WKU’s 24-hour play festival, “Plays in a Day,” takes place this weekend, challenging students to come up with performances on a time limit.

Held semesterly since spring 2017 by the Department of Theatre & Dance, “Plays in a Day” is completely student-run and open to all majors and minors with no experience necessary. 

Students work within a 24-hour period to produce a 10-minute play with a given genre and prompt. 

Aly Eibel, a senior fine arts major, and Adam Crawford, a sophomore fine arts major, are the producers of the festival, and said “Plays in a Day” is a great way to meet people in and outside your major.

“Whether you are a playwright, a director, or an actor, this is a great opportunity for any artist to get involved and be creative,” Eibel said. 

Participants will be placed into groups of playwrights, actors and directors. 

The groups are then asked to pick a genre and a prompt out of a hat for the 10-minute play.

“Plays in a day” gives students the chance to look into a career in fine arts or production and an opportunity to step out of their comfort zones. 

“I was a freshman last year when I first did it and it inspired me to keep producing other similar works or similar projects that I would love to keep presenting to people,” Crawford said. “I was given responsibilities that I never had before in high school, and it definitely broadened my experience.” 

One of the prompts writers can look forward to in this upcoming “Plays in a Day” is “I’m not surprised you killed him”. Participants can go in whichever direction they want to go using prompts like this one. 

“It’s such a good place for actors, especially freshmen, to dip their toe into something within the department, and on campus, especially if you love to be a performer, you have this grand stage to be up there and perform,” Eibel said. “[…]if you just want to write a play, it’s really just creative minds getting the incentive to create and giving them the space and then helping them up for everyone to see.” 

The finished plays will be performed in the Gordon Wilson Lab Theatre at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday.

Any questions can be directed to Aly Eibel and Adam Crawford at [email protected] and [email protected]. 

News reporter Genesis Malone can be reached at [email protected].