From February 9-10, thirty-five teens from MTYP’s Theatre School participated in 24/7: a 24-hour theatre festival we produce once a year. In the span of a day, students write, rehearse and perform fresh new plays and take on the roles of playwright, actors and directors.

We caught up with Nemo R. after 24/7 to talk about his experience directing for the first time.

What was it like creating a play with such a time crunch?
It was very stressful at times and 24/7 really pushed everyone to work super super hard. Having a very small time frame to do all that made it impossible for me to postpone anything or relax in any scenario and I was doing stuff for my scene for the entire time and I did not even think about anything else. All in all having the time limitations pushed everyone to focus on the show at all times during the day.

What were the challenges and the rewards of the festival?
It ended up being a challenging endeavour for me, as it was my first time ever really directing a play and it was my first time at 24/7, so I felt lost on where to begin once I was in the room with my actors, so I worked off of examples I had in my head of the amazing directors I have worked with in the past at MTYP, and used those examples to guide me to find what worked best with the scenes and overcome the difficulties I had. But the rewards of the festival beat the challenges by a lot, I got to hangout with my friends in the amazing MTYP community on Saturday night as well as make new friends, I got to gain a huge amount of experience as a director, make some amazing memories, and of course get to see the show I helped create – as well as the ones my peers created – come to life on the main stage.

How did your experiences in classes and programs at MTYP help you through the process?
My experience in classes at MTYP greatly helped me to understand what needed to be done and allowed me to understand the actors point of view, which I have been in at MTYP. My previous class experience prepared me really well on not only how to make the show, but also on how to make it within the small time frame we had.

What was your favourite part about the festival?
It is so difficult to find a favourite part about the festival, because every moment was one to remember, but if I really HAD to I’d probably say that I enjoyed seeing the shows at the end and seeing all the work that everyone put into their show.

Would you do it again?
Oh I definitely will, I’m already counting down the days till the next 24/7.

MTYP’s next 24/7 will be held during the winter of 2020. Look for more information in our 2019/2020 Theatre School Brochure coming out in June, 2019.