The Soundtrack Series

A Microfiction & 9-Minute, One act play

Midnight Rendezvous

Premise: Dougie just signed a contract with a pop band. Kaeleigh just learned she may be moving back to America. Can they express how these changes are making them feel…before it’s too late?

Warning: MA-14 (recommended)

Introduction from the Author: I wrote Midnight Rendezvous as a Freshman in college. It began as a short scene for a larger story (that I have since forgotten), but when I received an assignment to write a 9-minute, 1 Act Play, I reworked the story into a playwright.

This was Phase 1 to our final exam. Out of 20+ plays, the professor planned only to select a handful that the rest of us would need to direct or perform. If our play was chosen, it meant we completed the exam and were done the remainder of the semester. If not…then we had to go through Phases 2 & 3 – direct or perform in one of the plays.

On the day of selections, the professor walked up to me (as I sat in the far, back corner of the room), and grimly stated, “We need to talk.”

breath caught in my throat, I gripped the arms of my chair, my knuckles whitened. I loathe when people say those four words…exclusively in that order!

I couldn’t even respond. My mind was running wild, trying to figure out what I’d done wrong. Was I in trouble? Did it seem like I plagiarized part of my story (because I didn’t; to my knowledge)? What did I do?

The professor then said, “You didn’t tell me you could write.”

Me: *melts into a huge puddle of relief*

He explained how he nearly passed on reading my play, as it’d been the last in a pile of otherwise “horrible” – his words! – plays he’d read that evening. But he did, and he even shared it with his wife (an English teacher at the local high school), and she (according to him) really enjoyed it, too!

I’ve reworked it a little since and, at the end of the playwright, even included the scene which inspired it – as a microfiction.