Peace, Love, Maxwellton: Words and Thoughts from the Min: The 24 Hour Plays

Many people told me when I went out here to capitalize on my time this summer, especially the weekends. Don't waster your time and make sure to have fun. Well, the Minterns (it's a thing now) decided to take that advice to heart as we, along with other Cornell in Hollywood interns Emma, Adriana, and Taylor set off to go volunteer as production assistants for this year's 24 Hour Plays in Santa Monica. If you're reading this and you're from Cornell it's a lot like 24 hour playfest. In 24 hours 6 new plays are created, written, directed, and put on. Different fro Cornell, however, is that the writers are renowned Hollywood screenwriters, the directors are pros, and the cast is filled with A-list celebrities like Jason Biggs (American Pie), Brooklyn Decker (Model and movie star), Gillian Jacobs (Community), Rosie Perez (Generally good at all things), Tracey Thoms (Cold Case, Rent)--just to name a few (24 in all, I felt like listing all of them would be excessive). Each play is written in around 9 hours and then the cast rehearses until 4 and then there is tech (yes full on tech with lights, sound and a live band with video projections) right until opening. It's a pretty insane process.

What was really cool, though, besides the being starstruck every time you turn a corner because "Oh there's the mean guy rom the Hunger Games" or "There's Lauren Zisces from Glee" or "Hey it's a Gossip Girl!" was seeing all of these pros be in their element and work their hardest for the love of the art.

The event itself was a benefit for Urban Arts which is a school program that helps bring the arts to underprivileged schools in New York and LA and is funded primarily by donations. The biggest donor was Mont Blanc (as we were told and saw over and over and over again).

Even though our jobs were generally menial like stuffing programs or setting out food, it was a great way to meet people and feel awesome or actually make connections.

What was even more amazing was the quality of the actual show. Seeing each scene develop throughout the day you tended to wonder how these pieces would pull together. It seemed like the chaos of a 6-week rehearsal process was being so rushed that it would never work, but with the incredible skill and will from every person it became a production worth paying quite a bit of money for.

To top it all off, as volunteers we were allowed into the after party at The Shore Hotel afterwards. Complete with ravenous paparazzi and an open tequila bar, it was a pretty great way to finish off the day. It was also nice to have a place to speak to anyone we wanted/had guts enough to actually talk to (I may or may not have accosted Wilmer Valderrama in passing--no shame).

Shout outs to Mircea Monroe (who was an actress on Dating Rules Season 1), Stephen Godchaux (a fantastic screenwriter), and Phil Courteney (the production manager for the 24 hour plays) who were all incredibly friendly to the whole group of us.

All in all a very good and productive use of 24 hours.

The next one is Nov 16th in NYC, go see it or be a part of it!