24 hours (and then some) after the 24 Hour Theatre Project (Updated)

UPDATE: Added Christine Dolen's review below the original article.

Well, The 24 Hour Theatre Project has come and gone, and the first followup to see print is Alexis Scheer, of The Playground.

For me, there were really two plays that came out on top.

The first was Lucas Leyva's The Purloined Sweater, directed by Todd Allen Durkin. It featured Barbara Bradshaw, Ken Clement, Sandy Ives, and Laura Turnbull. The writing was seamless, hilarious, and beautiful; a story about a woman repressed by her mother finally in confrontation. Oh... and then an Oviraptor enters.... and he eats the mother. Clement's very cool dinosaur wore a suit and drank martini's... like I'm sure all the dinosaurs that live in Leyva's head do.

The other was Abacus Jones Boy Detective by Andie Arthur. Irene Adjan, Stephen G. Anthony, David Perez-Ribada, and Tom Wahl bring this play to life with director, Stuart Meltzer. Arthur artfully arranges astounding alliterations to tell the story of Abacus Jones- the boy detective (played perfectly by wonderful Wahl): a super sleuthy story where Abacus must solve the case of the dalmation dog-napping. Helping him handle hard things that come his way is his friend [Catastrophe] Calliope (spelling?) (Ka-Lie-Uh-Pee)... acted amazingly by Adjan. Perez performs powerfully as the maniacal mustache man, and leaves us fighting for air in fits of long lasting laughter when his mustache won't stay on (and ultimately falls off). Anthony awesomely and accurately narrates this stupendous sleuth story with the help of some cute convenient cue cards.

She reviews the entire line-up, and as usual, gives us concise, well-written reviews. Whatever her plans for the future may be, we'd certainly applaud any effort towards theatre criticism. Heck, write a book, I'll buy it.

Oh, and lest you think that a night of really wild theatre was all you missed:

...the chocolate fountain was a good idea, so whoever thought of that is awesome!

See? It really is a theatre FESTIVAL.

UPDATE********************************
October 15 - Christine's review in the Miami Herald:

...the miracle of the 24-Hour Project, as event producer Antonio Amadeo points out, is that the art a few hundred audience members enjoyed Monday evening didn't exist before eight playwrights gathered at Actors' Playhouse just after 7 p.m. Sunday to pull the names of directors and cast members from a hat, pick titles and start writing.

We'll contrast Christine's take with Alexis', but you'll have to click through to read the entire review:

Leyva, a funny young playwright with a wild imagination, took Sanchez's dismemberment idea farther in The Purloined Sweater, a play about a mousy woman (Laura Turnbull), her self-adoring mom (Barbara Bradshaw), mom's over-the-top agent (Sandy Ives) and a suave dinosaur (Ken Clement) with an appetite for grandiose women of a certain age.

Arthur's Abacus Jones: Boy Detective was a sweet romp with whimsical performances by Tom Wahl, Irene Adjan, Stephen G. Anthony and David Perez-Ribada. Rosendorf's mysterious Haunted lived up to its title and led to another luminous performance by Lela Elam.

I'll add more reviews as they are published.