Producers of The World's Quickest Theater Festival & other feats of impossible theater, spanning the globe.
14/48: The World's Quickest Theater Festival
14 plays written, cast, directed, rehearsed, scored, designed, premiered in 48 hours.
This is the signature production of the The 14/48 Projects, the very first project that started it all.
Since 1997, we’ve graced many venues over the years, from Seattle Rep to On the Boards to CHAC to ConWorks and the list goes on, but we are very happy to be in the midst of a multi-year agreement with ACT Theater to feature 14/48: The World’s Quickest Theater Festival every January as part of ACTLab.
Want to know more?
Here’s how it all works…
Early Thursday Night
After tapping the ceremonial 14/48 Keg, all the participants choose a theme by completing this sentence: “Theater would be a lot more interesting if there were seven ten-minute plays about _____.”
One answer is chosen at random and that becomes the theme for the following evening. Seven terrified, excited, caffeinated writers must submit a brand new 10-minute play based on the theme by 8am Friday morning.
KATHY HSIEH
Friday Morning
Seven directors gather and each randomly draw one play. Thirty minutes later, the directors blindly choose actors names on slips of paper to cast the show.
MIMI KATANO
That Day
The band shows up to provide music and sound, designers create all technical aspects of each show as the directors and their casts rehearse all day. Each play gets 20 minutes of tech rehearsal.
ALLYSON LEE BROWN
Friday Evening
The seven plays have their World Premiere at 8pm and Final Performance at 10:30pm.
KENON VENO & RILEY GENE
MAHRIA ZOOK, AYO TUSHINDE, DEVON ALLEN, & JODI-PAUL WOOSTER
The 8pm audience provides the theme for Saturday’s show via a random drawing and the seven writers go home to start the process all over again to culminate with seven brand new scripts for Saturday evening at 8pm and 10:30pm, thus creating 14 plays in 48 hours.