A firsthand look at theatre students racing the clock on January 9 and 10, to create and produce a 15-minute production.
7:30 p.m. | Brainstorming begins
Bell Center buzzes as students gather in teams to launch MidAmerica Nazarene University’s eighth annual 24-Hour Theatre Festival. Organized by the MNU Theatre Council as a fundraiser, the event challenges teams to create original one-act plays or musicals—writing, rehearsing, designing, and performing them in a single day. Laptops open. Ideas fly. In one group, the seed is planted: a cute museum date, a third wheel, and a surveillance-society art heist.
8:17 p.m. | The assignment
Brainstorming ends, and Faith Demlow, a junior and the assigned script writer, looks over her notes and wonders how she’s going to be able to pull all the ideas together for a production that must be 15 minutes or less.
11:46 p.m. | The wall
In her dorm room, writer Faith is deep in Dr. Pepper, chocolate, and required plot points: a book prop and the line “I need to lie down.” Writer’s block hits hard. She changes sodas. She changes scenery. The story resists her.
1:23 a.m. | Breakthrough
The a-ha moment comes in waves, then all at once. Characters solidify. Jokes sharpen.
2:57 a.m. | Done-ish
Faith finishes a script. Initially, she isn’t sure if it’s good or bad. All she knows is that it’s done.
9:48 a.m. | First read-through
Actors gather. Laughter erupts immediately when Brandon Baker (’19) opens with his character speaking in a French accent. Faith fidgets with a lucky keychain as her words land for the first time. Theatre Director Heather (Mathias ’98) Tinker slips in to listen. “This festival captures the heart of what we do,” Tinker says. “Students take huge creative risks, lean on each other, and discover they’re capable of far more than they thought—especially when the clock is working against them.”
10:58 a.m. | All hands on deck
Blocking begins. Chairs become museum props. Hallways become rehearsal rooms. Even the embedded reporter is cast as a “human easel,” holding artwork onstage. In 24-hour theatre, everything is a resource.
1:35 p.m. | The low point
Scripts are pulled. The read-through becomes a “stumble-through” stretching a 14-minute show into 30. Lines falter. Energy dips. Pressure settles into the room.
3:09 p.m. | The turn
Caity Nelson (’24), the group’s assigned director, calls for commitment. The cast locks in. Accents find purpose. Bits sharpen.
3:18 p.m. | Sensing Order
The team completes a full run near time. The chaos organizes itself.
4:14 p.m. | Dress rehearsal
The cast assembles on stage. The production has some rough patches, but it’s nearly there. More importantly, it’s still under 15 minutes. Caity wants the actors to be louder and not rush some of the transitions. A six-year veteran of this event, she can sense when the audience is going to laugh, and she wants to make sure everyone does Faith’s script justice.
6:30 p.m. | Call
Warm-ups echo through the black box. Last-minute ideas surface. Breathing exercises steady nerves. Everyone takes their place.
7:30 p.m. | Curtain
Faith watches her story performed for the first time. Fourteen minutes later, applause replaces exhaustion. After a relentless day, the odyssey ends where it began: with students pulling for each other, proving that in 24 hours, a community can build a world and bring it fully to life.
Epilogue
The 24-hour process requires flexibility on everyone’s part, but watching the collaboration was even more inspiring. The technical team might be the unsung heroes of this story, setting the mood with lighting and introducing the right sound effects on cue. I keep thinking, “They do this in one day. What do they do on the other 364 days?” Heather has an answer for anyone interested in the theatre program at MNU: “Join us at our SPARK Camp June 1-5. Registration opens soon! The time is now.”
