On April 13th, The 24 Hour Company® is teaming with the Exchange, an off-Broadway theater company, to create the seventh 24 Hour Musicals. A team of more than 100 - including stars from Broadway, film, television, and music - will cast, write, compose, direct, rehearse, tech, and perform four original musicals - all in the obscenely short time between an evening meet-and-greet on Sunday, April 12 and show time on Monday, April 13 at 8pm. The event benefits the Exchange's summer program, The Orchard Project, which incubates and accelerates innovative new theatrical work from around the world.
The 2015 musicals will feature an all-star line up of Broadway performers, stars from TV and film, great composers and writers, directors, choreographers, and musical directors. Participants currently include:
Tituss Burgess (Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt),
Cristin Milioti (How I Met Your Mother, Once),
Eden Espinosa (Wicked),
Lea DeLaria (Orange Is The New Black),
Randy Harrison (Queer As Folk),
Alicia Witt (Justifed),
Ari Graynor (For a Good Time, Call...),
Christine Lahti (Chicago Hope),
Ashley Fink (Glee),
Shanola Hampton (Shameless),
Julian Fleisher (February House),
Jonathan Marc Sherman (Things We Want, Clive),
Daniel Goldstein (Godspell),
Joe Kinosian and
Kellen Blair (Murder For Two),
Gordon Greenberg (
Irving Berlin's Holiday Inn), and Shae Sullivan (Pageant, Jawbreaker).
"Every year, a wonderfully talented group of the best from stage and screen come together to attempt the impossible," said
Ari Edelson, the artistic director of the Exchange and the Orchard Project. "This year the event will celebrate the Orchard Project's expansion and move to Saratoga Springs, NY, where we will be able to support even more artists and companies."
The creative team will arrive at the Gramercy Theater at 9 PM on Sunday, April 12 for a meet-and-greet. Each person brings a prop and a costume to inspire the writers. At 11 PM - after some singing, dancing, introductions, and "don't do this at home" warnings - the actors and directors go get some rest and the composers and book writers get to work. Completed musicals are due by 7 AM. In the morning, directors, choreographers, and actors arrive for rehearsals. After a supersonic tech (with lights, costumes, and sound) in the late afternoon, the audience arrives. The unconventional time constraints create a tremendous amount of creativity and energy. Although actors have only one day to create characters and learn blocking, music and choreography, the musicals are performed without scripts in hand. The show starts at 8 PM, with an open bar courtesy of Monsieur Touton Selection and Tanqueray and finishes with a VIP afterparty with cast and crew.
Tickets for the gala are between $100 and $500 and all include admission to the show and open bar at the Gramercy Theater. To buy tickets, visit http://www.exchangenyc.org/24HM.
