411: Stage Rage

Beginning August 5, the Keyhole Theater in Wicker Park hosts “Built in a Day: 10-minute play festival, ” for which a panel of Keyhole artists have selected five different ten-minute plays. “There were fifteen submissions, ” says artistic director Frank Merle. “The submitted plays had to adhere to a specific set of criteria. Each play must have five characters, and at a certain point of the play, one of the characters has to say, ‘We’re running out of time.’” Merle came up with the idea for the festival based on several conversations he had with local artists. “It’s a good way to network in the community. I wanted more actors and writers to learn about Keyhole (www.keyholetheatre.com). We’ve come up with a large group who otherwise wouldn’t have had the opportunity to work together.” Thirty-five artists in all, twenty-five actors, five writers and five directors will read plays for the first time on the morning of the performance. They will spend the next ten hours perfecting the plays for the shows that evening. The five shows will then run back-to-back in three consecutive performances with a chance to win “audience choice” prizes.