Amy Escobar as writer, co-director, and producer of We Go Mad pivots on family to explore the enduring suffering and yearning to related that cascade down the generations. Using cinematic shadow play, modified bunraku, plus object manipulation, Escobar presents a theatrical case study of a daughter testing the limits of her sanity
Two days, fourteen new plays. With lots of laughs and some moments of compelling drama, the second night of “The 14/48 Project” is just as skillfully executed and fun as the first.
If you’ve been to the festival or read my review from Friday’s 10:30 p.m. show, you know how “The 14/48 Project” works. The plays I saw at the Saturday 8 p.m. show were written between the playwrights receiving the prompt “Taking a Shot” on Friday night and 8 a.m. the next morning. After being assigned to plays by random drawing, the directors and actors tackled seven more new plays. The pieces I saw on Saturday night premiered after forty-eight hours of new theatre creation by an adventurous group of artists.
The atmosphere in the Gregory Falls Theater was significantly different at this Saturday World Premier show. The audience was larger and older on average. An audience member could overhear conversations between friends of the performers, or between middle-aged, male theater figures scouting talent…
Two days, fourteen new plays. “The 14/48 Project: The World’s Quickest Theater Festival” is as fun as it is impressive.
First performed in 1997, 14/48 is an even more challenging spin on the traditional 48-hour theater festival format. On Thursday evening, the artists involved kick off the festival by tapping the ceremonial 14/48 keg. A theme is then chosen at random for the writers. The seven playwrights get started on a ten-minute play on that theme (this time, “Who’s Watching Who”), which is due the following morning at eight.
On Friday, each of the seven directors is randomly assigned one of these plays. The casts are chosen (also by random drawing) soon after. The directors and actors rehearse the pieces for the rest of the day. They are joined by the not-to-be-underrated design team. The festival band contributes music and other sound. The seven new plays have their world premieres at 8 p.m. on Friday, and their final performances at 10:30 the same night.
World Premiere on Friday Night; Show Closes on Saturday Night — by Design
The set-up: as a partner project of the 14/48 Project (see reviews here and here), Centrifuge holds to 14/48’s sensibility of producing fully formed live theater in a limited amount of time. In Centrifuge’s case the clock began on Monday, June 20 when invited scientists and artists convened to toss potential topics into a large cylinder, one of which was randomly selected. … “Ready About and hard to lee.” Part of the fun opening night while waiting for the lights to go up was discussing with fellow audience members what that means.
After the draw, five writer-scientist teams
