CincyFringe 22.5 Hour Play Project Starts Tonight!

The Cincinnati Fringe Festival's 22.5 hour play project starts tonight at about 12:30 AM after Fringe Olympics. There are still a few spots open. Here are all of the details:

Does a 12 day festival of explosive and experimental independent performing arts seem a little too…rehearsed to you? Is the honest, free-form flavor of unbridled creativity that runs rampant at the Cincy Fringe a little…over-polished for your spontaneous personality? Are you looking for the freshest of the fresh, the rawest of the raw, the spontaeousest of the spontaneous?

This year’s Cincy Fringe is embracing that critical mass of contagious creativity that incubates amid all of the artistic stimulation of the festival. We invite your participation in our first attempt at a 24-Hour Play Project.

Artists meet, are assembled into teams, given some very loose framework, synchronize their watches, and meet again 24 (or in our case, maybe something like 22 ½) hours later, each team with a short play that has been written, staged, rehearsed, memorized and ready to perform in less time than it takes for this lumbering old planet we’re sitting on to heave itself around on its axis.


HERE’S HOW IT WORKS:
-You sign up by emailing sbowman@knowtheatre.com. Participation is limited to 25.
-After Fringe Olympics on Monday, June 7 (around 11:30pmish) you and the other participants assemble in Know Theatre Underground. You will be randomly assigned to teams of 4-5 people.
-Your team will be given a series of elements (perhaps a phrase, an image, a prop, and/or something else) that you are required to work into your piece.
-Your team then has until 10:30pm the following day, Tuesday, June 8 to make a play! It should be 10-15 minutes in length (no more!), be completely original (so no adaptation of or borrowing from existing works—these are to be world premiers!), it must be at least somewhat rehearsed and finished (it's not an improv jam) and other than the required elements you’ll be given, there are no restrictions!

It is up to your team to democratically allocate responsibilities. Your team can write collaboratively or assign a head writer. Your team can say “screw text” and base it on improv, music, secret dreams, or anything else. Your team can appoint one director or not. Costume designer? Dramaturg? Foley artist? Decide what needs to be done and make sure one of you does it. Your team can all act in it, or some or only one of you can act in it. Your team can do whatever your team wants. Just keep your finished product to 15 minutes and be ready to perform—no matter what—at 10:30pm Tuesday.

WHAT FRINGE PROVIDES:
A performance space. The event will take place on the Underground Stage. We will provide two chairs, a piano and two actor blocks for you to use or not use as you desire.

An audience. So make your show good. And invite your friends—admission is free as part of the Underground Series.

Access to props and costumes. During the hours of 2-4 on Tuesday afternoon, you are invited to Know Theatre’s stock storage to sign out any costume or prop pieces that you desire. We do take names and we do kick asses, so you will be held accountable for returning everything you borrow in the same condition in which you took it.

WHAT FRINGE DOES NOT PROVIDE:
Rehearsal space. Sorry—you gotta be creative here.

Uptight rules and restrictions that otherwise stifle your creative spirit. This project is about the joy of feverish creativity. We want your piece to be original and we provide some unifying elements to get you going, but otherwise you will not be censored for content. Working in a short time frame with randomly assigned partners is an experiment and is sure to lead to surprising discoveries. Have fun! Oh, but keep your clothes on while you’re on the stage—nudity’s not allowed in the Underground. Liquor laws, blah blah blah.

If you do this, you might be on my team. Ahhh! The Horror!