The McKay Auditorium was filled on the night of May 18 with an audience eager to witness the culmination of the 24-Hour Theatre Project, the first activity of its kind, set up by the BYU–Hawaii Theatre Department. Students who signed up were divided into groups the night before and given 24 hours to write, direct, cast and perform a play. Four plays were performed and received great praise from the audience. Cast members said while the time limit was difficult, it allowed for greater creativity in their performance.
Angela Fantone, a senior majoring in English from the Philippines, was part of the second group who performed a sketch entitled “The Dream Team.” She said, “Surprisingly, when you’re constricted with time, you don’t allow for any fluff or anything unnecessary. You’re forced to cut to the chase and work with what you have.
“A project like this can be stressful, but having a great team lessens that pressure. It feels great to see all our hard work come to life. But I’m also a little sad because it’s over so fast.”
The 67 participants who signed up were randomly divided into groups. Each of the four groups were given a budget of 50 dollars from the Theatre Department and began work on their projects the night of May 17. They stayed in the auditorium until 2 a.m., when they were required to be back in their homes, and slept until 7 a.m., according to Fantone.
According to Kristl Densley, assistant professor of theatre, the project was designed so the students “are able to collaborate as peers and work together to tell a completely unique story. It allows students to do things they have never done before. They are also able to work without the fear of being wrong.
“Anytime you allow students to create together, something wonderful happens. Also, because of the time they have together, it naturally forces them to create and then evaluate and then create more or change the original. They really come to rely on each other. The benefits of this project far exceed the just creative. Working closely with others in a creative capacity creates a shared experience they will remember forever.”
The first play, entitled “Bath Bomb,” told the story of two groups of roommates, one male and one female. The female group deals with the drama of going on a blind date, and the added drama of finding an unexpected surprise in their bathtub. Across the hallway, the male group works to get rid of a spider in their own bathtub. With only fifty dollars to make a set, the group was forced to make only one bathtub, even though the script called for two.
Because of the one bathtub, Josefa Rupeni, a senior majoring in information technology from Fiji, said, “It made me definitely rethink about the extent of my abilities. We were forced to be creative and set the play so one group would freeze and the other did part of their scene, that way the audience could figure out the one tub was supposed to represent two different ones, depending on the scene. Being forced to cut corners added to the audience’s involvement.”
Keanu Dellona, a sophomore majoring in psychology and music from California, was also in Fantone’s group, where he portrayed a snobby badminton player in “The Dream Team.” The sketch told the story of Bunny, a new student at a high school, struggling to fit in with the various social cliques. Of the sketch, Dellona said, “We wanted to show a normal high school environment, but make fun of the different cliques you find in high school and how ridiculous it is when kids separate themselves this way.”
Devin Hampton, a senior majoring in theatre from California, came to introduce his group, which he joked was “‘The best group going third.’ 24 hours ago, I didn’t know any of the people in my group, and I’m so grateful because I’m really impressed with how they’ve worked. The thing I’ve learned most from this project is really how complex theatre is an art form. It’s living... and it requires an audience to help it come to life.”
“We can’t just walk around here reciting Shakespeare,” Hampton said. “This project requires an audience.”
With his introduction finished, Hampton walked offstage and the third performance, “The King’s Sacrifice” began. It began with an elderly man, played by Samuel Tobon, a sophomore majoring in business management from Colombia, living in a nursing home, tended to by a loyal nurse. Once the old man was settled in bed, the nurse began telling him his favorite story about a brave king who had to go on a quest to find his daughter.
The setting shifted, changing from a nursing home to medieval fantasy, with Tobon’s old man character springing into action as the king, out on a quest to find his daughter, who had been kidnapped by the wicked witch. The nurse took the role of his squire, and they journeyed together through land and sea to rescue the princess. With a small budget, the group could not build any scenery except a wooden gateway painted to look like stone.
In one scene, the king and his squire needed to row across a body of water. The production used a kayak with wheels mounted on the bottom, and an actor offstage would pull it forward or back with a rope. Tobon said, “We knew we wanted to do a big, epic story, but certainly did not have the budget to build a forest or a real boat. We, the group, remembered theatre is about using your imagination and creating the world you inhabit on the stage. Plus, the kayak boat got a lot of laughs from the audience.”
The final performance was “Drop Dead Doug,” a comedy which takes place at the funeral of a man named Doug. His family, friends, and boss are in attendance. Each mourner offered their condolences to their departed father and friend while showing their true colors and real motives behind going to the funeral. His wife began mourning his death, only to be seduced by the money of his friend. His boss, a mustachioed ice cream company CEO with a thick southern accent got the most laughter out of the crowd, as he gifted Doug’s dead body with a pint of Ben and Jerry’s.
After the performances ended, Marina Hadley, a freshman majoring in peacebuilding from Utah, said she was left jealous of the creativity she saw on display, and it made her want to write her own play. “It’s hard to believe these guys conceived, wrote, rehearsed and performed this in less than a day,” she said enthusiastically.
“When I write, I feel like it takes me forever to come up with an original idea. I’m so impressed these students were able to move past their differences and come up with a play in so little time.”
Reflecting on the project being over, Fantone said, “It feels great to see all our hard work come to life. But I’m also a little sad because it’s over so fast. Even so, that is the joy of theatre. Theatre is different from movies because while the movies can be watched over and over again, plays last for one night, then live in on only in memory, and I’ll remember this for a long time.”
Writer: Elijah Hadley