6 REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD PRODUCE THE 24 HOUR PLAYS!
6 REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD PRODUCE THE 24 HOUR PLAYS!
Plus, your weekly round-up of theatre news you may have missed!
Welcome to The Scene, your weekly round-up of theatre news you may have missed. In this week’s email:
HOT TOPICS: Main Stage Performances for 2023 International Thespian Festival Revealed; Educational Theatre Association Announces New Board Leadership; Inside the Controversial Carroll High School Cancellation of MARIAN; and More Than 1,000 Shows Announced For 2023 Edinburgh Fringe Festival
BROADWAY BEAT: How Much Money Do Broadway Actors Make?; BACK TO THE FUTURE Announces North American National Tour; and PHANTOM OF THE OPERA opens lottery for tickets to final Broadway performance.
THE BIG IDEA: 6 Reasons Why You Should Produce THE 24 HOUR PLAYS!
THE CALLBACK: ENOUGH! PLAYS TO END GUN VIOLENCE Teen play submission deadline reminder!
Hot Topics
MAIN STAGE PERFORMANCES FOR 2023 INTERNATIONAL THESPIAN FESTIVAL REVEALED - Find out which exceptional high school productions will perform at the annual festival in Bloomington, Indiana, this year.
EDUCATIONAL THEATRE ASSOCIATION ANNOUNCES NEW BOARD LEADERSHIP - Richard Frazier, Cheryl Williams, and Jeff Hall are the group's newest faces.
INSIDE THE CONTROVERSIAL CARROLL HIGH SCHOOL CANCELLATION OF MARIAN - School officials say they were trying to protect students by canceling a play with queer characters, but students say they are actually feeling more unsafe.
MORE THAN 1,000 SHOWS ANNOUNCED FOR 2023 EDINBURGH FRINGE FESTIVAL - This is the second major round of programming announced by the famed festival.
The Broadway Beat
HOW MUCH MONEY DO BROADWAY ACTORS MAKE? - A breakdown of salaries for performers—and stage managers and musicians—who work on Broadway.
BACK TO THE FUTURE ANNOUNCES NORTH AMERICAN NATIONAL TOUR - The production is transferring from the West End to Broadway this summer.
PHANTOM OF THE OPERA OPENS LOTTERY FOR TICKETS TO FINAL BROADWAY PERFORMANCE - The history-making musical will shutter on April 16 after 35 years.
The Big Idea
6 REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD PRODUCE THE 24 HOUR PLAYS!
The Broadway Licensing Group and its Playscripts imprint are partnering with THE 24 HOUR PLAYS to offer five free licenses to produce your very own version. To celebrate, we thought we’d lay out six of the most compelling reasons to try your hand at a 24-hour theatermaking process.
PUT SIMPLY: IT’S SO MUCH FUN! - Maybe you’ve never heard of THE 24 HOUR PLAYS. We’ll break it down for you. Over the course of 24 hours, a creative community gathers to write, rehearse, and perform a series of short plays that have never been done before and will likely never be done again. The cohort gathers at a meet & greet. The writers depart to draft their casts and stay up all night to write a play they love. The directors and actors assemble in the morning, receive their scripts, and get to work. The plays are staged, spaced and teched, and 24 hours after the starting bell, the curtain goes up. And when the audience arrives to see you pull off this feat, the energy is electric on both sides of the footlights.
TIME-LIMITED THEATER BRINGS PEOPLE TOGETHER - THE 24 HOUR PLAYS process is a uniquely intense, uniquely rewarding way to bond with your theatrical community. Whether your writers, actors and directors are all high schoolers, college students, or community mainstays, creating new plays in just 24 hours forges bonds you never knew were possible. Maybe you’ll discover abilities you never knew your community had! THE 24 HOUR PLAYS inspires creativity – not just individually, but collaboratively.
Photo Credit: Danny Bristoll PARTICIPANTS GET TO DO THINGS ONSTAGE THEY ALWAYS WANTED TO - A key part of THE 24 HOUR PLAYS’ unique process is the Meet & Greet, where everyone shares a prop & costume, and where actors can describe something, they’ve always wanted to do on stage. These serve as great jumping-off points for writers, and sometimes inspire whole plays. And it’s not just actors - writers can write whatever they want overnight. THE 24 HOUR PLAYS can be anything – and that freedom produces amazing results onstage!
EVERYBODY GETS INVOLVED - It can be hard, whether you’re producing for a school or a community, to make sure everyone who wants to participate is able to participate. One of the really magic things about producing six plays in 24 hours is that there are MANY opportunities for participation. When else can you produce a show with 24 roles, where every role is featured? Or give a student, who may just have discovered they might be a director or a writer, the chance to put their work in front of an audience? THE 24 HOUR PLAYS do - in a low-stakes, high-reward, time-limited process.
Photo Credit: Danny Bristoll. YOU’RE JOINING A GREAT HISTORY OF 24 HOUR THEATERMAKING- …Since 1995, THE 24 HOUR PLAYS has brought together creative communities to produce plays and musicals written, rehearsed, and performed in 24 hours. What started out as a group of friends taking creative advantage of a theater’s “dark day” on Mondays has become, over the last thirty years, an international phenomenon. The method THE 24 HOUR PLAYS exports to licensees has been battle-tested from California to New York, from Mexico City to Finland, and from black boxes to Broadway. And when you produce THE 24 HOUR PLAYS, you join that family and become part of that legacy.
…AND AN AMAZING FAMILY OF PARTICIPANTS - Some of the greatest working talents of our age have written, acted, directed, or produced THE 24 HOUR PLAYS. Would you believe Jennifer Aniston acted in THE 24 HOUR PLAYS? How about Wayne Brady, Billy Crudup, Rosario Dawson, Daveed Diggs, and Peter Dinklage? Lynn Nottage has written for THE 24 HOUR PLAYS. So has David Lindsay-Abaire. And that’s just a fraction. We think that sounds like a list worth joining.
And just for kicks, here’s a bonus seventh reason.
IT’S NOW EASIER THAN EVER TO LICENSE THE 24 HOUR PLAYS - Broadway Licensing and THE 24 HOUR PLAYS have partnered to make licensing this model a cinch – and included with your license is the handbook outlining processes and best practices for making your 24-Hour Play series a success. There’s never been a better time, so consider making THE 24 HOUR PLAYS a part of your next season!
Click here to learn more and discover how you can be entered to win a free 24 HOUR PLAYS license!
Check out the video below to learn even more about THE 24 HOUR PLAYS!
The Callback
ENOUGH! PLAYS TO END GUN VIOLENCE PLAY SUBMISSION DEADLINE REMINDER! TEEN WRITERS: SUBMIT YOUR PLAYS BY APRIL 20!
ENOUGH! is calling on TEEN WRITERS (ages 13-19) to submit 10-MIN PLAYS confronting the issue of GUN VIOLENCE. Chosen plays will be published by Playscripts, an imprint of Broadway Licensing, and performed nationwide, and the writers will receive $500. Teen Writers must submit their plays by April 20 at enoughplays.com/writing.
Click here to view the original article from last month’s The Scene.
