14 Plays, 48 Hours

To say that 14/48--the theater festival created entirely in the space of a weekend--is to the stage what blogging is to the written word would be more than a little insulting to 14/48, but the comparison does hold some water: in each ideas go, in the blink of an eye, from conception to the screen/stage where they fail or touch hearts without the benefit of a final (or second) draft. Local playwright Paul Mullin describes writing for the festival like this:

Here's what I think the real value of 14/48 is for playwrights: it scares the shit out of us and we love it for that very reason. It makes us let go of our pretensions, procrastinations and bag of tricks to just write for a few hours. It allows us to play with designers, directors and actors, which is so much fun and so much a part of what makes being a playwright different and--dare I say it?--better than any other kind of writer. It brings us back into the crucible to live and die by the fire trial that is and can only be live performance. It takes us so long to wright plays that more often than not we are forced to survive long dry epochs out of touch with the raw fear that floods through us at that moment when our work goes up before a live audience. It's a much needed albeit much too brief taste of the "good stuff."

14/48 is a community thing, though. It starts with a theme and then the playwrights do their thing; raw fear flooding through them and whatnot. Actors (who know no fear) come into the process along with directors, artists and musicians of all sorts--80 of them altogether--and, finally, all of us audience members. Playwrights start crafting their original works tonight and tomorrow seven ten-minute plays will be performed. Then it starts all over again for another seven new plays Saturday.

Seattlest asked Mullin, who writes intricate and exhaustively-researched plays, if he has any material prepared heading into the weekend. He replied, "No, nothing worked out because we don't know the theme until the actual night of our writing. But it's a bit like chess. There are classic "openings," "middle games," and "end games" that one kind of goes over in one's head in anticipation. Ready to spring the trap on the play, should the advantage arise." Alright! We can't wait to see the results of sprung traps this weekend.

The plays are performed Friday and Saturday night at 8 and 10:30 p.m. at the Bullitt Cabaret at ACT. Tickets are $20 online and $25 at the door.