Monday, August 30, 2010

"Got A Minute?" entertaining play benefit

It was sorta like "Saturday Night Live," with each skit running only a minute long.

That was the atmosphere on stage during the fifth anniversary of "Got A Minute?" - the 60-second play festival at the Players Theatre this past weekend. The event raised funds for cancer research, featuring a silent auction, drawings for great prizes and an assortment of plays.

Though I've previewed the event on and off during the past few years, I have never had the opportunity to attend it. When artistic director Jeff Kin said "January, you gotta come" - as he tells me every year, I decided to finally take him up on it.

The play festival featured a variety of plays - each a minute long - submitted from around the globe. For the fifth anniversary, the best plays from the past four years were presented along with new ones for this year's event. Some focused on cancer, others were comic situations, songs and dance. Then were some featuring bathroom humor - one of favorites being the two guys in the stalls chatting. One guy kept asking strange questions that the guy in the stall next to him would answer until things got too personal. Come to find out the man was actually talking to someone on his cell phone. It was such a funny, true-to-life-moment.

A poignant 60-second play that stuck out to me was the skit with a grandma and her teenage granddaughter in the waiting room of the hospital. The granddaughter tells her grandmother she needs to stay strong during the battle with cancer. Then a nurse comes out to the patient. We find out that it's the girl who has cancer. 

The event was made successful by a lively and entertaining volunteer cast - a cast who even waded through a few cheesy skits. If you missed it this year, make plans to attend what Kin says will be a newly revamped "Got A Minute?" format. That means audiences will be in for lots more fun.

- January Holmes

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