It’s 6:09 a.m., and there are still four actors missing. Phone calls are being made (and ignored), suggestions thrown out for possible replacements, names highlighted, crossed off and circled. And yet, amid all the chaos, there’s still time to muse over how clever “the play with the dinosaur” is and decide on the food plans for later in the day. This is Company 157, and there’s no time for a meltdown. In fact, the members of this festival have fewer than 14 hours to make sure the six original plays are ready to go by 8 p.m. — rehearsed and memorized, with costumes, props and set pieces.
The night before, writers, actors and directors gathered into the Arthur Wagner Theatre — some veterans of the festival, others coming in with new eyes, unaware of how the next 24 hours would play out. Company 157 is an undergraduate theater production company that funds and publicizes productions by UCSD students. In addition to that, they create opportunities — such as the 24 Hour Play Festival — for students to get involved in and oversee a workshop series, ranging from stage combat to improv.
During week one of each quarter, Company 157 puts on the 24 Hour Play Festival, meaning that everything — from the writing to the directing to the props and costumes — are created during the time span of a single day. During the initial meeting held at 8 p.m., the writers are given three pieces of information to help them mold their scripts together: a theme, a line of dialogue and a prop of some kind, all of which must be incorporated in the final product. This quarter, the theme is “cover-up,” (open to the writer’s interpretation) and the prop is bread — and the line of dialogue? “I’m gonna pop some tags, only got twenty dollars in my pocket.”
Laughter ensues following Macklemore’s “Thrift Shop” staple, and the room buzzes with anticipation for the end results.
“It’s a clusterfuck, and it’s awesome,” Mary Hill, one of the directors, says. “The audience loves it because you’re just going with it.”
The writers are given a certain number of characters to work with — three girls and one boy, one boy and one girl, and so on. It’s the first time they’ve had to write six plays, as the festival has been garnering more attention and interest each quarter. With this knowledge, the writers disperse with their Macs and energy drink of choice and work until 4 a.m., when they have to send in their finished scripts.
Half past four in the morning rolls around, and senior theater student Annelise Shafer, one of the festival’s producers, is waiting anxiously for the remainder of the scripts to arrive.
“I was at FedEx refreshing my inbox every second to see when they would turn their scripts in so I could be at the theater by 5 a.m. — when the directors would get there — with enough scripts for them and their actors.”
Every script makes it to their director. They’re smart, witty and dynamic. The playwrights did their job for only having eight hours to throw together these pieces. From junior Rebecca Hicks’ charming unrequited love story “Dinosaur Play” to Josefine Damgaard’s “Chocolate Covered Trout” — a “Bridesmaids” meets “The Hangover” debacle of hung over college girls and a kidnapped pizza delivery man — there’s a lot to work with and just enough time to do it — if the schedule goes according to plan.
At 7:49 a.m., in Room 155 of Galbraith Hall, a director and her actor are waiting for an actress who’s dragging her disheveled roommate out of bed to compensate for the missing performers. The director, Rebecca Doyle, is in the middle of teaching her actor, Jesse Duarte, the art of waking oneself up with a warm-up she calls “swings,” something quite reminiscent of your neighborhood car dealership’s inflatable dancing man.
“We haven’t been very productive,” Duarte says. “If this play was like the one I was in last quarter, it would’ve been so bad if one of the actors hadn’t shown up, but in this case, it’s not that bad. It’s not a big deal.”
And as the day progresses, it’s proved not to be a terrible hindrance. By 11 a.m., all six of the cast members (including the three that had changes in their actors due to the late arrivals) have completed blocking their movements, and many were either nearly or entirely off-book (they had all of their lines memorized).
Each director has his/her own directing style, such as Andres Ramacho’s flair for improvisation.
“You give them little bread crumbs, and they’ll follow it and find gold,” Ramacho says. “It gave them backstory within 30 minutes. They just kind of fall into their characters.”
Others used warm-up games or yoga. Despite these differences and considering they were all rehearsing in separate rooms, it’s intriguing to observe how each of them ended up on the same time frame. No one is further ahead or behind schedule than anyone else.
Of course, issues arise, such as whether or not there are any other “white mints that look like mints but also look like pills,” besides the ones currently being used by one cast because they “can’t chew them fast enough,” “Waiting” actress Anouk Chalmers says. Even more pressing? Where to find a dinosaur suit on a Saturday afternoon. Sarah Kowalski, the prop master and costume designer, had quite a bit of running around to do.
“The key to getting everything in time is to make lists and then make more lists and then make lists of the lists,” Kowalski says. “The most difficult thing to find was the dinosaur costume.”
One of the actors just so happened to have a spare on his hands.
“We also had a lot of difficulty with the set for ‘Actress-ing’ because the script originally called for a [stripper] pole, but that wasn’t feasible, so we found a platform instead,” she continues. “But it was extremely heavy and didn’t fit in the elevator or the inside staircase, so we had to take it around the outside of the building. It was a ton of really hard work — I was going basically non-stop from 4:15 a.m. to 10 p.m. — but to see the finished product come together so beautifully was too much fun to pass up.”
“It’s a win-win situation,” Shafer says. “If it goes bad, it’s funny because the audience knows it was only 24 hours. If it goes great, it’s amazing, because the audience knows it was only 24 hours. You really can’t lose.”
With odds like that, it makes sense why such a variety of people are drawn to it.
The clock hits 6:09 for the second time in 24 hours, and the tech-run is finished. Amidst the panic of losing two essential props (a can of hairspray and a pepper shaker), it’s clear that a community has developed in the Arthur Wagner Theatre. Silent murmurs and introductions have transpired into stripper jokes and dance-offs; it’s a room full of cohorts and misfits all brought together for one purpose: to create.
At 7:49 p.m., the stage is set. Lights are dimmed, the couch is perfectly catty-cornered, empty alcohol bottles are in position; all are ready in waiting for the actors of “Chocolate Covered Trout.” Every seat in the theater is filled, and by 8:07 p.m., the show has begun. While no huge mishaps, spills, falls, or crying occurred (darn), the focus and dedication everyone had for this process paid off.
“It’s a get on your feet and go kind of thing, and the worry isn’t about being good. It’s just about getting through it together,” Ramacho says. “As we keep doing the festival, it gets stronger and becomes a real show that everyone can be proud of.”
So what’s next for them and the 24 Hour Play Festival? “We’re thinking musical,” co-producer Rio Villa says. For this lot, it’s a feat just crazy enough.
