We hope you've been noticing a lot of hype about Glass Mind Theatre's first official production, a two night play festival we call "BRAINSTORM". There's a lot of excitement in the air about it, and we like to think that is mostly due to the whole concept of the festival.
On January 1st, we metaphorically "opened the floodgates" and allowed anyone to enter an jump-off point for a brand new play. If they could come up with one or two in 125 characters or less, their idea might become the foundation of a brand new piece of art. We wanted this idea to be featured as our first event because, as a new theatre company in the city, we really want to create a direct connection with you - our potential audience.
The submissions ended right at 12:00 A.M. Friday. Six of our eight founding members began a vote right at midnight as we collected the ideas. How did we choose? We took the submissions (we had about 26 - which is a great number for the first time we've done this!) and blindly voted for the six we wanted to use, which means we had no names of the 'creators' attached to the ideas.
The votes were tallied ("SURVIVOR" style, with eerie background music and torches lit in the darkness...) and we took the ten ideas with the most votes.
Why ten, you ask?
We've posed the ten ideas to the playwrights, who have chosen in a first-come, first-serve basis. That will leave four ideas that we have big plans for to use in an interesting way. While they may not be the inspiration for a new play that evening, we definitely are going to feature them that evening in a way we think you will find very interesting...
So, without further ado! Here are the ten ideas that have made the cut, along with the creators (no particular order):
A modern adaptation of the myth of Atlas, in which an office worker winds up condemned to hold up the heavens.
Jon Levin, via email
How many licks does it take to get to the center of a modern day woman?
David J. Loehr, via Twitter (dloehr).
How can two people live in the same apartment at the same time and have no idea that the other one exists?
Josh Luxenberg, via email.
4 WorldofWarcraftesque gamers become superheroes using avatars' identities. Problem? They've never left their moms' basements
Cole Matson, via Twitter (colematson).
A young man has a conversation with himself as an old man as he is dying.
Gordon Steen, via email.
She's in love with him because he's a paraplegic. A radical, miracle procedure can bring his legs back. Will she stop it?
Single Carrot Theatre (SingleCarrot) (I want to say this was Brendan Regan, but it could've been a group effort, who knows!)
DC,Time-Present Near Future, Monologues of diverse victims killed in a political protest for their different American Dreams
Efrem Foster, via Twitter (VeryPlainKevin)
Giant squid sing about their problems.
Tracey Flanders, via Twitter (traceflan)
The complexity of couple's relationship unfolds during night of cooking for Passover Seder
Hilary Winn, via Twitter (hwinn4).
A man attempts to seduce a waitress by offering increasingly provocative items off the menu. Things do not go as planned.
Jon Levin, via Email.
We'd like to thank everyone who submitted ideas, and we will be featuring ALL of the ideas we received in the festival in a prominent way. Even if your idea wasn't chosen this time around, that isn't to say that it isn't a great one - as we discussed after the vote, some of these ideas would make interesting full-length productions or even other kinds of artforms. This is the beauty of this concept - there are so many more possibilities than what we are simply throwing on the table, and we hope the influence of this goes beyond what we anticipate for two nights of performance.
We welcome you to come January 29th and 30th to Mobtown Theatre at 8 to see how this experiment will all go down. Finally, I want to give my sincere thanks to everyone for the great words of inspiration and appreciation that you all have had for what we are trying to do. We have some great hopes for Glass Mind Theatre and the future of Baltimore theatre, and we hope that you will stick along with us for the ride.
Check back soon for more "BRAINSTORM" details!,
Andrew Peters
Artistic Director, Glass Mind Theatre.
The ten sound like a lot of fun. Can't wait to hear how it turns out. But I'm not sure who Dan Loehr is... ;)
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