Event

14/48: The World's Quickest Theater Festival

Nearly 50 Austin actors, playwrights, directors, designers and musicians will make 14 world-premiere plays in 48 hours as part of 14/48: The World's Quickest Theater Festival October 17 and 18, 2014 at THE VORTEX. There will be two performances each night at 7:30 p.m. and again at 10 p.m. Each night features seven different, brand-new plays.

14/48: The World's Quickest Theater Festival was started in Seattle, Wash., in 1998 and quickly became a staple of that city's theater community, bringing together artists from every type of performance discipline and at every stage of their career. Now the festival's umbrella organization, 14/48 Projects, is helping new communities around the globe start their versions of the festival. Leicester, England, began their 14/48 in 2013. Now three former Seattle artists living in Austin, Joanna Garner, Zoey Cane Belyea, and Julie Gillis, are spearheading the launch of Austin's festival.

"This city has so many amazing, talented, totally daring theater makers," said Belyea, a Gale Theatre company member and teaching artist at ZACH Theatre. "We want to lock them all up in The VORTEX, give them lots of beer, and see what happens."

During 14/48, seven world-premiere plays are written, cast, directed, rehearsed, scored, designed and performed twice in 24 hours. The entire process is then repeated the next day with seven new plays.

Participants and audience members have the opportunity to complete the sentence: "Theatre would be a lot more interesting if there were seven ten-minute plays about _____." One answer per night is chosen at random, and the writers spend the night crafting a play based on that theme. In the morning, directors choose scripts and casts at random.