PlaySlam event brings rapid playmaking to Carrboro's ArtsCenter

Thirteen playwrights and 16 actors will come together for a night of frantic playmaking at The ArtsCenter’s annual PlaySlam competition on Saturday.

PlaySlam is like a poetry slam, but the poems are substituted with very short plays. The playwrights and actors rehearse the day of the slam for 15 minutes and present their one- to three-minute play that night. The audience decides on the winner.

The ArtsCenter and the Playwrights Roundtable have performed this show for 11 years.

“I think we continued it just so people know there’s playwrights in their community, and it’s a great way to get introduced to them in a fun way,” said Jeri Lynn Schulke, director of the ArtsCenter Stage.

The Playwrights Roundtable, a group of local playwrights that has been participating in the competition since its inception, is organizing the competition for the first time this year.

Paul Newell, who is the head of the group of playwrights, said the event is fun and challenging.

“It’s kind of fast and furious,” he said. “There’s the challenge for the playwright and the actors to get it all out there in three minutes’ time, and the thing’s a lot of fun.”

Two rounds of plays will be open for voting. For the first round, the audience will vote for the top five out of 13 plays. The five playwrights chosen will then present their second three-minute piece for the audience to choose the best. The winner will walk away with the $100 prize.

“It’s different from the usual play experience because of the high audience involvement,” Newell said.

John Middlesworth, a drama teacher at Chapel Hill’s St. Thomas More Catholic School, has participated in the competition for eight years and still finds it exciting.

“It’s always a lot of energy in the event. In a very brief amount of time — we get 15 minutes — we have to direct a play that we’ve written, and we’ve got to get the actors prepared to do it,” he said.

“One thing is that I’ve never won, so I suppose that’s one form of motivation to participate until I win.”

John Boni, another contestant, has won the PlaySlam twice and is also part of the Playwrights Roundtable.

Boni, who mostly focuses on writing comedies, said he has participated in this competition for six years now. He said his most memorable experience was two years ago when he said he put on an incredible show for the first round but couldn’t back that up in the second round, so he ended up coming in second place.

“You know what? I don’t care. I’m mostly a comedy writer and I love to hear people laugh at my jokes — it’s as simple as that,” he said.

Despite that experience, Boni said he still thinks the PlaySlam competition is a lot of fun.

“I wrote (in a description on the ArtsCenter website) that this event is the most fun you can have with your clothes on,” Boni said. “But they changed it into ‘the most fun you can have without breaking the law.’ I thought mine was better.”

arts@dailytarheel.com