Icky romantic situation proves a winner at La Jolla Playhouse
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The ending doesn’t exactly mirror the final revelation of ‘Oedipus Rex,’ but there’s a high ick factor nonetheless in Kimberly Sweeney’s winning submission for La Jolla Playhouse’s ‘Your Life. Our Stage’ contest.
In May, the theater company launched a social media competition asking fans to submit their ideas for a play based on their own life story. Contestants submitted their stories (plus images and other multimedia material) via the site Brickfish.
Sweeney’s submission, titled ‘It’s a Small World After All,’ took the top prize for the contest and was drawn from a field of approximately 200 high-scoring entrees, according to the theater company. A scene from her treatment will be penned by playwright Doug Wright, who won a Pulitzer for his drama ‘I Am My Own Wife.’
A performance of the scene will take place Saturday at La Jolla Playhouse, following that evening’s scheduled performance of ‘The 39 Steps.’
The winning submission tells the story of Sweeney’s dating life in L.A. and how the seemingly perfect man turned out to be something else altogether.
Keep reading for her full winning submission:
‘I am queen of the small world experience. Here’s a story to prove it…After finishing college in the Midwest I immediately moved to Los Angeles looking for a little excitement and, let’s just be honest, a husband. One night I was out drinking with a friend and I spotted “him.” Our attraction was immediate and easy conversation followed. I couldn’t believe how much we had in common: both Jewish, both working in the entertainment industry, and both raised in Minnesota. We began leaning into each other, holding hands, he was buying me drinks and I was mentally planning our wedding. I steered the conversation towards family. We were perfect for each other; the last thing I needed to establish before mentally moving with him to the suburbs and having two children (one boy and one girl) was that he was close with his family. I could never marry a man who wasn’t close with his family! My soon-to-be husband mentioned his last name was Rosenberg to which I replied, “that’s SO funny -- every Jewish family must have Rosenbergs because I have cousins with the last name Rosenberg!” We laughed at the coincidence… until we discovered we were second cousins.’
As Culture Monster previously reported, La Jolla Playhouse launched the contest in part as a marketing research tool, according to Michael Rosenberg, the company’s managing director. Brickfish allowed the Playhouse to collect user data such as how people arrived at the theater company’s site, as well as demographic and geographic information.
That data will then be used to plan and launch future online campaigns, said Rosenberg.
The runner-up was Paul and Doris Sutton’s story about a naval officer’s penchant for composing songs for his sweetheart. The prize for the ‘most viral’ entree went to Teri Brown’s tale of her longstanding admiration for actress Teri Garr.
-- David Ng
