What a cool concept the 24 Hour Plays is! In a nutshell, a handful of writers, directors, and actors have just 24 hours to come up with an original idea and then at the end of the day have it performed live in front of a streaming audience (myself included this time around). Normally, 24 Hour Plays take place in a live setting in cities all over the world and include plays, musical, and monologues. Since the pandemic started, they’ve adapted the concept into a streaming capacity, which I think is a great way to keep the creative going!
In total, there were six plays and seven solo performances that I got to watch last night. All were extremely creative and other than a couple of the smallest of technical difficulties, everything ran very smooth! Each play lasted around ten minutes or so, with the individual performances lasting several minutes a piece. The night was filled to the brim with talent and I felt giddy as each segment was about to start.
The musical performances came from Lolo, M, Ward, Jesse Eisenberg, Andra Day, Impromptu Beats, and Mike Dougherty. Obviously, Jesse Eisenberg was the standout to me, but Lolo and Andra really impressed me with their vocals. I’ve only ever heard of the two artists by name but have never explored their work before. Jesse’s song was comedic in nature about how he had 24 hours to write a song and wasted 23 of them. Hopefully at some point in the future that ends up on Youtube because it was fantastic.
Speaking of fantastic, the plays were, too! The first play was called “The Coatroom” and starred the likes of Annasophia Robb and Carly Hughes. It focused on an online exclusive chat with people who wear big coats. All of them were oddballs and apparently one of them was a ghost! Next up was “The Ballad of Bobby Brady” where the youngest brother of The Brady Bunch discovers he grew up but doesn’t want to. This play unfortunately suffered from some technical difficulties which made it a little hard to follow, but David Cross always manages to make things entertaining. Rounding out the first intermission was “The Far-Flung Four” about a pair of couples meeting up on a virtual double date. This one was all about the props like a dog candle, a variety of knives, and a stun gun! Katherine McNamara, Clark Gregg, and Noah Galvin totally committed and made this a delight to watch!
After the intermission there were three more plays lined up, starting with “Hindsight Is…” which focused on three pairings taking a look back at their lives. All react vastly differently to the amount of time they’ve known each other, and this play just further proves that Michelle Gomez is a queen! Next up was a pretty serious drama called “Four Years Ago,” and it featured two of my favorite actors: Hugh Dancy of Hannibal and Matt Lauria of Kingdom! A group of friends that have sort of lost touch get together for Hugh to announce that he wants to travel the world with Merle, while she joins later and says she wants to settle down with Hugh. Awkward! Finally, my favorite play of the evening, “Misdial,” closed out the night. Let’s just say it involved a bunch of people named Amy, a couple receptionists, and a man who got dumped for his hideous clothing choices. Hysterical! It also helps that Rachel Dratch, Gillian Jacobs, and Amy Hargreaves were a part of it.
This was my first time ever partaking in an event like this, and without the opportunity to go see plays in person like I did last year, this was pretty darn cool! And fun! I could also tell how much fun the performers were having (and that’s saying a lot for something taking place over Zoom). If more of these 24 Hour Plays pop up in upcoming months, count me in!