By Daily Press staff
The monthly installment of the Ruskin Group Theatre’s popular “LA Café Plays” — dubbed the “Fastest Theater in Town” because five short plays go from conception to execution in just 10 and a half hours — will be staged on Sunday, Nov. 19. The theme will be “Thanksgiving.”
The “Café Plays” will be held at 7:30 p.m. and 9 p.m. at Ruskin Group Theatre, 3000 Airport Drive at Santa Monica Airport.
The “Café Plays”have won praise from audiences and the press alike. For example, the Los Angeles Times said that “audiences revel in the 10 and a half-hour creation cycle of five one-act plays,bound by a common theme and locale — all must take place in a café — but otherwise are as diverse as the minds from which they spring.”
And the “Café Plays” will be featured in an upcoming article in LA Stage magazine about unusual theatre in Los Angeles.
At 9 a.m. the day of the performance, five writers gather at Back on Broadway, a café-restaurant in Santa Monica. Each writer picks, at random, two manila envelopes containing actors’ headshots. They are then given four hours to write a seven-to 10-page one-act play that takes place in a café.The directors then take over, meet their actors and begin rehearsals.
Tickets for “LA Café Plays” are $10. Call (310) 397-3244 or go to http://www.rusk-ingrouptheatre.com.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 17, 2006. Read the original PDF.