Description
The Project: The blind date is a situation that evokes a wide range of emotional, literary and linguistic possibilities: tragic, comic, awkward, passionate, tongue-tied or verbose. The speed date smashes all of that into a condensed reality that lasts just three minutes. This Challenge asks you to take two famous literary characters, of your team’s choice, and put them together in a speed dating scenario. Imagine Holden Caulfield (Cather in the Rye) and Elizabeth Bennett (Pride and Prejudice); Huck Finn and Hester Prynne (The Scarlett Letter); or Esperanza (The House on Mango Street) and Junior (The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian). The characters must speak in their ‘voice’; the time is current, but the characters are from their original time (they can ‘time travel’ to the present day, as necessary); and by the end of the scene, their romantic intentions toward each other (or not) should be clear. Also, the time limit for the ‘speed date’ is three minutes (the overall deliverable can be longer with the slates and credits, etc.). A speed dating situation also begs for humor: the situation is artificial; the mix of characters is surreal; and the explicit desire for romantic attachment (otherwise, why would you be there?) is a tad awkward. Be sure to look for ways to create humor out of the dynamics that define the circumstances.
