THE 24 HOUR PLAYS: VIRAL MONOLOGUES' 20th Edition Stars Noah Galvin, Kate Rockwell, James Lapine, and More

This week's monologues will support Theatre Development Fund's Wendy Wasserstein Project.

By: Sep. 22, 2020
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The 24 Hour Plays: Viral Monologues celebrate their milestone 20th edition tonight with a musical round! An incredible team of writers, composers, and actors will collaborate from afar to write, rehearse, perform and produce 12 all-new pieces in just 24 hours. Beginning at 6 PM ET, the musical monologues will be published, one every 15 minutes.

Rising to this week's acting (and singing!) challenge are Chad Burris, Dez Duron, Christopher Fitzgerald, Noah Galvin, Lora Lee Gayer, Nehal Joshi, Ginna Le Vine, L. Morgan Lee, Brittany O'Grady, Dee Roscioli, Kate Rockwell, and Sydnee Winters. They will perform pieces written by Eli Bolin, Mario Correa, Isabella Dawis, Kristoffer Diaz, Alex Edelman, Gordon Greenberg, Tasha Gordon-Solmon, Jon Kern, James Lapine, Sofya Levitsky-Weitz, christopher oscar peña, and Jonathan Marc Sherman; and composed by Eli Bolin, Faye Chiao, Kirsten Childs, Ben Clark, William Finn, Emily Gardner Xu Hall, Aimee Mann & Jonathan Coulton, Matthew McCollum, Erin McKeown, Joey Orton & Brad Silnutzer, Alan Schmuckler, and Libby Winters.

This week's monologues will support Theatre Development Fund's Wendy Wasserstein Project, which pairs 24 high school students across the five boroughs with mentors working in the theatre. Mentors share their time and expertise, and bring students together to see countless shows each year.

"I've been a TDF Wendy Project mentor for many years - from back in the days it was called Open Doors. It's something I wouldn't trade for anything in the world," said Kirsten Childs, one of this week's composers. "My most meaningful theater experiences have been in the presence of students who enter the theater with no preconceived notions and who leave it voluble, excited, with minds expanded, and with the unfailing capacity to expand my own mind as they break down what they've just seen. I've laughed, cried and gasped in awe during our often outrageous, sometimes silly, always brilliant and lively post-show discussions. Theater is powerful, beautiful, divine. It's my great honor to share it with new witnesses to the glory. That's why I'm excited to be part of The 24 Hour Plays: Viral Monologues - an event that supports the Wendy Project's wonderful mission."

Last night at 6 PM, actors shared brief orientation-style videos to allow the writers to get to know them better. By 7 PM, writers and actors were paired, and writers got to work on crafting new monologues especially for their assigned actors. Actors received their monologues this morning at 10 AM, are filming their performances throughout the day, and at 6 PM their videos begin to be released to the world, completing the 24-hour cycle. The monologues will be available to view on IGTV and online for four days after their initial airing courtesy of an agreement with Theatre Authority, a nonprofit organization managed by Actors' Equity.

The 24 Hour Plays: Viral Monologues are produced by Coleman Ray Clark and Madelyn Paquette. The artistic director of The 24 Hour Plays is Mark Armstrong. This 20th installment was created in partnership with Gordon Greenberg, Kirsten Childs and TDF's Wendy Wasserstein Project. The music supervisor is Mark T. Evans.

The 24 Hour Plays are known for their work on Broadway, off-Broadway and around the world. Since 1995, their events have brought together extraordinary artists to create time-limited theater. Past participants include Jennifer Aniston, Laverne Cox, Billy Crudup, David Cross, Rosario Dawson, Daveed Diggs, Peter Dinklage, Rachel Dratch, Jesse Eisenberg, Edie Falco, America Ferrera, Greta Gerwig, Oscar Isaac, John Krasinski, Anthony Mackie, Julianne Moore, Tracy Morgan, Cynthia Nixon, Anna Paquin, Rosie Perez, Phylicia Rashad, Chris Rock, Sam Rockwell, Liev Schreiber, Amanda Seyfried, Michael Shannon, Gabourey Sidibe, Sarah Silverman, Marisa Tomei, Naomi Watts and more!

More information for those who would like to support The 24 Hour Plays or attend a live performance in the future is available at https://24hourplays.com.



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