Three surely seems to be a lucky number for three area writers. In the third contest that the trio entered together, their three-act play won third place.
Janita Black of Ringling, Carl Clark of Ardmore and Lou Harper of Thackerville collaboratively penned a comedy-mystery that was among winners in contests conducted as part of the 65th annual Arkansas Writers’ Conference last month in Little Rock, Ark.
In their play, “The Confounding Case of the Curious Corpse,” a mysterious body is found in the hall shortly before a high school reunion begins. Their play took third place in competition for the High Cotton on the Bayou Award for full-length plays with 10 to 12 diverse characters in a murder mystery that occurs in a dining room setting.
For many of the characters in their script, Black, Clark and Harper relied on folks from the fictional town of Buttermilk, Okla., first created for “The Buttermilk Conspiracy” penned in 2004 in collaboration with another local writer, Mike Jones of Ardmore. A condensed version of the original Buttermilk play was performed by Ardmore Little Theatre that same year, with performances in Ardmore, Norman and Ringling. The quartet later wrote “Secrets of the Buttermilk Hotel.”
Black, Clark and Harper are now team-writing another play that takes place in Buttermilk. The three are all active members of the Southern Oklahoma Writers’ Guild, which meets in the Ardmore Public Library.
Anyone interested in creative writing is invited to the group’s meetings at 6:30 p.m. on the second and fourth Monday of each month.
To ask questions, call (580) 662-3106 or visit http://freewebs.com/caprilu/index.htm.
