Act fast: Words for Live Arts and its fans

Anybody who has been to the Virginia Film Festival in the past handful of years is familiar with the Adrenaline Film Project.

That’s the program created by Jeff Wadlow (the nephew of CBS news anchor Katie Couric) and his filmmaking pal Beau Bauman.

They mentor teams of local wannabe filmmakers, who have less than a weekend to write, edit, shoot and present a short movie. All they are given is 1) a line of dialog, 2) a prop and 3) a genre of film. Then they are screened before a live audience, which gets to vote for the fan favorite. It’s a hoot … and it has been one of the screenings that has sold out year after year.

Well, Live Arts has caught on to the act.

There is one difference. The film creators get to sit back in a dark room and watch their work unfold on the screen. At Live Arts, the creators will be in the spotlight up on stage performing before a live audience.

It’s “24/7.” It’s real fast theater.

Ray Nedzel, the director of Live Arts’ New Plays Project, is producing and serving as host of this innovative project, which will stage seven world-premiere plays that were created in 24 hours.

Here’s his lowdown.

Tonight, the actors, directors, playwrights and stagehands will meet for their “assignments.” These assignments will be waiting in a hat.

Playwrights — Peter Gunter, Al Hoover, Jennifer Hoyt Tidwell, Clinton Johnston, Jenny Mikulski, Denise Stewart and Robert Wray — go first. Their themes will be pulled from the hat. The size of the cast will be pulled from the hat. And a prop, or “special element,” will be pulled out of the hat. Now the work begins. Each of the seven playwrights will have until Saturday morning to write his and her own 10-minute play … using the theme, the cast size and the “special element.”

Saturday morning, it’s back to the hat.

This time seven directors — Sam Baker, Joe Brady, Larry Goldstein, Sara Holdren, Dorothy Kohlligian, Jenny Mead and Shawna Pledger — will pull their scripts out of the hat.

And, then actors will pull their parts from this enormous hat.

Among those signed up to act out the parts are Leo Arico, Stori Ayers, Chris Baumer, Cindy Burke, Ty Daniels, Michael Durland, Sara Eshleman, Steph Finn, Lisa Grant, Leah Gonning, Alex Grubbs, Ben Jones, Steven Levine, Kerry Moran, Alice Reed, David Straughn, Josephine Stewart, Mark Valahovic and Linda Zuby. Whew.

Then they all get together for what organizers call “controlled chaos.”

The actors will have the morning and afternoon to memorize and rehearse the parts, while the stagehands hunt down props and costumes. There may even be a little wiggle room to alter the scripts, just a tad.

By Saturday night the shows will go on.

And apparently the audience enthusiasm already is at a peak.

The show, set to begin at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, was sold out by Thursday morning. Trying to pull one last trick out of the hat, the folks at Live Arts have added a 10 p.m. performance, but seats were disappearing rapidly. If you want to go … pretend like you are in the show and act fast. Go online at livearts.org or call 977-4177, Ext. 108. Tickets are, or were, $10.