Hastings College recently hosted a unique theatrical experience for a handful of local high school students. The first ever 24-hour play festival took place on September 6-7 in the Scott Studio Theater. Senior theater major Casper Campbell (Hastings College class of 2026) was among theater majors tasked with writing one of the plays performed by the high school students and was able to provide insight on the process and give a sneak peek into what behind the scenes of the festival was like. 

“Edits in the morning were dreadful, because I was up all night, and tediously going back through everything I wrote that I thought was hilarious at two in the morning was hard. The four in the morning energy streak was pretty great though. We got into a really nice workflow, and we were so immersed in it. Seeing the performances was awesome too because they executed our script perfectly,” Campbell said.

The festival began with seven high school students, four college student playwrights and three faculty members of Hastings College Theater. This part of the evening acted as a meet and greet, where the high school students shared their skill sets on stage, the props and costumes they brought, and gave the playwrights a glimpse into their personalities. 

From there, the playwrights and directors divided students into their respective casts, and the college students were left in the theater overnight to write their scripts. In the morning, the directors and high school students came back to the theater, with the directors deciding which play they wanted to direct. The plays were performed that night, exactly 24 hours after the initial meeting of the group. 

In a question and answer session after the performances, the high school students expressed a lot of happiness with how their comfort zone was challenged during the improvisational element required to put on a show in such short notice.

“I hope they learned the importance of working with people you might not always be used to, the importance of going for it and not being afraid onstage, and I hope they got a good understanding of teamwork. When you go through something crazy like that, you just have to rely on your fellow actors,” Campbell said. 

Campbell also learned something new from this experience. Campbell does his own creative writing projects, but has never written and published a script before, so this discipline of writing was new and challenging for him. 

“I learned that writing plays is really hard. I was lucky enough to have Jordan writing down all of the ideas I was spewing out randomly so we could come back to them. My personal writing process is such that I’ll get stuck editing forever, and Jordan was great about keeping me going and finishing before I got nitpicky with my writing.” 

Since the event was so positively received by all those involved, the theater hopes to host another similar event next year. The idea is that such a festival may serve as a recruitment opportunity for area high school students interested in exploring the arts in a less traditional manner and using it to broaden their acting horizons.