Every fall, the Fargo North Theatre Department puts together a special performance of 24 hour plays. What are 24 hour plays? Great question! A 24 hour play is a play which is written, produced, and performed all in the span of 24 hours by a large student group of writers, directors, and actors.

These people get everything necessary to put together a play in that short period of time. On Friday, Oct. 6th, at 7:30, the plays got on their way when the writers came to the theatre. The six writing teams, all consisting of two people each, had until 7:30 the following morning to write a ten minute play.

The directors and actors all arrived by 8:00 am, and then they had until 7:30 pm to put together their performance… in front of a live audience.To add to the overall experience, some people choose to write, direct, AND act. This is a feat which has been fondly nicknamed “triple-crowning” by the veterans. This is incredibly hard to do, because you have to be awake for 24 full hours, memorize all your lines, find costumes, make a set, and several other things.

This year there were six plays, five of which were comedies and one of which was dramatic. All of them were fabulous. Some had different types of humor than others, one had vampires, another was based on a 90s sitcom stereotype, and one of them had a real dog as an actor!
This was my third year of being both an audience member and a participant of the 24 hour plays, and I can honestly say that this year was the best set of plays I’ve ever seen.

People were ready to go on stage, everyone had costumes, everyone had fantastic characters, and it was just entertaining.
No matter what kind of theatre event you go to, whether it’s a play, a musical, or an improv show, there’s usually at least one moment where the audience gets bored and zones out, but that didn’t happen at the 24 hour plays.  I was engaged, interested, and laughing myself silly the whole time. I even saw a grown man laugh so hard he cried.

Overall, 24 hour plays were a great experience, both for the participants and for the audience. I recommend this to anyone interested in theatre, and I will definitely be attending again next year.