Tag: civictheatreoflafayette

Margerumalia – My Play Was Chosen!

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – April 24, 2026

I’m pleased to announce that my 10-Minute play “Out of the Abyss” was chosen for this year’s Civic Theatre Play Festival in June. There are so many talented playwrights on this list and I am both honored and humbled to be among them.

“Out of the Abyss” is an homage to Ray Bradbury’s short story “To the Chicago Abyss” which he also adapted into a one-act play by the same name. In it, an old unhomed man is muttering memories of brands of coffee, cigarettes, candy bars, movies, and fresh fruit when someone tries to shut him up for fear he’ll get taken away. Remembering things is not allowed in this dystopia.

I thought I could capture a similar feeling by having my unhomed man muttering the words of famous documents and speeches that define who we are as a nation. He, too, is in danger of getting hauled away by the authorities so a social worker desperately tries to make him stop. My title suggests a hopeful outcome if it’s received as I imagined.

My daughter read the play and commented that the feeling of my short play is “uncanny” and I like that description a lot. She said it feels like something out of 1984. I agree.

The festival director asked if I wanted to direct my play and I enthusiastically said yes. I’ve directed short plays in the festival for the past three years, and one full-length play for the youth theatre. I’m particularly excited because the atmosphere is mutually supportive, generous, and encouraging.

After auditions, for example, directors discuss who they want in their plays, and follow up with alternate choices in a give-and-take process to help every play to achieve its best.

I remember realizing one year that a young man hadn’t been cast in anything even though he did a good job in the auditions so I volunteered to give him a role in the play I was directing. He did a good job and has continued to be involved in Civic Theatre since. That’s the outcome we want! 

The last time I directed my own play in this festival I was encouraged by fellow playwright Steven G. Martin to submit it to other festivals and competitions. That play, “Just Book Club,” ended up getting collected in The Best 10-Minute Plays 2024. (You can see the book cover on my website at ericmargerum.com.)

The county library Spring Author Fair was sparsely attended due, they said, to an all-morning rain followed by a university bug fair that drew a lot of attendance. 

Ever eat a bug? Not on purpose! Me neither. Apparently scorpion pops have been a big draw in years past. Eww.

The one book I did sell was to an old friend of my parents who told me that he belonged to a play-reading group and they had read my play “Just Book Club.” He said it was very good and he and his wife plan to come see my next play in June.

TTFN

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My middle grade novel, The Most Amazing Museum of Los Angeles is available through The BookBaby Bookshop at https://store.bookbaby.com/book/the-most-amazing-museum-of-los-angeles

Margerumalia – Best 10-Minute Plays 2024

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – January 31, 2025

I was thrilled to open a package that arrived in the mail a couple days ago to discover my copy of The Best 10-Minute Plays 2024*. My short play “Just Book Club” was chosen for this publication among hundreds of submissions and I’m so proud to see it in book form.

Originally due to be released in October of 2024, the editor had to delay publication due to the death of her husband after a prolonged illness. I felt so bad for her I sent a letter of support and understanding. She didn’t need a bunch of selfish writers complaining about the delay. 

Life has priorities. 

On my website I offer this description of “Just Book Club” — Originally produced by the Greater Lafayette Civic Theatre in May 2023, this play shows a pivotal moment in the lives of four people who only know each other by the name of the author whose book they are carrying. Lives are at stake. Trust is hard to come by.

Intriguing, right?

I had performed in a 10-Minute Play the previous year and remember telling my wife that I could never write something that short and have it be any good. I’ve tried my hand at flash fiction, 500 words, and micro fiction, 100 words, without much success, but the challenge stayed with me until the concept hit me and I wrote this short play. 

It reminds me of Sean Connery, who played James Bond in the first six movies, when he told his wife he would never play 007 again. He still held the rights to Ian Fleming’s novel, Thunderball, Connery’s fourth film as Bond, and decided to make one more appearance as 007 with a new script based on the same plot. 

When he needed a title for that screenplay he chose his wife’s response when he told her he would be portraying James Bond one more time. Twelve years after the release of Diamonds Are Forever, Sean Connery could be seen in theatres once more as the British super spy in Never Say Never Again.

Say what you want about your limitations, complain as much as you need to, but never dismiss the possibilities of what you can accomplish. It seems that a little tickle of the neocortex can stimulate all kinds of creativity. Follow that inspiration—a word which literally means, to breathe, by the way—and get out of your own way. 

Maybe I’ll give flash fiction another try. How about you?

TTFN

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*The book contains fifty 10-Minute Plays. To order, you can go to: SmithAndKraus.com OR Amazon.com, and search for “The Best Ten-Minute Plays 2024.”

[I don’t earn money from the sale of this book, but I do hold the rights to performance of my play.]

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My middle grade novel, The Most Amazing Museum of Los Angeles, is available through The BookBaby Bookshop at https://store.bookbaby.com/book/the-most-amazing-museum-of-los-angeles

Margerumalia – Short Plays With Cows and Romans 

Eric Margerum

Newsletter July 5, 2024

This past weekend The Civic Theatre of Greater Lafayette mounted a Short Play Festival that performed 14 plays, ten minutes or less, featuring 29 actors. I got to direct two of them, one with a cast of Romans and one with a cast of cows. Gotta say, the cows behaved with much more civility than the Romans—I’m talking about the characters, the actors were all terrific.

I also got to direct a couple of my recently graduated high school students one more time and loved that opportunity. A third one was cast in another play and delivered a charming performance of her own. Oh, gosh, they grow up so fast…said no adult, ever!

You may recall that my ten minute play from last year, “Just Book Club,” was chosen to be published by Smith & Kraus in The Best 10-Minute Plays 2024 due in October. Well I got to meet a Chicago playwright whose play will also be included in that anthology. He came to town to see his friend’s play, “This Cow and That Trombone.” Small world, right? And it turns out that a Ball State professor of one of my former students will also have a play in that collection. Small, small world!

Sorry, did I just trigger that ear worm of Disney’s “It’s A Small World”? No? Oh, now I have? My apologies. Try singing “The Song That Never Ends” several times through, that usually does it for me. 

A neighbor drove by while I was getting my mail Monday and rolled down her window to exclaim that she’d just finished reading MAMLA and really enjoyed it. Then she thanked me for a “good read.” I love when people thank their favorite artists for their creativity and passion. It’s a simple kindness like thanking someone for preparing a good meal. I want to remember to say as much to others. 

TTFN!