(Chloe Holden/Contributing Photographer)

Visitors to the ’92 Theater last Saturday were greeted by a trio of slightly crazed-looking individuals gamboling on a raised circular platform. They ran, skipped, jumped, wrapped each other in a blanket, and generally made fools of themselves in front of the audience. But these people were not clowns–they were Blair Laurie ’12, Lu Corporan ’13, and Lily Haje ’13, the three coordinators of Second Stage’s 24 Hour Play Festival, and their task—which had kept them up sleepless for over 35 hours—was nearly at its end.

First started in 1995 in Manhattan, the 24 Hour Plays have a 16-year history of success in all venues from the low end of the professional scale to college and high school campuses. The concept is as simple as the title: plays are begun late the night before the performance (in this case, Friday night) and handed over to directors in the wee hours of the morning. Directors cast the shows from a pre-registered group of actors, and rehearsals begin more or less as soon as possible. In the afternoon, all shows go through their technical rehearsals in a mad dash to opening night, when the plays are performed for the first (and frequently, last) time in front of an audience.

Everyone at such a performance is aware—if only from the title—of the conditions under which their entertainment is produced. Saturday night’s audience was in attendance to see what the performers and the writers could produce in the limited time constraints, not to criticize or demand high art. The energy in the theater was friendly and even cheerful; none of the rampant stress that must have plagued the production process was evident.

Fortunately, there was very little in the series of short plays that needed forgiveness. For a 24 Hour event, it was remarkably technically competent (the technical staff was listed as Evan DelGaudio ’12, Ross Firestone ’12, and “That Matt guy”), and the 33-person group of writers, directors, and actors seem to have pulled off their respective tasks with success. The production involved all class years, from freshmen to a super-senior and a graduate student (Mica Taliaferro ’12 and Jakob Schaeffer, respectively), and by and large, the plays were entertaining and, at times, truly funny. Shtick was easily the most common factor and most successful tactic. (Perhaps best exemplified by a hilarious scene that involved choking on a fish bone and featured Scott Shoemaker ’13, Michael Inkles ’12, and Noah Masur ’15, the latter of whom entered the stage at the start of one play in a full-body rabbit suit). Only one play, “The Boundaries of the Universe” by S. Dylan Zwickel ’14, was entirely dramatic and non-farcical. Another, “Jason Redgrove Meets a Killer,” a second musical by  Nathaniel Leich ’12 and Max Nussenbaum ’12, the incomparable team that brought us “Charlie Greengould Meets Himself.” The lyrics were forgotten during performance, but nobody cared.

That same easy-going spirit pervaded the entire performance: its goal was fun and enjoyment, not high art. As the comedy trio in “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare [Abridged]” puts it, “We don’t need to do it justice, we just need to do it.”  There was certainly an aspect of the ridiculous: “Launder Yonder” by Matt Amylon ’14 featured a—wait for it—female luchadora constantly wearing a mask who, if I had to guess, sounded like she was from India. But that didn’t matter. It was fun.

Even those who lost sleep over the project enjoyed it. When asked about the writing process, Zwickel responded, “Exhausting. The pressure of the time constraint was a good motivator.”

Haje, a coordinator, added, “It. Was. Fucking. Awesome. I haven’t slept in thirty-seven-and-a-half hours, and I’ve never felt better.”

Many would call that theatrical success.