Week #6 The Mishap Talent Show

This is an idea for an event I'd like to put on like one of our Mishap Proms or Science Fairs. The idea was inspired by a birthday party for Ryan Beebe I went to last year at the Happiness Hotel.

The concept was fairly simple, when we arrived at the party there was a sign up sheet where you could write your name and a talent you intended to present. When your name was called you’d go up in front of everyone and perform an example of your talent. People really came through with some awesome talents; there was a dance routine, a couple of songs, someone gave out free financial advice and I did a monologue from a one man show I’d done recently.

What made this more than a free-for all karaoke or open mike was the presence of “Celebrity Judges”. We had a panel of three or four of our more boisterous friends critique and rate each performance like a sort tongue in cheek American Idol. In the end the winners all got bizarre home made gifts.

What I want to do is recreate this in a night club setting. Basically just taking this same format and making it a little less casual by having a few local semi-celebrities as judges. As well as a few ringer performers, people we know will be performing that we can put on the flier to get people in the door. Plus I think we’ll have the sign up sheet at the door and whoever signs up to perform gets in free.

What I need to do this is basically just a good space for it. Of coarse I need performers and judges but I think those will fall into place once I have a location. If you have any suggestions please email them to me or post a comment here.

Week #5- Perfect Memory-Play

This is an idea for a play I’ve been knocking around in my head for the past few years. I never really created an outline for it. I wrote the first scene a few times but it never really seemed right. It’s more of a broad concept than anything else.

The overarching concept is to explore the idea of memories, specifically which memories we choose to hold onto and which get flushed. I want to explore this using the device of a character that has a completely perfect memory. He can literally remember everything.

My idea is to open the play with the main character in college, waking up hung-over after a party. It turns out that while he was drunk the night before he started relating literally every moment he spent with a girl he had a crush on down to the minutest detail. It ended up really freaking her out. Even better maybe we’ll show this scene in real time as the opening scene. Either way the next morning he’s contacted by someone who was at the party who is working in a neuroscience lab. This person tells him that it’s completely impossible for a person to remember that many things. They do some tests on him then discover that he’s an anomaly, a person with a perfect memory.

From this moment on we follow the main character through his entire life. There will be scenes from his life played out as well as monologues given as if he’s being interviewed by the neuroscience department that’s been studying him.

Our hero’s life should be very much like our own. He can remember everything, still there are things that stick in the front of his mind and the things he can’t let go of just like anyone else. He makes many of the same mistakes that anyone else would but when asked to remember them and reflect on them in his interviews maybe we can find a little more insight.

I’m open to any input on this or even someone just stealing the idea and doing whatever they want with it. I’ve written a few little scenes here and there but nothing very solid.

Week #4 Inside the ACLU- a play,short story or movie

Not sure what exactly this would be. It’s just a concept I came up with the other day; sort of a world in which a story could take place.

The idea is that we would have a main character who is searching for someone or something that they really need to go on with there life. Whatever it is they are searching for it leads them in an unexpected way to the ACLU.

As the story continues as our main character’s journey takes them deeper and deeper into the inner workings of the ACLU. In this world the ACLU is a sort of Byzantine labyrinth of secret dealing, bizarre squabbling factions and strange rituals.

The reason why I want to use the ACLU for this, as apposed to say the Free Masons is that it’s so ridiculous and unexpected. They are such a well respected and pristine group among the artistic liberal world that suggesting anything clandestine or dark going on with them is almost sacrilegious.

I also really like the idea of taking an organization that exists in reality and making up a totally fictitious version of them; much like the version of the FBI that David Lynch created in the world of Twin Peaks.

The idea came to me while watching Nick Broomfield’s documentary Kurt & Courtney. At one point he goes to an ACLU dinner in L.A. where Courtney Love is speaking. The ludicrousness of her speech and the idea of her of all people speaking at an ACLU dinner made me wonder if it was something idiosyncratic of the LA branch. Then I started imagining all the other branches rolling there eyes. Then I started wondering what quarks other locations would have.

Anyways it’s just an idea, a starting point, if it sparks anyone’s imagination feel free to straight up steal if for part of something else or contact me and maybe we could brainstorm together.