Austinist Interview: Loaded Gun Theory

Let's talk about the writing. Looks like you've got some impressive playwrights! In particular, I'm excited to see Skipper Chong Warson's name on the list. Is this his first time to do Slapdash?

TIM: It is Skipper's first time working with us. We've traditionally done predominantly Loaded Gun Theory's playwrights (as Loaded Gun Theory was started by five playwrights). Two years ago we added Josh Meyer of the Rubber Repertory. It was an excellent experience and added some diversity to the experience. Most of us knew Skipper Chong Warson through pieces he'd done at No Shame Theater, plus his work with the B. Iden Payne comittee and his theatrical reviews. We're excited to be working with him.

Since so many people are multi-discipline, can you identify the playwrights for us (including some of their works)?

• Timothy Thomas (Empty Bowl, The Grind, Scaping the Goat)
• Skipper Chong Warson (from one comic book geek to another, north mouth feet west)
• Julie Winston-Thomas (Exeunt Dead Actor)
• Brandon Salinas (The Rapist and the Murderer)
• E.D. Harrelson (Baka Gaijin)
• Paul Emig (To Susie Loughlin's Virginity!)

How about the directors (with their more recent shows listed)?

• Timothy Thomas (The Purpose of Tools, Baka Gaijin)


• Brandon Salinas (The Audition)


• Frank Benge (The Women, Auntie Mame, The Queen of Bingo)


• Paula Gilbert (Vortex New Works Festival)


• Lynn Beaver (The Merry Wives of Windsor)


• Hildreth England (member Bedlam Faction, where everyone directs)

Then of course the actors are....
TIM: …where are the vanity web pages with a theatrical resume on it? These people have tons of experience, and there are Payne and Critics Table Awards and Nominations literally dripping off of 'em.

• John Dunn
• Suzanne Schroeder
• Bill Arnold (Bard of Avon)
• Travis Holmes (The Rapist and the Murderer)
• Ian LeClaire (Scaping the Goat)
• Le Easter (The Purpose of Tools, Scaping the Goat)
• Nikki Zook (The Playboy of the Western World, Appointment with Death, Twelfth Night)
• Emily Abrams (The London Cuckolds)
• Larry Oliver
• Bobbie Oliver (Marvin's Room, An Ideal Husband)
• Beth Matuszek (Imagination Penetrative, Copyright Denied)
• Miriam Rubin (The Grind, Sordid Lives, Orange)
• Mariana Guerrero (The Grind)
• Beth Burroughs (Vanities, Pericles, Hasty Heart)
• Scott Tesh (The Bard of Avon, The Playboy of the Western World)
• Jeff Kievlan
• Ian King

Does each playwright get three actors, or does the pool of actors divvy up as needed? If it's three per playwright, do the actors know going in which playwright/director they'll get? Do they get to choose? Is there any pushing and shoving? How about catfights...??

TIM: Ahh... this is where our patented juice comes in. We know ahead of time the genders of our actors. We create a "gender card" for each actor, and the playwrights draw 3 before they start writing. Technically the writers can trade cards, but that doesn't really happen. The genders are used more as a stimulus for writing, rather than a restriction. In the morning the directors come in. We've set out a visual representation of the actors and they are labeled by gender - in the past we've used an abstract collage...

JULIE: We have action figures that we have assigned to each actor.

TIM: Yes, this year, we've assigned an action figure per actor. The directors have to pick out the action figures, er... actors, they want to work with. It's all basically luck, but it's so much more fun than drawing from a hat. I think this is part of what draw actors to the process. The randomness allows them to play well off of their normal type, and we've seen some wonderful results come out of this. As for conflict?

E.D.: Wow, I wish we had catfights, because that would be too damn funny. For the past eight years, LGT has proven itself a very solid group, and we've fostered a very supportive, nurturing environment built on trust and productive communication, which is pretty frickin' annoying for the writers because functional working environments are not nearly as inspiring as angst and mayhem.

TRAVIS: As much as we try to inspire conflict in our participants, alas, it simply doesn't come about all that often. In fact, some guy who we shall refer to as "that guy" taped the first Slapdash Flimflammery all day…

TIM: …and night…

TRAVIS: …long, starting with the writing and all throughout rehearsals. That guy said he wanted to make a documentary out of it, but it never came to fruition, probably because there just wasn't enough reality-TV style violence for that guy to make anything other than a day of theater out of it.

TIM: And he had 24 hours of footage to edit.

Similarly, are the playwrights and directors teamed up ahead of time? If not, then how is it decided which director directs which play?

TRAVIS: Through the use of a 6-sided dice.

TIM: We're too tired to do anything more elaborate after staying up all night.

When the directors show up at 7am Saturday, do the playwrights leave? If not, do they continue to collaborate? Are there rules about not letting them add/change dialog? I know how playwrights are! They're never done.

TIM: Writers are done at 7am. Actually they're done earlier, because their scripts have to be printed at 7am. It's a hard deadline. The playwrights can sit and talk to the director of their script from 7am to 8am, which gives them a little time for production input. But there is no collaboration during the day.

TRAVIS: I won't speak for all the past SDFF writers here, but I'll say that by the time the sun's coming up, I'm ready to be done.

JULIE: Once the scripts are done, the scripts are done. The playwrights do not get to change a single thing.

E.D.: The playwrights are either preoccupied with directing a different play or fast asleep, so that pretty much prevents anyone from going all Jean Genet with a director or continually tweaking what is suppose to be a finished script. But we also make it very clear to the writers that there are no "take-backs" in Slapdash. The Stage Manager is also given full bitch-slap rights if the need arises.

TIM: The idea is to have it work just like the isolation of the playwrights during the night. The actors and director own the script during the day and it's very much their version of the script that emerges. Brandon Salinas and I will be directing this year in addition to writing. In the past we've had writing/acting and writing/directing crossovers. Directing/acting does not work as far as we can tell, although should a director not show up on Saturday we might have to try that out.

Do the directors and actors really stay away 'til 7/8am the next morning? Or are there perhaps some late night hijinks...? Who better to play a prank on than a group of highly caffeinated playwrights...?

E.D.: Well, throwing together a bunch of sleep deprived writers doped up on caffeine, nicotine, and sugar in a theatre overnight...let's just say that some amounts of silliness have been known to occur.

TRAVIS: But non-playwriting participants are strictly forbidden from entering the sacred circle during writing time. The sacred circle is a circle of sacredness whose sanctity must remain undiggled. Besides, playing a prank on any group of caffeinated people whose imaginations are in high gear in a dark theater in the middle of the night would probably result in the prankster's accidental(?) death and/or dismemberment.

TIM: I don't know…I might enjoy some hijinks. But no. They've never come up there to bug us. That makes me kind of sad. Maybe you'll inspire them... Wait, there was that woman who came in to interview us from that magazine. She showed up 3 times during the night each time wearing a different outfit. I think it was a theater piece for a fashion magazine or something. That wasn't technically hijinks, but it got pretty damn exciting waiting to find out if she'd change her outfit again the third time she showed up. I just realized that sounds kind of sad.

Do you give the playwrights any prompts? Is there a theme to the shows? Is there a page or time limit? Do they write collaboratively, or all alone?

TIM: Playwrights are allowed to write on any subject and in any form they want. When we arrive at 10pm…

JULIE: …each playwright writes a line that will become the last line of their scene. The other playwrights draw those lines out of a hat and whichever one they get becomes the first line of their scene. Time limit: 10-15 minutes.

TIM: This creates a nice circularity to the scenes and ties them together.

TRAVIS: As to the question of writing collaboratively or all alone, the playwrights sit in a circle while they write. This is known as the sacred circle, a place where creative energy may flow freely and happily throughout the dark night. It is not to be broken by either intruders or disrespect or negativity. Break ye the sacred circle at your peril.

TIM: In case you haven't noticed we feel the sacred circle is pretty important.

What production elements do the directors have to work with? Any costumes or set pieces? I have to assume they've got only the most fundamental of lighting design. Any sound?

JULIE: Very basic lights and sound.

TIM: We bring in some sound effect CDs.

JULIE: And whatever set pieces are lying around backstage at the theatre. Costumes: we ask actors to bring two outfits, one really casual and one a little more dressy to give some options to the director.

TIM: The playwrights also bring in boxes of props to be used as inspiration during the night. These props are then used in the actual scenes. This often leads to our only real conflict. If two scenes call for a plastic axe, how long does each group get to spend with it? We've amassed quite a collection of odd objects that keep turning up, but we try to keep it as basic as possible.

What about stage management / production coordination? Is there some unnamed hero behind the scenes helping y'all stay on time and on task?

E.D.: Having a good Stage Manager to run this event and guide our cast and crew through the day is absolutely priceless, which is why that person is given the worthy title of Stage God/Goddess. We originally referred to this person as the Stage Sherpa, but that particular title just didn't seem to stick for some reason.

TIM: They are:

• Stage Goddess - Christina Gardner


• Stage God - Adam Gunderson


• Sound - Arron Cooke


• Lights - Gina Lopez

Anything else you'd like to tell us about Slapdash?

E.D.: It's funny, because with such a short span of time that we have to put on this kind of production, one would think that working in Slapdash carries a horrendous amount of pressure, but it's actually quite the opposite. There is no time to over-think, to sweat the small stuff, to waste energy on worries, etc. Putting up a typical play is a hell of a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. You can spend months work shopping a script, biting nails through auditions, begging for actors, sacrificing free time to rehearse, and barely surviving those dreaded tech weeks which typically reduce half of the cast and crew to tears. It's not that those elements don't sometimes manifest themselves in Slapdash, but with so little time at our disposal everyone just focuses on the big picture. We work on staging a fun show and not about adjusting lights or stroking egos. In general, you don't walk away hating everyone around you, which is probably why so many past Slapdashers keep coming back to work with us…

TIM: …begging to work with us. This is one of the most infectiously fun shows in Austin. It fosters an environment of experimentation that you rarely see. We have writers acting, directors writing, and actors directing. And the quality of the finished product is extraordinary.

JULIE: It is amazing the quality of theatre you can produce when you work on something non-stop for an entire day. We're always shocked by how good something that has only had 24 hours of life can be!

Image (c) Loaded Gun Theory.