Bloomington Playwrights Project concludes ‘PlayOffs’ with packed crowd

Nine plays, nine playwrights, only 24 hours of writing time.

The Bloomington Playwrights Project capped off its final showing of “PlayOffs” on Saturday night with another round of plays written, directed and acted out all within 24 hours.

Each play contained a common theme, prop and line of dialogue that each team incorporated into an original play. There were nine “teams” involved, each one having a director, writer and two to three actors.

The actors had to be ready, because the nine plays went onstage consecutively starting at 8 p.m. The nine plays showed one after another, ala baseball innings.

In keeping with a sports theme, the teams were not just out to take on a near-impossible challenge. They were going for first prize in the competition, as there was fan voting, where audience members cast their ballots for best actor (Most Valuable Player), as well as best play.

Alissa Wyle was voted the Most Valuable Player. The young actress took to the stage in “Death of a Hamster” by Nick Moore. In addition to having the MVP acting in his play, Moore also took second prize for best play.

The winning play was “Time Robber” by IU graduate student Rachael Himsel. This year’s “PlayOffs” was her third as a writer. Previously, she had come in second in the contest.

To help gather ideas for her story, she asked her actors what their dream roles were and found out they were interested in being superheroes, something which inspired the play’s motif.

“I was really appreciative of their excitement and their ideas,” Himsel said. “I had really great actors.”

The Jasper, Ind., native moved to Bloomington five years ago and got involved with BPP shortly thereafter. While winning best play is exciting to her, she said taking first prize wasn’t everything.

“I’m here for fun,” she said. “It’s just awesome and rewarding. It kind of forces you to be creative, because you have to create a play in one night.”

The 12 hours allotted to write the play was more time than Himsel needed, as she turned in her script more than an hour before the deadline.

“Some people work well under pressure, and I think I’m one of those people,” she said.

IU alumna Erin Sullivan was enthusiastic about being one of the actors in the winning play.

“It feels pretty amazing,” she said. “The play was ridiculously awesome.”

Though she has been involved in acting for more than eight years, this was her first time in the “PlayOffs.” The Columbus, Ind., native wasn’t sure how all of the script was going to be included into the set in such a short time.

“I was thinking, ‘How are we going to fit in everything that’s in this script?’” she said.

Moore asked his actors what kind of characters they wanted to play to help him incorporate their ideas into his play. He said he was satisfied with the end result, despite the initial hours of panic.

“It’s always surprising that it comes out well, because you’re up all night,” Moore said. “The first thing you do is panic for a couple of hours, and then you drink a lot of whiskey.”

While his second-place play was no doubt a success to the audience, Moore admits the play almost did not happened.

“That night I felt kind of bad,” he said. “At one point I was going to call (BPP) and tell them I couldn’t do it, but I walked away from it for a while and came back to it. The trick may be that in that 12 hours, find a place where you can take a break and come back to it as if you slept on it.”