ACT Theatre’s “Central Heating Lab” brings back 14/48: The World’s Quickest Theatre Festival from January 8-16, 2010. Imagine if you only had 10 hours to produce a play.
Each weekend, seven playwrights write seven plays on a randomly selected theme. Twelve hours later, seven directors each blindly select a play and the required number of actors to cast it. After 10 hours of fevered rehearsal with seven designers and seven musicians, another theme is chosen and the process starts all over again. It all adds up to 14 plays you’ll never see again, but will never forget.
Here’s how it works. On Thursday that weekend’s artists meet at ACT and complete the following sentence: I want to see seven plays about (blank). A theme is chosen at random and the seven playwrights go home to each write a 10-minute play.
On Friday at 9:00am the plays are drawn at random by the seven directors. At 10:00am the Directors draw actors’ names at random to “cast” the plays. Rehearsals start throughout the theatre including design meetings, band rehearsals, and a 20-minute tech rehearsal for each play.
Then at 8:00pm each play is performed. At intermission, the audience completes the following sentence: I want to see seven plays about (blank). At the end of the night, a new theme is chosen and the whole process starts over, to get seven brand new plays ready for Saturday!
You certainly will want to attend one of these performances at ACT Theatre. You can also follow the action on the 14/48 blog!
Tickets for 14/48: The World’s Quickest Theatre Festival are $20 or just $40 for an entire festival pass – all four nights! More info and tickets available at www.acttheatre.org.
