Past Biennial Commission Prompts

Every two years we host an open-application, blind-read commission for new plays inspired by a prompt that we devise. For anyone who may be craving a bit of external inspiration, we thought we’d share our past prompts, many of which take the form of a Paul Vogel bake-off. Enjoy!

2020
For this year’s commission consider The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio – but don’t write about the Plague. Consider The Decameron as a piece that came from the ashes of the Plague but is decidedly a piece of the Renaissance. Consider it as a celebration of voice and style, as a compendium of stories from a wide span of sources. Consider it as an opportunity to take a deep research dive, if that’s your thing.

Then do with that what you want, jump off it in form, content, what have you. Feel free to take inspiration from just a little piece.

Your play should have no fewer than three people, and up to ten, and most of them should be female.

Very few of these characters should be blood relatives.

You may only specify three props.

You may have no stage directions longer than twelve words. You may only have seven stage directions.

Time: (of all scenes) night — except for one which can be dawn or dusk.

One very fancy costume.

An insect.

These constraints apply to the whole play.

2018
For this commission, Clubbed Thumb is interested in plays that employ alternative structures and shapes. We ask you to consider one of five alternative play shapes–landscape, spider web, nesting dolls, circle, double helix–and craft a proposal for how you will employ that play shape to best suit the story you wish to tell. This is subjective, of course, and meant to trigger the imagination, not be academic analysis. Some examples of what we mean:

Landscape: in which we learn about the world through accumulation
Our Town by Thornton Wilder is structured a bit like a landscape painting–we are introduced to everything all at once and Wilder zooms in and out of the landscape in order to tell the story.
Other examples might include: Wilder Gone, God’s Ear, Mlima’s Tale

Spider Web: in which we learn through disparate scenes that seem disconnected but are linked at odd angles and actually cohere around a central theme or argument
Booty Candy by Robert O’Hara could be seen as a spider web play–at first each scene feels like a vignette exploring a discrete idea, however, as more and more divergent worlds are explored we begin to realize that each world is connected in exploration of a single theme.
Other examples might include: Lear (Young Jean Lee), Doll’s House Pt. 2, Of Government

Nesting Dolls: in which we learn through analogies and juxtaposition
Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play by Anne Washburn might be seen as a play shaped like a set of nesting dolls–each act is its own entity and the dramatic movement lies in building out from what came before.
Other examples might include: Fairview, An Octoroon, Barbecue 

Circle: in which we learn through reflection
Fefu and Her Friends by María Irene Fornés might be a circle play. The most important dramatic events happen in the middle; act one leads us into these events and act three deals with the aftermath; the end of the play reflects themes that are present in the beginning of the play.
Other examples might include: A Map of Virtue, The Aliens, Father Comes Home From the Wars

Double Helix: in which we learn through thematic associations between the narrative threads
Stop Kiss by Diana Son could be a double helix play – the story is told in two threads simultaneously–what happened before and what happened after the inciting event–with thematic links between these narratives.
Other examples might include: Midsummer Night’s Dream (might be a triple helix), We are Proud to Present…, The Tomb of King Tot

You are also welcome to come up with your unconventional play shape.
Should you choose to do that, be rigorous about it.

Your play should also include the following:
1) At least three characters in every scene (no two character scenes)
2) Some simultaneous talking
3) Some found or repurposed text
4) A character pretending to be someone else
5) No indoor spaces

(Many thanks to Erin Courtney for developing this prompt with us.)

2017
For this year’s commission please consider the oeuvre of Caryl Churchill.

We paid particular attention to Top Girls, Fen and Far Away, but by all means read and consider any and all of her plays.

Your play should feature:

– Three sections, the second of which is set in a workplace;
– A cast of mostly (perhaps all) women—of differing ages, cultures, and especially, classes/means/education levels;
– A formal event (a pageant, a parade, a number, a dinner party) involving many people;
– An ersatz mother/daughter relationship.

Embrace economy of language, and specificity and fidelity of language to character. Consider if and when those rules explode.

2015
For this commission, please consider the work of María Irene Fornés, a godmother of formally innovative playwriting in the U.S.

Please take a look, specifically, at The Danube and Fefu and Her Friends. (If you have not read the work of María Irene Fornés you might want also to dip into Mud, Abington Square, The Conduct of Life, and Promenade — or others!)

In crafting the idea for the play, please utilize the following:

-a cast made up entirely of women

-a play broken into 5 scenes, at least three of which are set in different locations

-voices from people who are not in the room, and the faces of people who are not in the room
(cannot be puppets or language tapes)
(probably avoid screens or screen containing devices)

-a singalong

-a scene which is repeated

And please begin your play (ala Fornés) with one of the two sentences:

-“Something like that could never happen.”

-“That’s why they left.”

Finally, some helpful thoughts from Ms. Fornés:

-Be always true to the character, respectful of the character.

-Something inside you eventually shifts into the perspective of the character.

-It’s important not to be seduced by style

2013
For the fifth Biennial Commission we’d like you to consider Robert Altman’s movie Nashville.

No, we aren’t looking for a cast of thousands, a 2 1/2 hour opus, a dissection of country music or of red state culture. But we love the way Altman’s movies move from the ridiculous to the heart-breaking, we love the combo of the highly auteured and the DIY, the obliqueness, the leitmotifs and the red herrings, the imperfection of the characters and of the movie itself, the excruciating humanity that is never ever mawkish, and the monumental and surprising accrual. So watch the amazing Nashville and if you like, other Altmans, and let ’em inspire you in whatever way that happens for you.

Please explore the following possibilities:

-What if you created a cast with no dominant racial or cultural group, or/and in which more than one significant character was from a racial or cultural background different than your own?

-What if your play started just as something BIG has just ended OR the moment after someone has been terribly hurt.

-What if temperature is a factor?

-What if there is at least one scene where there is a difficulty with a light source?

-What if “close ups” are a factor in your play?  Yes, we are referring to cinematic-style close ups, but how might that translate in world of your play?

-BONUS (just for fun):  What is the theatrical equivalent of an Altman-style epic tracking shot

2011
We are delighted to open the 2011 Clubbed Thumb Biennial Commission to application. This year’s iteration is slightly different than that of recent years. The Biennial Commission is supported exclusively from funds given by two dynamic, complex and generous women: Alice Tang and Margaret Thrower. Both of these women passed in recent months, and we wanted to invoke them in this year’s commission. So instead of giving a theme as a jumping off point for the commission, we offer an iconic character: the Matriarch. 

We’re also trying a different model to inspire the writing: the bake-off, familiar to anyone who has studied with Paula Vogel, who generously helped us brainstorm and shape this one.

We’ve gathered some material that offers a range of characterizations of Matriarchs as well as some ingredients, culled both from these sources and from those connected with the commission’s creators. Customarily with the bake-off, the writer can take as long as she wants to contemplate the ingredients, including the source “texts”, but when she sets down to write, she is to do it in 48 hours. You are welcome to take this on, or go about writing however you see fit.

The  Texts
1. “Good Person of Szechwan” by Bertolt Brecht
2. “The Glass Menagerie” by Tennessee Williams
3. “Unforgettable Elephants” PBS Nature Series
4. “Whistler’s Mother” Season 1 Episode 20 Arrested Development

The Ingredients
a man in uniform
tobacco
a song
a crappy job
a body part that doesn’t work right
a home with too many inhabitants
a robe
an epilogue
price tags

also:

Joan Baez’s 1968 recording of “Tears of Rage”
and the photo you see before you

2009
The Clubbed Thumb Biennial Commission was created to encourage the writing of plays that consider the relationships between truth, power, history, and personal responsibility. For each commission, Clubbed Thumb will ask a question or pose a theme to serve as a jumping-off point for this examination. Please use the theme as inspiration. The result need not be immediately recognizable as a product of the initial examination. The theme for year 2009-2010 is “The Crisis of Confidence Speech.”

2007
The Clubbed Thumb Biennial Commission was created to encourage the writing of plays that consider the relationships between truth, power, history, and personal responsibility. For each commission, Clubbed Thumb will ask a question or pose a theme to serve as a jumping-off point for this examination. Please use the theme as inspiration. The result need not be immediately recognizable as a product of the initial examination. The theme for year 2007-2008 is “The Tragedy of the Commons.”

2005
The Clubbed Thumb Biennial Commission was created to encourage the writing of plays that consider the relationships between truth, power, history, and personal responsibility. For each commission, Clubbed Thumb will ask a question or pose a theme to serve as a jumping-off point for this examination. Please use the theme as inspiration. The result need not be immediately recognizable as a product of the initial examination. The inaugural theme for year 2005-2006 is “Yamashita’s Gold.”

BASE INGREDIENTS for 2005/2007/2009
1. Running time between 1 hr and 1:30 hr.
2. Intermissionless
3. Must have a reasonable representation of women, both in quantity and quality of roles
4. At least 3 characters