Catch This: 14/48, The World's Quickest Theatre Festival

I'm guessing this is what 14/48 feels like.

14 plays. 48 hours. It's been called odd, hilarious, tender, exhausting and compulsive; a marathon of chaotic theatre. All I know is that I've never experienced the 14/48 festival, and as a former theatre student, I'm intensely curious.

Winner of the 2008 Mayor's Arts Award, critics are suprised that 14/48 has been able to survive well past it's birth in 1997. This brainchild of Michael Neff and Jodi-Paul Wooster throws out casting and rehearsals for the adrenaline rush of ten-minute plays written one night and performed the next, accompanied by a band whose members have never worked together. You can read more about the festival in "The Big Picture" in our September 2008 Seattle issue or at 14/48's site, which has their stamp of personality all over it.

Not only has the festival survived, it has grown rapidly in its popularity. It's so popular, in fact, that All-Fest tickets sold out in less than 24 hours, but individual tickets are still available. The show runs for two weekends, July 30th and 31st and August 6th and 7th, with showtimes at 8:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. If you're up for 14 world premieres, you should try going to both.

Image: Tracy Hyland douses Brandon Ryan in the January 2009 festival. Photo by Matt Larson.

Theatre Off Jackson, 409 7th Avenue South