May 1, 2010

7:00, 8:30, 10 p.m.

“It’s incredibly low-key and incredibly fun. If for no other reason, go for the unique theatrical experience of being crammed into a tiny basement in Adams to watch five plays that didn’t exist a day ago,” says Matthew C. Stone ’11. He is referring to the 24-Hour Play Festival, produced this year by Stone, who is also a Crimson arts comper, and Megan L. Amram ’10.

The 24-hour Play Festival is a biannual tradition now in its 14th semester at Harvard. In the span of only a day, about 30 students write, rehearse, direct, and perform five short plays. Even more impressively, the fifth is often a musical with original songs.

The timeline of the festival is nothing short of a whirlwind. At about 6 p.m. the day before, the writers begin to write the plays, which they finish overnight. At 7 a.m. the next morning, the actors start rehearsing them with the directors. During the day the actors costume themselves, find crazy props, and then put on a show three times over the course of the night—this year at 7, 8:30, and 10 p.m. on May 1. Amram recommends the last showing because it is the wildest: “The plays get crazier and crazier over the night as the audience get drunker and drunker—I mean, more excited,” Amram says.

Indeed, it is practically impossible to predict what one will encounter on the Adams K-Space stage. Stone recalls that one year he was wearing hot pants while another actor came out in nothing but underwear, rubbing paint all over himself.

“Mostly because the K-Space is underground, the festival maintains that underground feel. But it’s not supposed to be a secret,” Amram says. She encourages people to come, calling the festival “a celebration of experimentalism and creativity that even people who aren’t [in] theater will love.”