This February will mark the second 24-hour play festival to grace the local area in the past year. These articles serve as a guide for those returning or those new to the experience. These are my personal reflections, opinions, and offers of advice. Take or use them at your own discretion and/or peril.
So, you've heard they're holding a play festival. Boy, you wish you had caught the auditions for that one so you could have... Wait a minute. It's a twenty-four hour play festival? So there's still time for you to get involved! But should you? Keep these factors in mind when making the choice on whether or not to participate.
What it isn't...
It's not easy. At some point during the experience, not matter what facet of the festival you end up participating in, there will be stress. Either the pressure of creating a new work under tight constraints, the pressue of managing people, stage space, and time with limited access to all of them, or the sometimes lofty task of learning an entire scene(s) on short notice (I will expound on each of these in more detail later).
It's also not a personal showcase for yourself. You will at times be dependent on others to survive the experience. Input, feedback, and direct assistance will no doubt be required at varying points in time (not to mention coffee). It is not nor will it ever be about your glory. You should remember to stay humble. It won't be too hard; you'll be crippled and debilitated on an hourly basis.
What it is...
In many respects, it is exactly what it sounds like. The event takes place over the course of a single day. It runs from Friday evening (when the participants meet and get to know each other (or know each other better or shoot the breeze for the umpteenth time... you get the idea) on through the night (when the writers hammer feverishly away at their keyboards and their foreheads in frustration) and all through most of the following Saturday (when the directors try to squeeze weeks of rehearsal time into 6-7 hours).
What else is it? Well, it's also fun. If you have any creative talent or even aspirations, meeting the challenge of a festival like this will (hopefully) have as many fun moments as there are frustrating ones.
And speaking of fun, you get the benefit of hanging out and/or working with a huge cross section of the local theatre community. I'm not going to lie and call it an excellent networking opportunity, but it can't hurt to touch base with a person or two.
So the short version is...
I won't lie and say that you should definitely do it. In the end, it will be a personal decision based on your courage, time, patience, and desire. People will no doubt have any of a number of reasons why they can't or shouldn't do it.
I can only tell you that last summer was a mad, crazy, frustration-inducing, joyful, chaotic whirlwind of a spectacle. And I wouldn't trade the experience for anything. If you're thinking about it and are on the fence, I'd say go for it. But don't blame me if you have a bad time. it will be what you make of it. But what you make of it can be a very great thing.
(Tune in next time, when I give the brave and bold writing corps some friendly advice on how to pull an all nighter. Because yeah, I'm really good at that...)
