From Egg to Peacock in 24 Hours

What is it about student theater? The energy, the excitement, the intensity—it has to be more than those raging adolescent hormones. At its third annual performance, Egg and Peacock answered this question. The unbridled creativity and audacity of the festival’s playwrights, directors, and actors generated the power that drives student theater and captivates college audiences.

After a marathon of, dare I say, dramatic proportions—24 straight hours of creation—the directing and acting of original student work came off with brio and confidence. Abigail Broberg and Rosalind Grush,the producers of Egg and Peacock, have turned the creative process of writing and producing a play—usually a gradual, organic experience—into an all-night endurance challenge. Activities began on Friday at midnight when the playwrights gathered at Alpha Delta Phi. After fueling up on Whole Foods-approved performance enhancers­—dried fruit, cantaloupe, gorp, and coffee—the 10 playwrights discovered the leitmotif for this year’s festival.

Amplifying the outrageous creativity of this whole festival, each play was required to begin with the final line of the play that preceded it. Although the repeating line provided an easy transition from one play to the next, the disparate situations the playwright devised from this singular impetus proved how important context and intonation are to words’ meaning and how volatile language can be.

After discussing this general prompt, the playwrights began writing. Throughout the night, they took breaks every three hours or so to bounce ideas off each other and to bring the direction of their work into focus. By 8 a.m., the plays were finished and teaching began in the Black Box Theater at Lerner Hall. Soon actors arrived for auditions. The playwrights and directors watched the actors carefully as they read scenes from Saved By the Bell: The College Years. Despite the informal script choice and the assurance that everyone who auditioned would receive a part, the actors couldn’t help but feel nervous.

Performing in productions written and directed by friends introduces a dynamic unfamiliar to most actors. The environment was one in which the cast and crew wanted to make the most out of their own talent and that of their peers. As Saturday night’s festival demonstrated, the final product can be both hilarious and refreshing. By emphasizing peer-review and incorporating the line transition to bridge the plays together, the structure of Egg and Peacock fostered a spirited cohesion out of the creativity, talents, and ideas of different students.