Creating Theater Magic - In Just One Day!

The 24-hour create-a-plays are a weekend full of student-run work. The basic idea is that students create a play to perform in 24 hours. It is all student-run, so Katie Kreitzer and Chris Hill simply supervise and offer help when they can for the shows. Otherwise it is the students who direct, act, write, costume, make the set, and light the stage by themselves. It is a perfect opportunity for

all students to show off their talents.

 

It all starts on Friday afternoon. The directors, actors, and writers get together. The writers will go off and write a show in five hours. During that time, the actors are auditioning and the directors are seeing what actors they would want. The auditions are even student-run, as the directors come up with how they want the actors to audition. The actors will go home and wait for their call that says what show they got in. During the remainder of the afternoon and into the night, the directors will read the

Then it’s Saturday. The actors and directors show up early in the morning to have breakfast and begin working on the show. Everyone gets time slots to use the black box theater, the main stage, and work with the lighting and sound people to create the show just how they like. When the group is not using the stage or the black box, they are out in the hallways studying their lines and creating the movement for the show to really come alive. Sometimes actors are double-cast, which means they are in two shows. The directors of those shows collaborate on when the actor can practice in their shows

so that the actor has the opportunity to learn both and make it the best they can. Sometimes the day brings challenges, but these challenges can make the actors and directors really think and they can serve as a stepping stone to something great.

 

Finally, it’s Saturday night. This is when all the shows are performed in front of parents, friends, and the other people part of create-a-play. Everyone gets to see what their hard work has done and just the magic of theater. They can see just how spectacular people are in memorizing lines within one day. The writers come back for the performances and see how their ideas have taken shape and possible changed. There can be surprises in the show, but seeing how the actors work around them and overcome the challenges is part of the fun and can really add to the magic of it all. The create-a-

plays are events that can make your love for theater really bloom. Overall, the create-a-play experiences are the perfect way to end the year in the theater.