Upon a Weekend have a scant two days to develop a five-minute play. For those preferring a longer timeline, there s the Ten-Minute Play Festival, also presented by the School of Drama . Students have six weeks to prepare a play for the Festival.
Preparation time is just one difference between the two events.
Another is the selection process. Although any student can submit a play for the Festival, a committee one undergraduate, one graduate student, and Drama Professor Shanga Parker selects only a handful to be presented. To get all of that in 7 to 10 pages is not easy to do. Each student in the class is assigned one ten-minute play to cast, develop, and stage. These students have studied directing for two quarters and have directed scenes, but this is their first experience doing an original play, says Parker.