First came the car.
Then came the plays.
After being given a yellow prop car used in a recent Helias High School musical, Scene One Theatre's Mark Wegman put a call out to local playwrights, and they drove the idea home.
Eight short plays centered around the car will roll into Scene One, 623 Ohio St. in Jefferson City, next week as part of the 13th installment of Short Attention Span Theatre. The show runs at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 10-13; tickets are $15.
A semi-regular production at Scene One since 2006, SAST features a series of 10-minute plays written by local playwrights, typically surrounding a theme.
"It's one of Scene One's more popular ventures," Wegman said. "It's all original; people like the variety."
Next week's show features works from 10 playwrights, four directors and 21 actors portraying 25 different characters; of the actors, 13 are new faces to Scene One.
Wegman said SAST plays typically cross multiple genres, but this go around, they are all comedies.
"Some dramas were submitted (for consideration)," he said. "We wanted the car to be a big focal point in the plays, and it just so happened that all the comedies used the car and made use of it a little bit better than the dramas."
Among the original pieces is "Chapstick and Bubblegum," a musical written by Amy Pringer with music by Pringer and Lainey Hood.
Squeezing a full storyline into 10 minutes is hard enough, Wegman noted, but this play also features two or three original songs.
He also mentioned "Love Puppy" as one of the show's highlight. Written by first-time playwright Sean Edwards, the piece gets an added burst of humor from one of its actors who plays the puppy.
For more information on next week's performances, visit Scene One's Facebook page. For tickets, call 573-635-6713 or email [email protected].