BPP organizes annual playoffs

The Ike and Julie Arnove PlayOffs will begin at 7:30 p.m. Saturday and continue Sunday at the Bloomington Playwrights Project.

Featuring nine original plays, the event will be written and produced in less than 24 hours. Tickets for the playoffs are $15 and can be purchased at the BCT Box Office.

“One of the nice things about the playoffs is that it’s sort of wild theater,” actor and director David Sheehan said. “It’s brand new. It has a kind of frantic element to the whole process.”

BPP performs all-original plays. It is the only theater in Indiana dedicated solely to new plays BPP managing director Jessica Reed said.

Actors will be divided into teams on Friday. They will receive a prop, a theme and a line of dialogue they must include in their seven to 10 minute play, according to a press release.

Playwrights stay up all night writing a script and the actors come to the theater the next day to start rehearsing, Sheehan said.

The playoffs are especially challenging due to the time constraint placed on the separate teams.

“We honestly have no idea what will happen, and that is part of the fun,” Reed said. “This isn’t supposed to be a serious, well-rehearsed production. It is supposed to be fast paced, amateur and surprising.”

The event also brings a different set of actors to the stage.

“The atmosphere is definitely distinguishable from other BPP shows because most of the people involved have never acted, written a play or directed,” Reed said.

Reed said the event has been going on for ten years. The playoff serves primarily as a fundraiser for the BPP.

Mistakes are almost expected, and certainly not frowned upon, Sheehan said.

“Because it’s so wild and energetic and coffee-fueled, when things go wrong, it’s ok,” Sheehan said. “That’s part of the fun.”