CNM News Theatre Department seeks comedy scripts; Spring production to be “31 flavors” of comed
Theatre Department seeks comedy scripts; Spring production to be “31 flavors” of comed
by Michelle Davis, Staff Reporter
Volume 15, Issue 12
November 17, 2009
Ever want to make an audience laugh their pants off? Aspiring writers, now’s your chance, as CNM’s Theatre Department is currently accepting plays and skits for its 2010 comedy montage production.
“Times are tough,” said Susan Erickson, Instructor and Co-Producer of the Spring Production. “We thought, ‘what would be fun and challenging for our students, involve as many of our CNM community as possible?’ and we figured, ‘have a very aerobic workout,’ because sketch comedy is very aerobic.”
Each play should be about 2 minutes in length and no more than 3 minutes or 1 to 3 pages long. “We’re doing 31 plays in 62 minutes,” said Joe Damour, Instructor and Co-Producer of the production. “31 flavors of comedy, so they’re averaging about 2 minutes apiece. That will involve a fair amount of actors.” According to Damour, a normal contemporary play uses less than 10 actors on average to cut down the budget. With this production, Damour and Erickson anticipate utilizing dozens of actors and technical crew.
“We can’t cast everybody,” said Erickson. “We wish we could. But a lot of the people that don’t get cast still want to work on the production and we have lots of ways to make that happen.” Erickson said there are technical crews, stage crews, sound and lighting crews and costume and prop crews. And with 31 super-short plays to prep for and coordinate, there will be plenty of opportunity for technical work.
So, what should all these scripts be about? According to Erickson, anything funny: “I figure we all have something on our minds that we could laugh about,” he said. “The students have a lot on their minds – going to school, holding down full-time jobs, raising kids, trying to be financially solvent, and of course, finding parking!”
Auditions will be held in the spring and will be open to the entire CNM community. “The productions are open not only to CNM students,” said Erickson, “but CNM employees, staff and faculty.” However, Damour reminds, “We limit it to the CNM community. We don’t use outside actors from the community.”
First, you must get in those scripts! The scripts must be typed in 12-pt font and be 1 to 3 pages long. They can be in any comedy genre – parody, mockumentary, cheesy horror, satire, parody, screwball, reality show, even improv. Scripts must contain from 1 to 10 characters. Limit of 10 characters. Email you scripts to Joe Damour at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . For questions about the theatre department or the comedy production, contact Joe Damour or Susan Erickson at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
