Playcrafters presents the 24-hour Arts Festival September 11

by Julia Ridenhour

Playcrafters will present its third annual 24-hour Arts Festival at 2 p.m. on Sunday, September 11 in the I.G. Greer Studio Theatre on the Appalachian State University campus. Admission is free and seating is on a first-come, first-seated basis.

All students are invited to participate in the 24-hour Arts Festival. An interest meeting will be held at 1 p.m. on September 10 and anyone planning to participate, whether it be directing, acting, technical theatre, playwriting or stage managing, should attend. This year, Playcrafters will include a dance component in the performance, therefore, dancers and choreographers are needed.


24-hour rehearsal
Actors involved in the 24-Hour Arts Festival rehearse their show in the early hours of the morning. They’ve had a long night of auditions and rehearsals and are getting close to their performance in front of a live audience later in the day. Photo by Melanie Lech.
 

The event will begin at 2 p.m. on September 10 with the playwrights as they write one-act plays in only a few short hours. Then, the selected directors will have the opportunity to choose a play and start planning before the actors arrive. Auditions will take place late in the evening; however, everyone who is interested will be utilized. It’s then a race against time to learn lines, find props and put together costumes before the plays go in front of an audience just 24 hours later. While participants may be sleep deprived, they will leave with an experience that is one of a kind.

TJ Lewis, a senior theatre performance major, is leading the 24-hour Arts Festival this year. “It’s an awesome experience and it is a great way to get more people involved with the department,” says Lewis. For more information and updates about the event, visit the Appalachian State University Playcrafters Facebook page.

 

 Auditions
Actors await audition results late at night near the beginning of the process that is the 24-hour Arts Festival. Now in its third consecutive season, this annual festival is becoming a much-anticipated event due to the uniqueness of writing, casting, directing, designing, rehearsing and performing multiple different plays in a single 24 hour period of time. Photo by Playcrafters.
 

Founded in 1933 by Cratis Williams and Rogers Whitener, Playcrafters is a campus organization open to all students who are interested in theatre. The club sponsors the 24-hour Arts Festival, as well as an annual festival of original one-act plays written, directed, designed and performed entirely by students. Most recently, the club took Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” to the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh as part of Burning Coal Theatre Company’s Shakespeare Marathon.

About I.G. Greer Studio Theatre

I.G. Greer Studio Theatre is located on the east side of I.G. Greer Hall below the auditorium, with a separate entrance on the side of the building. Parking is available after 5 p.m. each weekday on campus in faculty lots, and after 5:30 p.m. daily in the College Street parking deck near Belk Library and Information Commons and the Rivers Street parking deck.

Media Contact
Julia Ridenhour
704-221-4065
Ridenhourjn@appstate.edu

Students rehearse for the 2015 24-hour arts festival.
Published: Sep 1, 2016 8:48am

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