forever?
Scott C. Sickles, Artistic Director, WorkShop Theater Company, New York City
Ten-minute plays are a special breed of one-act. The restriction of telling a story in 600 seconds provides the author with the kind of pressure and motivations he or she should instill in the story and characters.
Ten-minute plays also offer playwrights a certain freedom to explore and experiment with form, structure, content. They’re about capturing a moment in time—or out of time in some cases—allowing the writer to try a new genre, find a new voice from within, and build a new universe, without having to sustain these new laws of physics over two acts.
Likewise, a playwright can opt to tell a traditional story—beginning, middle, end—but without the burden of creating a status quo interrupted by an inciting incident causing the protagonist to go on a journey where the action rises into a crisis that leads to a decision resulting in a climactic confrontation settling into a denouement, but rather just hitting the crisis and the climax with maybe shavings of rising action and a denouement on the fringes. One doesn’t have time for a lot of exposition in ten minutes. You hit the ground running and you go.
When I’m looking at short plays at the WorkShop Theater Company and at ten-minute plays specifically, I still look for strong characters in a strong story. Those characters may be familiar or original. The story may be traditional or bizarre. (I kind of enjoy familiar characters in a bizarre story or inspired characters in a traditional setting.) But whatever the story is, it must be engaging, moving in some way (laughter, tears, in between), active (not a couple of people talking about offstage stuff unless they have a really good reason), focused on a singular event (I myself have tried to write the ten-minute epic tale of a town, three families, and how their lives have all changed over generations—I exaggerate, but only a little), and most importantly not preachy. I feel this way about plays of any length, but in ten-minute play, platitudes become fortune cookies. If the characters are talking about an issue, make it specific, give them a reason, get to the heart of the characters and their passions and leave the message unsaid until someone has to say it. Give your actors something to do besides talk and pose. Make them love, fight, die, rejoice, befuddle, and engage like they have ten minutes to live, because they do!
But ultimately, the piece must entertain. An important message in a boring package is boring and no one hears the message. If you’re going to be avant-garde, at least do it in a way that makes sense—give us a window so we can see into the beautiful, strange world you created. We are writing to amuse others, not just ourselves. Write a play that the audience wishes went on for another two hours. A good ten-minute play will leave us satisfied and wanting more. Though that’s probably true for most plays, it’s especially true here.
Dirk Knef, Literary Advisor, After Folsom Festival (Berlin, Germany) and others
I read hundreds of ten-minute plays every year from playwrights all over the world for different ten-minute play festivals in Germany, Barcelona, and Prague. The plays vary from sketch-like, underdeveloped plays to overly detailed, too-many-story-lined plays.
I want something that will grab me by the end of the first page (at the least) and take me on a whirlwind adventure. I suppose what I’m saying is that I want to be engaged as early as possible with your play. I want to care about your characters (not too many!) and be invested in the story you’re telling. And lastly, I don’t want to feel “dumped” at the end of your ten-minute play. It seems so many plays I read just “end.” Either that or I am hit with what the playwright (I suppose) feels is a last-minute shocker or “twist.” I’m all for the O. Henry surprise in a ten-minute play, but make sure all the events in your play lead to it.
I love the immediacy of the short play. It’s a great training ground for getting your conflict front and center quickly. You can’t be coy about what your play is about when you’ve only got ten pages to tell your story. And no chatting, no matter how charming you think that chatting is! This is true with longer plays too, but it becomes particularly clear in a ten-minute play that your characters should speak because they dearly want something from someone. “Getting to know you” dialogue quickly loses our interest, as does “Remember when . . .”
I’ve also found that writing the ten-minute play is a fun way to get to work with some of my favorite actors—many of my short plays have been written and produced for specific people.
Eduardo Arbo, Playwright, Barcelona
How can a playwright not love writing ten-minute plays? They create a whole universe in only ten minutes. And while a person might struggle for months or years on a full-length play, the ten-minute play doesn’t take forever to complete. That being said, you must give it as much of your creative energy and imagination as you would to a full length play. It’s still has the same rules of playwriting.
As with many of my plays, I allow my dreams to participate in my creation. Dreams are a passageway to your subconscious. I find that sometimes a mini-dream moment, when either I’m just falling asleep or just about to wake up, gives me a gem for a ten-minute play. It may be an image in the dream or a short scene in the dream that inspires some thought for the play. I keep a journal; perhaps you should try that. You’ll find there’s never a shortage of plot ideas.
The characters for ten-minute plays must be as rich and fully developed as those in your full-length plays. I do recommend fewer characters for the ten-minute play and if possible, only one set.
I love ten-minute plays. Many playwrights say they feel a greater freedom in writing the ten-minute play over other lengths. Writing daring ten-minute plays became a bridge for me to take greater risks in my full-length work. So why did I initially experience a greater risk with the ten-minute play? The reason was twofold. I think it had to do, in part, with the audience’s willingness to accept whatever world the playwright presents in the short form. But it also had to do with my access to my creative ideas, and my willingness to engage in premises that I might have deemed too strange for the longer form.
I remember taking a note in many notebooks before actually writing anything down. The note said, “Don’t forget to write the play about the water droplet who falls in love with the lightning bug.” Fodder for a full-length play? Probably not. But for a short play, such a premise writes itself.
The audience and the playwright are freer to explore an unexpected world in a ten-minute play. As a result, the ten-minute play can be particularly theatrical. When writing the ten-minute play, consider that you are freer than you would be in any other medium. Yes, even film. Dream of a landscape—a world—that can be self-contained that naturally defies the world that you know. Give that world its own rules. Feel free to break free from realism. Feel free.
If you start writing and you think it’s a stupid idea, don’t stop. You’re onto something new. If you don’t recognize it, that’s because you’re embracing your creativity, your originality. When embarking on new creative territory, your first impulse might be to kill your idea. But ideas are like seeds. You would not look at a seed and tell it, “You’re going to grow up to be an ugly tree.” Instead, give your ideas a chance to grow to maturity. They deserve that much.
Writing a lot of ten-minute plays can be like creating building blocks for your playwriting. A playwright stands on top of all the plays s/he has written. You may be perfectly satisfied writing ten-minute plays for the rest of your life, or find within them seedlings for longer works. Regardless, the ten-minute play will teach you to dream in ways you’ve never dreamt before. Dream big.