As many people are just getting home from work tonight, a crew of actors, directors, stagehands, and writers will be meeting in Taichung for the first time. They will be put into groups, choose prompts and props, and then everyone but the writers will leave.
For the playwrights, it’s the beginning of an exercise in caffeine-fueled creativity as they stay up all night composing scripts to be performed tomorrow evening.
If this year’s Taichung 24-hour Play Festival proves to be similar to the event’s debut last year, some of the participants will spend tomorrow in a blur. “I can’t really remember much of the day itself,” artistic director Josh Myers said. “I was energized and thrilled by all the creativity flying around in the air, everyone rehearsing, worrying about memorizing lines, getting the venue ready, fitting costumes, chatting, getting so thirsty but [having] no chance to stop and drink water.”
Photo courtesy of Sho Huang
Myers and managing director Cathy Wilson are passionate about the festival. The two often finished each other’s sentences during an interview earlier this week that was punctuated with laughter, deep sighs and rolling eyes. Though they say that their roles are interchangeable, Wilson is also in charge of coordinating the after-party and supplying costumes and props culled from years of collecting “weird oddities.”
“I bring everything I can imagine can be used,” she said. “Last year I must have brought 150 to 200 pieces of clothing, hats, shoes, veils, hoops, canes.”
The writers each choose a prop that must feature in their play; the rest are used for costuming.
Myers and Wilson brainstorm a list of prompts — for settings, character types, mishaps — and write them on slips of paper. Playwrights pick three prompts, which must be used in the performance.
Last year writer Matthew D. Flint, (who will also be participating this year) chose “sexy nurse,” “model airplane stuck in head” and “eye patch.” He then wrote a semi-musical, The Face of a Nurse, about two greedy children and a sexy nurse who argue over an old man who has, of course, a model airplane lodged in his head.
But what if writers aren’t pleased with the prompts they end up with? “It’s about spontaneity,” Myers said. “You may not initially like it but that sparks the initial creativity.” The same is true for the time constraint, he said. “If you are pressed for time you can come up with something; if you have 100 years you can secondguess yourself.”
The writers are required to complete their scripts by 10am tomorrow. Directors, actors, and stage crew then have until the curtain goes up at 8pm to memorize lines, cues and blocking. “We try to balance out newcomers and people with experience” when forming the groups, Myers said. “About 80 percent have acted before, but 20 percent are total newcomers.”
One newcomer last year had no ambition to be a thespian whatsoever. Andrea Scardina, who had never acted before, signed up to be a stagehand, but when one of the cast pulled a no-show on the night of the play she jumped in and “saved the day,” Wilson said.
“[It’s] like getting on a roller coaster and being unable to get off until it’s over,” Myers said. “You’re left wide-eyed and relieved and giddy you’ve survived something momentous and want to get right back on again and do it again just for the thrill of it!”
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