Written by Emma McDaris // Graphic by Ben Evans
A group on Harding’s campus hosted an annual event last weekend that encouraged participants to explore their creativity and produce a play within a short time constraint.
Campus Players, a student-led theatrical group, hosted the 24-hour writing project Feb. 24-25. This challenge involved students taking on the roles of writer, director or actor, then creating and producing a 10-minute play in 24 hours.
Junior Madison Soper, the vice president of Campus Players, organized the event and participated as a director.
“It’s been a staple in Campus Players for a really long time, and it’s something that everyone looks forward to because of how it builds community and how people are able to grow in their strengths and their weaknesses,” Soper said. “And it’s just a really beautiful time of us staying up really late — probably a little bit crazily — and then just hanging out.”
The process relied on collaborative creativity as writers and directors sat down on the first night to create an outline of a show. The next day, actors showed up, auditioned and rehearsed all day until the performance that night.
Freshman Scott Young Jr. performed in the 10-minute drama “The Grapes of Rats.” He said he arrived at the Ulrey Performing Arts Center at 8 a.m. and had a full day from there.
“It’s been so much fun,” Young said. “I feel just so much stronger as an actor after doing this, and [it] just really made me realize how talented some of these people are and how talented my friends are.”
The event gave students hands-on experience in the creative process and production elements that normally take weeks to produce a show. It also gave student playwrights time to exercise their creativity and get almost immediate feedback on how their writing would be translated to the stage.
Sophomore Kessler Baker co-wrote an absurdist comedy with sophomore Campbell Gilreath titled “That’s the Way the Fortune Cookie Crumbles.” He said the actors that were cast for their script were able to use their own chemistry to fit with the humor.
“When I had originally written the script with Campbell, we had written the two main characters as ourselves,” Baker said. “We have a very good sense of humor; we can bounce off each other really quick … We have some talented actors here.”
