Or rather, I am now the official blogger for Subgenres Winnipeg. Subgenres is a production company that is making a tv show of all the weird and wonderful sub-culture events that go on in Winnipeg and groups that thrive here. They have a super nifty website at SubgenresWinnipeg.com and one of the links along the top takes you straight to the blog. I've currently posted an Interview with Natasha Wiebe, the creator and (evil) mastermind behind the idea, and my second post is about 38 - the sci-fi play I co-wrote with a wonderful bunch of friends. I'm cross posting it here because I'm very proud of this play and I think you should come catch the performance at Keycon.
38
"The play (38) is being written and developed especially for Keycon and its members. It is a collaborative effort with everyone contributing and adding their special talents to the performance. Not one of us can take sole credit for this production, it is a wonderful process of dynamic writing and creative cooperation." -Subgenres Keycon Radio Play Info Page
I love to write. At heart I consider writing to be my first love. Well, after reading. But the thing about writing is that it's precious and your words are parts of you. You don't want to share them with just anyone, and if you do share them it's usually only after they've been polished and babied and gussied up just right ... Writing a story with a group of people who all have different tastes in genres and styles seemed like an impossible task. And yet ...
38 is a science fiction audio play that was co-written by a group of crazy strangers that got together and just clicked. Natasha Wiebe (Subgenres Creator) came up with the idea of a play written specifically for Keycon and set about assembling our rag-tag team of eccentrics: Mike Major, Anna Hatton Lauder, Tiffany Humble, John Speelman, Ben Jeffers and myself. It's safe to say that none of us knew each other very well. In Ben's case the only person he knew going in was me (he may or may not have had a choice in this decision). So here we all were, in a room full of strangers, preparing to create something that (oh please god, please) wouldn't be horrible. We came at it somewhat like what I imagine a DnD session would be like - the only ones I ever went to were when I was 11 and it was much less of an interactive experience and much more watching the boys argue over who had the cooler weapons.
We knew three things:
-The play was science fiction
-it involved a salvage operation
and
-we had to perform it at Keycon
And then something crazy wonderful happened: This room full of strangers clicked. We took turns being loud and boisterous, gave thoughtful critiques and suggestions to each idea and laughed in unison at the witty (crude) humour that sprang to life between us. And that first meeting wasn't a fluke. Since then we've been meeting almost once a week to hash out script changes, plot movements, sound effects, dialogue. When we can't meet we've been spamming our Facebook group chat with new ideas, progress updates and inside jokes. We've even got our own little forum for links, photos, documents and general mayhem.
This play writing experiment has been the best group project I have ever been a part of. I've had so much fun honing my character, suggesting lines and laughing at the craftily worded come backs that go slinging around our writing group. This play will be performed in a dark room with the occasional computerized sound effect but mostly just our voice. We wanted to bring back the feeling of the good, old fashioned radio plays of yore when you could lie in your bed in the dark listening to voices coming from a box and let your imagination take you miles and miles away ...
You should check us out:
38 debuting it's first and possibly only live performance at Keycon, Radisson Hotel on May 18th at 11 pm.
Check out the Crew of the Salvage ship here!
Saucily yours,
Miss Scarlet
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