LUDLOW — Plenty of people are creative but Exit 7 Players want to know if they can be creative under pressure. Beginning Friday, Jan. 17, playwrights will have just one day to create a work for the stage, actors will have less than that to learn their lines and directors will have to make it all come together for the second Annual 48-Hour Play Festival.
Zack Kinsley-Greeley and Devin Dumas are theatrical minds behind the event. Dumas said last year’s inaugural festival was “really successful,” with 10 plays submitted, although only half were produced because five directors participated.
Kinsley-Greeley and Dumas organize the festival nearly as quickly as the plays come together. It takes about a month to plan. Registration runs for one week, until Jan. 10. One week before the festival, Dumas said he and Kinsley-Greeley will speak with the directors about their directing style and make sure they can direct within the festival’s structure.
At 7 p.m. on Friday, Exit 7 Players will publish the prompts for this year’s festival on its social media pages, instagram.com/exit7players and facebook.com/@Exit7Players. The playwrights will then have 24 hours to craft their work based on those prompts. Last year, the play had to be related to the number 40, in honor of Exit 7 Player’s 40th season, and it had to “start with a bang,” or otherwise open with a big event, Dumas said. He said the plays were also required to have “some kind of dreaded reveal.”
Dumas said this year’s theme is “Puzzled” and the plays should revolve around puzzles, adventures, mysteries, etc.
From 5-7 p.m. on Saturday, actors will audition in front of the directors with the one-minute monologue of their choice. Those who are selected will receive a call later in the evening. The directors will then choose which plays they want to produce.
“It was kind of like an auction,” Dumas said of last year’s process. He elaborated, recalling the directors saying, “I’ll give you this actor if I can have that script,” or “You can have that actor if I can have this one.”
After the directors meet their respective casts at 9 a.m. on Sunday, rehearsals will run all day. Performances of the 10-minute plays that were chosen will begin at 8 p.m. This year, Dumas said he and Kinsley-Greeley are hoping to produce six plays.
Being the festival’s first year, Dumas said all the directors were known to Exit 7 Players and many of the actors had either worked with the theater company in the past or performed in other area community theater groups.
“We got writers from all over,” Dumas said, noting that some people were local to Ludlow, but other talent came from up and down the Pioneer Valley.
Dumas said he and Kinsley-Greeley, who both have experience in various aspects of the theater, do much of the technical work themselves.
“A large purpose for the festival is to get new faces into theater,” Dumas said. To that end, he added, “I’ve been encouraging any actors who miss the deadline to just come audition, anyway.” Dumas also said, “We wanted to create more dynamic events at the theater. I believe theater should be more than just doing four or five shows, and that’s it. It should be a community space.” The festival was “something fun, something out of the usual for community theater,” he said.
The sign-up Google form is available on the Exit 7 Player’s Facebook page, along with a promotional video. The plays, staged at Exit 7 Players, 37 Chestnut St., are open to the public. For more information about the 48-Hour Film Festival, visit exit7players.org.
