Tick tock. Tick tock. The countdown to the most innovative theater production to hit Eau Claire in a good long while is underway, as the UWEC Players rev up for their first appearance since the theater group’s rebirth last fall. What exactly are the actors, directors, dancers, musicians, artists, and playwrights doing to prepare? Absolutely nothing.

The Players’ newest project has an added challenge: they have only 24 hours, from playwriting to curtain call, to produce several short plays for the aptly named 24-Hour Project. “There’s no preparation that people participating can do,” said Players coordinator, Tyler Morris.

At 7pm, on April 3rd, Morris will reveal the project’s unifying theme. Using the same theme and other required elements, they’ll learn as they go, participating playwrights will write through the night. At 6am, a randomly assigned director and group of actors will meet with the playwright to begin memorizing lines, blocking the action, realizing an entire short play. The 10 to 15 minute productions will be performed publicly the evening of April 4, beginning exactly 24 hours after the playwrights began writing.

“It’s not a new idea, but its new for our department,” CJ Krueger, Morris’ aide-de-camp, explained. Intrigued by models of 24-hour theater festivals, he and Morris modified the idea to fit the UWEC arts community. Once planning was underway for an original project called “24-Hour Theater Project,” people in other areas expressed interest. The name and concept change to the 24-Hour Project opened the floor to dancers, visual artists, and musicians to realize a project containing the same theme as the short plays, in the same window of time.

Krueger and Morris, both seniors specializing in theater, are the instigators of the Players themselves. UWEC Players were a years-defunct student organization until spring of 2008, when Morris fell head over heals for the script of The Dispute, a 300-year old French comedy. Morris wanted to see the French language script fully realized, so he began rehabilitating the dormant Players. Morris translated the script and Krueger generated his own adaptation. The resulting fall performances did not disappoint. According to Morris, “The Dispute brought a lot of attention to the department.” The success of Morris’ vision paved the way to the official re-recognition of the Players by the university, opening the door for more totally student-produced works.

    An aspiring playwright himself, Krueger wanted an outlet for other writers to present original material, “I loved the idea of having a student group dedicated to doing its own work,” Krueger expressed. Tapping into fresh talent was another goal. The timing of The Dispute’s fall performance made it a perfect lure for incoming freshmen. The Players slashed ticket rates for new theater students, because, as Krueger knows, “we’ve got to catch them quick.”

Azyhadee Salazar learned of the Players through Morris’ promotions last fall, and has since been involved in two university theater productions. The 24-Hour Project will be her first experience with the Players and with this type of event. “I have had little chance to act alongside the upperclassmen, and this will give me that opportunity,” Salazar explained.

Attendance to the presentation of these swiftly produced theatrical, musical, and artistic pieces is not something that concerns the Players, who will be happy to present, if only to their fellow students. Krueger hopes audiences will be drawn the intrigue of a mixture of eternal and impermanent art, as “There’s something really exciting about knowing that people stayed up all night and worked on something so quickly ... you create a character as an actor and then its gone, like, forever.”

    Absorb the totally unique performances and creations of the 24-Hour Project for FREE, beginning at 7 p.m. on Saturday, April 4 in the Riverside Theatre of Haas Fine Arts Center, UWEC. For more info, see www.uwecplayers.com.