Theatre is, by its very nature, a collaborative medium. But what kind of playwright would willingly hand over his own lines to a fellow scribe? As it turns out, none other than Tom Stoppard. For Necessary Angel’s annual fundraiser, the 70-year-old Brit provided a top-secret opening line to the Toronto trifecta of Claudia Dey, Daniel MacIvor and Morwyn Brebner. The catch: each writer will have only four hours to complete a play beginning with said opener, followed by eight hours of rehearsal with their creative teams, and an evening showing of the finished product at the Capitol Event Theatre. Here, the intrepid trio talks about the beautiful—and sometimes terrifying—significance of a few opening words.

First line you wish you’d written: “One of those no-neck monsters hit me with a hot buttered biscuit so I have t’change!”—Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Tennessee Williams
First line you’re glad you didn’t: I myself have drawn/With the utmost care and accuracy/And have painted in colour, all the pictures/Of tongues which I here submit.—Aspects of the Tongue, Robert Froriep (as cited by Annie Dillard in Mornings Like This: Found Poems)
First line you have in your head but can’t seem to turn into a play: “Release the dachshunds, huzzah!”

First line you wish you’d written: When your Mama was the geek, my dreamlets, Papa would say, she made the nipping off of noggins such a crystal mystery that the hens themselves yearned toward her, waltzing around her, hypnotized with longing.—Geek Love, Katherine Dunn
First line you’re glad you didn’t: It was rainy and cold in Baie-Comeau when Mila and I left the victory celebration.—Memoirs: 1939–1993, Brian Mulroney
First line you have in your head but can’t seem to turn into a play: Silence. Pause. Silence. A Beat. Pause. Silence.

First line you wish you’d written: “Why do you always wear black?”—The Seagull, Anton Chekhov. (Masha’s response— “Because I’m in mourning for my life”—is really what makes it.)
First line you’re glad you didn’t: Too difficult to answer. Besides, it’s the second line that counts. See above.
First line you have in your head but can’t seem to turn into a play: “You look like Bobby Abreu. Do you know who that is?”

The One Day: Three Plays gala takes place at the Capitol Event Theatre on March 3. $350. 2492 Yonge St., 416-703-0406, ext. 201, www.necessaryangel.com.

Photographs: Dey by Marni Grossman, MacIvor by Guntar Kravis, Brebner by John Scully