Student dramatists prep for speedy theater

A cyborg turned into a mother on-stage last year. The delirium is none other than a product of the sleeplessness and silliness that always accompanies the semesterly 24-Hour Theater project.

Members of Unbound and Inktank—student directors, writers, actors and designers—meet at 9:30 p.m. on a Friday night. 24 hours later, they will put on four different shows—all written, made and produced in that very 24 hours. Stephanie Mischell '12 and Benny Witkovsky '12 introduced the event—24-Hour Theater—to Vassar two years ago.

After members of Unbound and Inktank sort out who will write, direct and perform they will meet on Friday night. Unbound is devoted solely to experimental, non-traditional and even atypical theater. Inktank is a subgroup of Unbound, a playwriting collective.

Four writers from Inktank will receive prompts, and use their next 12 hours to write and devise their respective plays. 12 hours later at 9 a.m. the next Saturday morning, the writers will pack it up and go home to finally rest.

Four new teams of directors, tech designers, and actors will take up their new plays and work until the directors have finished directing, the actors have memorized their lines—well, they still have to improvise sometimes—and tech has figured out logistics and lights.

Right before the show starts, groups of people will be scrambling around campus looking for costumes and props that they can borrow from anybody they can find. Then at 9:30 p.m. on Saturday night, the show will go on. Sleep isn't ever scheduled into the 24-hour period.

"I think that's why Benny and I started this: because we like theater and we don't like sleeping, so let's just stay awake!" Mischell joked. "It's an excuse to drink a lot of coffee."

Mischell explained 24-Hour Theater with an apt comparison. "It definitely forces you to be creative," Mischell said. "It's like that Calvin and Hobbes comic where Calvin says, ‘You can't rush creativity,' and Hobbes says, ‘What makes creativity work?' And Calvin says, ‘Last minute desperation!'" And that is what 24-Hour Theater is all about."

Mischell was partially responsible for bringing 24-Hour Theater back to Vassar's campus. "You can really feel all of the excitement and all of the energy of both groups and it's crazy to think about," Mischell said, "because each group really only has 12 hours to do a whole show, and it kind of becomes your whole world for that day. I'm always amazed at how well it works out in the end."

Mischell appreciates Vassar's many theater projects, but still thinks there is a special place for 24-Hour Theater.

"There's a ton of theater on this campus. We have all these amazing shows that people work so hard on and that are incredible and that I know I could never do," Mischell said.

She added, "But what's great about 24 Hour Theater is that it's kind of a show for the rest of us. It's great for me and I think for a lot of people because it's an opportunity to do theater that's really just aimed at challenging yourself and having fun."

A biology major, Mischell helped re-establish 24-Hour Theater at Vassar along with her friend Witkovsky, a Peace and Conflicts major, in their sophomore year. Mischell used to perform a lot more, but considers 24-Hour Theater alone now enough.

Mischell joined Unbound during her freshman year. She had done theater in high school, but never been behind a production. Loving it, she continued her theatrical interests through Unbound's 24-Hour Theater. "What's great about it is that Benny and I both love theater and have done a lot of theater, but are not necessarily theater people," Mischell said.

Both Mischell and Witkovsky often go beyond the duties of hosting for the chaotic event. "We often take on random jobs," Mischell said. "We've written before, we've directed and this semester we might be co-writing."

In previous years, 24-Hour Theater took place in the Susan Shiva Stein Theater. Mischell partly likes the new setting for its extra seating availability, but also for its novelty. "As much as we love the Shiva, there's a lot of different things that you can do in Sanders that you can't in the Shiva," Mischell said. "We have the big projector and the blackboards. We need something new."

Having acted in last semester's performance of 24-Hour Theater, Benjamin Olneck-Brown '15 encouraged people to be a part of 24-Hour Theater this year, or subsequent ones.

"It's hilarious. It's unlike anything you'll ever see. It's one of a kind," Olneck-Brown said. "This is something that's been created in the last 24-hours, and it's the only time that it will ever be performed. Not very often will you be able to see a new piece of theater like this."

This semester's production, set for Saturday, Feb. 18 at 9:30 p.m. in Sanders Classroom should be as hectic and sleep-deprived as ever. It takes place right after the student-faculty basketball game, making it a nice stop for your theater fix after your sports mix.

"It's a short, high-energy show and it's a great opportunity to see people who you know and love on campus just making complete fools of themselves," Mischell said. "But then you remember that they just did that in the last ten hours and you're like, ‘That's impressive.'"

Olneck-Brown echoed Mischell's enthusiasm. "24-Hour Theater was a really great experience," he said, "because it was really exciting to see theater come together in such a short period of time."