Five plays—all written and performed within a day.

That was the impetus for the Clarkston Drama Club’s Plays-in-a-Day, a frenetic overnight festival of playwriting, staging, directing and acting that occurred recently on the Georgia Perimeter College Clarkston Campus.

The combined efforts of more than two dozen members of the drama club, recent GPC theatre grads and members of the community pulled off the marathon feat June 19-20.

Jeremiah Davison, a recent GPC graduate and theatre major, was the group’s producing artistic director; and Atlanta playwright and GPC theatre instructor Johnny Drago was the playwriting advisor for the project.

The group’s mission was to keep their plays entertaining—but short. The plays were all just 10 minutes long.

Davison credits the encouragement of Jennifer Jenkins, the college’s Fine Arts event production manager, and Sally J. Robertson, theatre professor, with giving students the courage to develop the program.

“Jen and Sally told us, ‘You have the stage, you can do your own event, but you have to do all the work,”’ Davison said. “They’ve encouraged us all along the way to start creating and performing our own productions.”

 The program is modeled after national overnight playwriting festivals.

“Friday night we had a meet-and-greet, where the actors auditioned for the directors and writers,” Davison explained. “From 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., writers hunkered down with Mr. Drago, who gave them writing prompts and exercises to help with writing their plays. Then the directors arrived at 7 a.m. to choose their plays and call in the cast members they’d bartered for.”

Rehearsals ran until 6 p.m., and then it was show time promptly at 8 p.m.

The cast and crew were fueled by coffee and food provided by family and friends, who used Twitter (#gpcplaysinaday) and the club’s Facebook site to post comments and photos of the troupe’s progress during the event.

A tired but happy Davison said the club is already planning for next year. “The event was a success. There was a great audience that showed up.”

The festival was a fundraiser for the GPC Clarkston Drama Club’s annual trip to the Southeastern Theatre Conference.