Overnight Sensations Gets Ready for Saturday at MMT

Overnight Sensations Director Todd Ristau talks over the writers and directors, as he is prone to do.

Chad Runyon photos Cara Modisett, Christina Koomen.

Tonight was the gathering night for Overnight Sensations, whose six plays will be on the stage at Mill Mountain Theatre tomorrow beginning at 8 p.m. Admission is free, but you need to register for your tickets (here)

This is the oddball production wherein six writers, six directors and several actors are grouped in order to create six 10-minute plays. The play will be written overnight tonight and the writers and directors will meet Saturday morning to talk about

My writing colleague Gene Morrano and I will act.

the play. Actors will join them at noon for rehearsal and the finished product will be there for your enjoyment (we hope) tomorrow.

My play's writer Yulia Gray

The writers and directors are given a genre, concept, location and must develop that idea around the team of five or six actors assigned to them. My play is a mystery set in a bomb shelter and one of the other actors in it is my favorite ex-wife.

Can't wait to see what Yulia Gray, a master's student at Hollins (pictured here) does in writing that. Christina and I told Yulia that the only unacceptable scenario was that we be married again. It was too difficult to get un-married to start that again.

Come see us. The plays are always a hoot.

This is our group meeting for the first time onstage (That's Christina, inside right).