24 Hour Madness!

24 Hour Madness!

            What an amazing experience we had last Saturday evening at the Provincetown Theater! When I heard about the 24-Hour play project 4 years ago, my first thought was: A person would have to be nuts to try that!  I didn’t actually attend one of these mid-winter insanities until this year and now I’m very sorry I missed all the others. We went expecting little. We got a wonderful evening of true community theatre, (anyone who knows me knows that’s my favorite soapbox), a dazzling display of writing, directing and acting talent and on top of all that, it was really funny!

            We arrived early because I had heard a lot of talk around town and I thought it might be crowded. Never mind that it was January and there aren’t too many people here right now, to put it gently. My wife is not a tall person and it’s always best if she can sit in the front row, which we did, except that suddenly we were in the third row, behind a row of chairs and a couch because there were so many people they had to add seats! A very gallant gentleman in the new front row recognized our problem and he and his wife switched seats with us, but my point is, the theater was full! Not only was every seat taken, but there were still people coming in! I’ve seen shows in the summer that don’t attract that many people. That’s when I knew it would be a very special evening.

            And it was. Each offering was engaging, well-acted and well-written and lots of fun, which blew me away because I knew that none of the actors had laid eyes upon a script before Saturday morning, and in fact, none of the plays had existed before the previous day. What a feat!

            In addition to the plays, the event itself was extremely well-organized and ran very smoothly. I can’t imagine it was easy: 8 playwrights, 8 directors, and all those wonderful actors, plus a theater filled to bursting with an eager audience. There was a

Q & A following the plays, catered by Farland. Pretty great evening for a reasonable price.

            The best part of the evening for me was the opening speech by Stuard Derrick. He dedicated the evening to our friend Mary Kevin Shenk, who passed away last week. Everyone who has worked with the PTC for the past 20 years knows who Kevin was, as do the countless audiences she entertained onstage. She was a huge part of our community theatre company and I’m sure she was there with us Saturday for a wonderful night of theatre.

Thank you to all who participated. You were all fabulous! You are the people who are keeping community theatre alive here. Thank you.