A bunch of us from the Board went out the Seattle Cold Readers “event” at the Alibi Room to see what’s up.
I think their hearts are in the right place, but maybe a cold read isn’t the most useful format for motivated and serious screenwriters. We witnessed some pretty atrocious acting (lack of projection, odd creative choices and accents, lack of presence, etc.) Without a director, it’s pretty tough to give it a good go.
The room is in the basement of the restaurant, which, as someone who had a regular trumpet gig down there, is not the most hospitable environment to listen to actors sans mics. Plus, the noise from upstairs is distracting. Oh well, they’re trying.
My favorite part of the evening was when an actor went “off the reservation” and made up dialogue not on the page. From the audience, the writer steamed until she couldn’t take it any more. She blurted out “optimism” which I thought was part of the performance, but then screamed “you’re not reading what I even fucking wrote” or something like that. Awesome. I would’ve been pissed too, but I would’ve said something to the organizers/actor at the break. It all seemed like a more actor-centric thing than a writer-centric thing, especially after the guy running it announced that the writers are taking a big risk by having actors improvise on their scripts. Not really something I would’ve said or even sanctioned.
it’s painful to have your baby brutalized by someone’s inprovisation, but still, sounds like that incident was the moset entertaining spot of the evening….Conflict IS Drama…:)
i’ve seen successful cold reads in hollywood and vancouver, but i don’t think seattle has the abundance of writing resources, or actors to create as great of an event that this could potentially be.