Demi, Ashton, Jennifer & More Sign On for The 24 Hours Plays on Broadway
In an event that’s become the A-list’s favorite way to dip a toe into the Broadway waters, The 24 Hours Plays on Broadway will boast a lineup that includes Demi Moore and her Tweeting hubby Ashton Kutcher, Jennifer Aniston, Eva Mendes, Rosario Dawson and more. This one-night-only benefit for the Urban Arts Partnership will be held on November 9 at the American Airlines Theatre. A starry collection of playwrights, including David Lindsay-Abaire, Stephen Belber, Warren Leight, Theresa Rebeck and Nathan Jackson, has signed on to write 10-minute scripts for the cast to perform.
As of October 27, the cast list for The 24 Hour Plays includes Amber Tamblyn, Anthony Mackie, Ashton Kutcher, Billy Crudup, Claudie Blakley, David Cross, Demi Moore, Diane Neal, Emily Mortimer, Emmy Rossum, Eva Mendes, Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Esposito, Jeremy Sisto, Julia Stiles, Leslie Bibb, Liev Schreiber, Michael Ealy, Rachel Dratch, Rosario Dawson, Rosie Perez, Saffron Burrows, Sam Rockwell and Yul Vazquez. Special musical guests will include the Swedish Grammy winners A Camp (Nina Persson and Nathan Larson).
The 24 Hour Plays on Broadway is described as a rite of extreme live performance: writing, directing and performing six original short plays in just 24 hours. The creative process will begin at 10PM on November 8, when a group of six writers, six directors, 24 actors, two musical guests, and a production staff gather at the American Airlines Theatre. Each writer must compose a 10-minute play by 7AM the following morning, when the directors return to read and select their piece. The casts will meet for the first time at 8AM and, over the next 12 hours, the plays are rehearsed for a live presentation. At 8PM, the six new plays, interspersed with musical acts, will be performed for a live audience.
No directors for the event have been announced. In addition to Lindsay-Abaire, Belber, Leight, Rebeck and Jackson, the sixth playwright will be an emerging writer from the Montblanc Writers Project. For the third year, Montblanc is sponsoring the evening, benefitting Urban Arts Partnership, a not-for-profit that brings the arts into New York City public school classrooms. Over the past 17 years, the group’s theater, video, visual arts, dance, design and poetry programs have visited over 250 New York City public schools.