Are you playwright enough?

More importantly, am I? The 31 days of August may reveal this as I take part in the 31 Plays 31 Days challenge to write…aw, you guessed it, 31 plays in 31 days.

In a way, I’m surprising myself by signing up, as you know how I feel about short plays. A major factor is that I know the two organizers, Rachel Bublitz and Tracy Held Potter. So it’s a community thing for me.

No, I am not going to write 31 full-length plays in a month. I may come out of the month with a total of 31 one-page plays or I may get something longer. But probably not much longer.

Or not. It can be tough to stick to one of these things. The organizers fully expect a certain percentage will drop out. If I fail, I’m playwright enough to keep playwriting, although I’ll be returning to crafting my full-lengths.

In the meantime, I’m going to have some silly fun. My goal, 31 short plays under the collective title Scottish Panda Plays. This is inspired, of course, by the Scottish play. It is also inspired by The Panda Chronicles, particularly this cartoon about the Scottish pandas with its mention of Lady MacBear. And the crown of the lot will be, if I do my job as a playwright, The Scottish Panda Play, starring Sunshine and Sweetie as MacBear and Lady MacBear, respectively.

(No, I’m not particularly worried about someone stealing this idea. Your Scottish Panda Plays will be different from my Scottish Panda Plays. There are more story possibilities than there are pandas.)

Goal, three framing plays to be performed at the beginning, middle and end, then one play for each of Shakesbears’ Shakespeares’ comedies and tragedies. Each of the non-framing plays to be based on or inspired by a play, a prompt, and hopefully a different style, to be chosen each day out of a hat.

Ambitious, no? The best laid plans of mice, men and pandas aft gang agley, alas. I may fall flat on my face — may it be slapstick if I do so lol.

Anyway, if you are so moved, join me and over 150 other playwrights for a month of playwriting.