BANG, and they’re off! It’s 8 p.m. on Dec. 1 and students are scrambling off at the sound of a gunshot to their respective groups to put together an entire play from scratch in no more than 24 hours.

This is the kick-off of the first Play in a Day at Gunn hosted by the Thespian Society. In one day, five student directors and 19 cast members were put into groups and had to write, memorize and block a play in one day. The participants performed their plays 24 hours later at 8 p.m. on Dec. 2, putting on a show that was highlighted with laughter, wonder and amazement.

The participants gathered at 7:30 p.m. in the Little Theater, where they were greeted by the Thespian Society board. Names were chosen at random out of a hat to assign directors a cast and two buzz words. Each group had to incorporate its buzz words (such as “flamingo” and “Buddha”) in its plays in any way it wanted as long as it was relevant and noticeable.

The product of a long night spent writing and an even longer day filled with memorizing lines, blocking the play and finding props and costumes resulted in “Muffin” by senior Thespian Society secretary E.T. Minor, “Repentance” by senior Thespian Society historian and publicist Annika Benitz, “Written on Sand” by junior Ben Christel, “The West Hampton Family Outlet Mall” by senior María Cristina Lolande and “Kama Sutra?” by senior Thespian Society president Noel Carey.

“I thought it went extremely well,” Carey said. “I don’t think any of us really knew what we were getting ourselves into because it was the first [Play in a Day] at Gunn but it was great.”

The event raised over $320 for the Thespian Society from admission, raffle tickets for the prize of two tickets to the Aquarius and the concession stand at intermission. “After the show I had random people coming up to me to ask when the next Play in a Day was so they could be in it,” Carey said. “We didn’t plan on having another but because it went so well we probably will in the spring.”

Minor agrees that the event went better than they had anticipated. “I was so happy because we were expecting a small crowd and we had over 100 people come and watch,” she said. “The best part was seeing it come together and everyone enjoying it. It was stressful trying to keep my actors working on it without getting bored and then finding ways to include their input to bring out the full potential of the play in only a few hours, but it was worth it.”

One of the biggest differences between the Play in a Day and a regular production is the time crunch. “I guess it’s exciting in a different way from typical shows because you only get one night to perform it instead of seven,” senior cast member Maggie Cole said. “You want to make [the play] perfect but there’s not a lot of time to do it so every second of the day is focused on making it the best that it can be.”

Junior cast member Katelyn Hempstead also believes that one of the challenges that comes from the Play in a Day is that it requires participants to be fully engaged with on the event at all times. “When you’re doing a normal production, you’re involved with other things at the same time,” she said. “But [for Play in a Day] we just spend the entire day to concentrate on only the play.”

While memorizing lines proved to be a difficult aspect of the event for many of the cast members, directors had to take care of the set, sound and lighting of their plays. “Beforehand, you don’t know what each director is going to do or what props they’ll use,” Carey said. “So you have to manage time so that you can accommodate everything to make it work efficiently.”

Putting together all of the pieces of the show in a relatively short amount of time was hard work for both the actors and directors, but in the end was great show. “It’s definitely stressful but I think the fact that all of it is completely new and didn’t exist before is cool,” senior cast member Max Fox said.