I’ve got to take a few minutes to write about the 24-Hour Play Fest before I lose the high.

If you’re not familiar with the concept, 24-hour play festivals happen all over and involve going from nothing on a Friday to a complete production of a group of short plays the following night.  I’d heard about the phenomenon in Seattle and Minneapolis and several other cities, but I’d never had a chance to take part until last fall when the Playwrights’ Center of San Francisco was mounting their fourth 24-Hour Fest.

I know what you’re thinking.  Mount an entire show in 24 hours?  That’s just crazy!

Well yes, it is a little bit crazy.  But mostly it’s challenging and exhilarating and exhausting and fantastic.  Enough so that I came back for a second round this weekend.

We all gathered in the Tides Theatre in downtown San Francisco on Friday night.  The only thing about the weekend that was predetermined was the group of eight playwrights who would create the brand new works that we would present on Saturday.  Everything else was decided randomly in about ten minutes.

First the playwrights drew the names of the talented people who would direct their pieces.  Next, they drew the number of actors they would have to write for.  Then the directors drew the names of the actors who would play those yet-to-be-written parts.

After a brief meeting during which we actors revealed all the things we were most fabulous – and least fabulous – at, we went home to sleep and left our playwrights to spend the night crafting ten minutes of magic for us.

Which they did.

Come Saturday morning, the directors and the actors went to work.  And work.  And work.  On stages, in green rooms, in hallways and in stairwells, we worked.  Running lines, blocking, costuming, creating relationships as ourselves and as our characters all day long.

And then it was 8:00 pm.  Showtime!  The theater was sold out.  Ready or not, on we went.  It was amazing!  Would we be able to pull it off?  As always with live shows, some things went exactly as planned and some didn’t.  And often the ones that didn’t were better than we expected.  Not always, but more often than you’d think.

The 24-Hour Fest reminds me of the reasons I love to do theater.  There isn’t room for reticence or apprehension.  If you’re going to do this, you have to be ready to go.  You have to be open, willing to experiment, to be a contributor and a supporter.  That’s what makes it exciting and fun and successful.

I have always been very lucky in my theater experiences.  (I’m knocking wood as I type this – no small task.)  That luck continued this weekend.  Our playwright, Jim Norrena, gave us an extremely funny play in Finding Unison.  Our director, Scott Ragle, supported us, kept us on track and gave us lots of room to explore.  And my cast mates, Julia McArthur and Scott Baker, were just the best kind of actors to play with.

Yes, this all sounds very schmaltzy and no, I’m not going to apologize for it or be embarrassed by it.  That’s another thing I love about the theater.  We can be a little over the top and – well – we just can.

The next 24-Hour Fest in San Francisco is next spring.  Check the Playwrights’ Center website or their Facebook page for details.  If you’re in SF, check it out.  If not, look for one in your area and go.  You’ll have a great time, believe me.