24/10: A Gathering of the Insane

You lay it all out there, for everyone to see. That’s what every theatre artist does, every time: every performer, director, designer, writer—including everyone up in the booth and backstage. It’s not something that can be acknowledged in every review or article, but it’s never far from my thoughts when I write one.

Though there’s exposure in writing about theatre, I shared a different risk earlier this month by putting myself in a different place in the theatre process: as a playwright for the 24 Hour Ten Minute Play event conducted by Sanctuary Stage at their new headquarters, the august Eureka Theater.

On the first Friday of October, Sanctuary’s artistic directors, Tinamarie Ivey and Dan Stone gathered seven playwrights, seven directors and enough actors to give each play at least three characters in the upstairs lobby of the Eureka Theater. The mood was buoyant, partly because it was exciting, and partly I suspect because we knew we all had to be crazy to be doing this.

Of course, the whole thing was insane. Even the smallest production takes weeks or even months for directors to refine and express their visions, for the actors to find their roles, for the designers and the tech people to put the physical elements of the show together. And that’s after the playwright worked over the script for months or years. And then chances are they don't get it right even then. Sometimes the play isn't discovered for months of performances.

But when we gathered at 7:30 on that Friday evening, we had no scripts, no roles, not even props. Those of us writing had about twelve hours to come up with ten pages on a particular theme, which we didn’t yet know. And it wouldn’t be until after 9 the next morning that the directors would have any idea what they were directing, or the actors what they were acting in. Nobody got to choose who they would work with, and it seemed a lot of the people involved hadn't worked together before. But the bedrock fact was that the shows would be in front of the public at 7:30 Saturday evening. Welcome to the madness called the 24 Hour Ten Minute Plays.

First an important caveat: I participated in this process as a playwright, not a journalist. I took no notes or even photos, and I did no interviews. People who talked to me didn’t expect to read about it in the newspaper, so I’m going to be general about conversations, except for the kind of things I’d tell friends and acquaintances.