It’s Saturday night in Hutchinson Hall. As crowds head toward the building’s cabaret theatre for a performance, several young actors are reviewing their lines one last time. They seem relaxed despite the prospect of performing for a packed house. And why not? They’ve spent hours rehearsing for this moment.

Well…maybe one hour. Total. After all, they’d only received their scripts the previous afternoon.

	Hours before they are scheduled to perform, students have their first--and only--rehearsal.

The condensed rehearsal schedule is one of the charms of Once Upon a Weekend, an ongoing School of Drama production that features five-minute plays written and performed by UW students, staff, and faculty. The premise of the event is simple: a topic is posted Tuesday; scripts for five-minute plays based on the topic are due Thursday; a director and actors are assigned Friday; and the performance is held on Saturday evening.

“It’s so implausible, it’s laughable,” admits Shanga Parker, assistant professor of drama, who is the guiding force behind Once Upon a Weekend. “When people first hear about the schedule, they say ‘No way.’ And then they go ahead and do it anyway.” Last year, 128 new plays were presented through the program.

Parker introduced Once Upon a Weekend in 1998, modeling it on a similar program at Brown University. He sees it as an opportunity for people to try new things—writing, directing, acting—in a nearly risk-free environment. “There’s no reason—and no time—to be intimidated,” Parker explains. “Everyone, including the audience, recognizes that there’s no way these plays can be really good in such a short amount of time.”

And yet the shows have attracted a large and devoted following. “They laugh when it’s funny, and when it’s serious—even two hours into the show—they’re right there with it,” says Parker. “I’m humble in the face of that.”

Drama major Ken Smith agrees that the audience is unusually supportive. “The audience really wants us to succeed,” he says. “If a play works, they love you. If it doesn’t, they still support you. It takes the fear out of it.”

Smith has grown so comfortable with the format that he has tried his hand at writing and directing as well as acting. “I’m not a writer, and I doubt I would ever have written a play otherwise,” says Smith. “But this program has given me the inspiration to go out and do more. I feel comfortable writing now. I’m taking a class in which we write and perform one-man shows. Before I would have been afraid to do that, but not now.”

The program is designed to encourage participants to cross over into new areas. There are no auditions required for actors, no resumes required for directors. There are specific requirements for the plays submitted — maximum length and number of characters, for example—but all plays meeting those criteria are accepted. “I wanted absolutely no interferences,” explains Parker. “I felt that everybody who wants to be involved should be involved.”

To ensure a completely neutral process in assigning directors and actors, Parker has all interested parties gather on Friday for a brief meeting. He asks all those interested in directing to stand in a line, and then hands out the week’s plays randomly. Next those interested in acting line up, and each director will check his or her script and call out the roles needed. “A director will say, ‘I need two men and a woman,’ and we’ll start at one end and count them out,” says Parker. “It’s totally at random.”

Shanga Parker (left) organizes everyone involved in the evening's events.

That’s when things tend to get interesting, says Smith, since the newly assigned directors must schedule a time to rehearse with their actors before the next evening. “It can be chaotic, since some people may be acting in several plays and directing one, too,” he says. “The room is buzzing.”

Of course the real buzz comes the next evening, on stage. “You’re in a room full of people about to put themselves on the line for something that didn’t even exist the day before yesterday,” says Michael Lopez, a graduate student in the School of Drama’s Professional Actor Training Program, who participated last year. “There is a pervasive sense that anything can happen. In fact, quite often the unexpected does occur, and the bar is raised for actor, director, playwright, and audience. …Often there are catastrophes, and the actors have to find some way to keep it going. It is then that the most amazing things happen.”

	Audiences attending Once Upon a Weekend never know what to expect--which is part of the event's attraction.

For students with little acting experience, that prospect is daunting. But a surprising number eventually take the plunge. Mariana Kleweno remembers being “terrified” by the idea of Once Upon a Weekend when she first heard about it as a freshman. But after attending one production she was intrigued, and by her second quarter on campus she was participating regularly. “It’s such an easy and comfortable way to get involved, as compared to big auditions,” she explains.

Kleweno particularly recalls one evening in which she acted in three plays. “It was crazy,” she says. “I spent all day Saturday going from one rehearsal to another. And I did a whole range of characters, from comical characters to Hypatia, the last librarian of the Roman library.”

And what if you’re not keen on the play you’ve been assigned? “That’s the gamble,” says Kleweno with a shrug. “That’s the chance you take with this process. It’s a gamble for the writers and directors, too, who don’t get to choose the actors. You just kind of roll with it.”

And sometimes you get lucky. Ken Smith’s first play was randomly assigned to an MFA directing student to direct, and he recalls how the student “took it to the next level” without drastically changing the play. “He made my play look better than it was,” admits Smith. “That’s the luck of the draw.” He adds, “It was amazing to watch the show and see the actors performing my words. It’s kind of a wild experience.”

That experience has led Smith to become involved in another campus production, a episodic sitcom created by undergraduates. “Without Once Upon a Weekend, I would not have been into all the other activities I’m involved in this year,” he says.

Smith’s experience demonstrates the most satisfying aspect of the program—the enduring impact it has on participants. It’s clear that the Saturday night performances are just the tip of the iceberg.

“More happens through Once Upon a Weekend than entertainment,” says Lopez. “The event is creating energy around the department that is both enlightening and kinetic. Suddenly, the entire school is a vast company with unlimited creative potential.”

Related Story: Festival of Ten-Minute Plays

[Winter 2000 - Table of Contents]