For most collegiettes, the beginning of the semester is the time to cherish normal sleeping patterns and a good night’s rest before the homework starts to pile up and your bed becomes a long lost friend you hope to one day catch up with. But for members of TCNJ’s All College Theater and TCNJ Musical Theater, the start of a new semester has a vastly different effect on their REM sleep.
To kick off every semester, TCNJ’s ACT and TMT put on an event called Wired, “24 hours in the name of theater” as its Twitter page calls it. For this event, two writers, a stage manager, a director, and actors are assigned by the theatrical powers that be, called arbiters. Each group must write and perform a one-act play 24 hours later. And, as if that isn’t enough of a challenge, these arbiters (read: dictators) assign each group with a theme and genre and reveal new twists throughout the night that the writers must incorporate into their shows. It is a miracle that everyone involved recovers from this epic event in time for classes Monday morning.
“It’s a great way for new people to get involved with both ACT and TMT members early on,” head arbiter Matthew Steuerer said. “The friendships made [during Wired] usually last a long time.”
The theme for Wired this semester was nursery rhymes, which lead to many unique interpretations of favorite childhood stories. From the little piggy’s being a sorority of rejects (Pi Iota Gamma) to the muffin man being a murderer sent to an asylum on Drury Lane, Wired featured every outlandish incarnation of these classic tales.
This year more than 50 actors, stage managers, directors, and many others came together to put on a hilarious and wholly impressive show for a packed house.
“My favorite part of Wired this semester was staying up all night and into the day with my fantastic team of arbiters. But a close second was seeing the shows performed that night. There’s something extremely surreal about the entire process,” Steuerer said.
It is hard to comprehend how these talented cast and crewmembers can make, memorize and execute a play in such a short time, while running on no sleep. Wired is the ultimate theater challenge, and more and more people are coming out to watch every semester.
“The number of people in attendance has been increasing steadily each year. We are thinking we might need a bigger venue if attendance continues to increase in size!” Steuerer said.
If you couldn’t make it out to Wired this spring, make sure you come out to next semester’s performance, collegiettes. If you can get a seat.