A team rehearses choreography during the 2007 Triage Theatre.

Three performers compete for the cash prize during Triage Theatre 2006.

In 2002, theatre program director for The University of Findlay Scott Hayes was looking for a way to break up the spring theater season. And while reading an article in American Theatre magazine, he found his solution in the form of 24-hour theatre.

Thus, Triage Theatre was born.

“To my knowledge, we were the first university in the United States to do 24-hour theater,” said Hayes.

Triage Theatre, the art of writing, producing and performing a short skit in a mere 24-hour time slot, has become a staple in The University of Findlay’s theater season, and the themes that go with it are just as notable as the event itself.

Each year, at the start of the Triage weekend, participating students are split into small groups and given a theme. The groups have 24 hours to develop short skits based on that theme — and the skits that result are nearly always eclectic and somewhat crazy.

Derin Tolu, a senior theatre major who has participated in Triage several times, can attest to the unique atmosphere of the event.

“It’s so unpredictable, and you really get people out of their comfort zones,” he said.

The first year Triage was attempted at UF, the event was split over two weekends so the people who participated wouldn’t get overwhelmed. That year, the theme was “Fractured Fairy Tales.”

With this theme, the groups were told to take a fairy tale and manipulate it just slightly to show what the story was “really like.” Groups reinvented everything from Disney tales to The Three Little Pigs to create their skits.

“[Fractured Fairy Tales] was a lot of fun,” said Jerry Deall, scenic and lighting designer for UF. “I liked that one a lot.”

After seeing the success of “Fractured Fairy Tales” but noting the fact that spreading the competition over two weekends did not seem to be necessary, in 2003 Triage became a true 24-hour theatre event with the theme of “Combining Classics with TV and Movies.”

With this theme, groups had to take a work of classical merit and combine it with current television shows or movies. It was after this year’s performance that Triage Theatre was awarded The University of Findlay’s Model Program Award.

In 2004, the Triage theme again dealt with unlikely combinations: “Truth in Fiction.” In this, the groups had to create reality shows featuring literary characters or historical figures.

The next year, 2005, saw one of Triage Theatre’s most popular themes to date: “Superheroes Off the Clock.” Tolu especially enjoyed this theme.

“‘Superheroes off the Clock’ was definitely my favorite,” he said. “I was Rainbow Brite. It was great.”

The year 2006 again saw a new kind of theme. Because there were large projector screens set up onstage for the program’s upcoming production of 1984, the faculty who chose the theme decided to use the available technology and create the idea of “Silent Movies: The Lost Audio Tracks.”

For this theme, each group had to choose a silent movie and write a script based on what group thought the on-screen actors were really saying. The actions of the skit had to mirror those of the silent movie, which was projected onto the screens placed behind the actors.

Of course, 2007 was yet again different. This year’s Triage theme featured a special combination of tasks for the groups to incorporate into their skits.

The characters in each skit had to be celebrities, the script had to be composed entirely of current Top 40 song lyrics, and there had to be some element of choreography in which every member of the group was required to participate.

But even though these restrictions were present, the groups still had a lot of freedom to take their skits in whatever direction the members chose.

Jeremy Springer, who experienced Triage for the first time under this theme, enjoyed the creative freedom the groups were given.

“I don’t really like rules, and this [theme] was good for that,” he said. “It was so wide open — almost anything could go.”

And therein lies the genius of Triage Theatre — anything goes for 24 straight hours. Students get to be creative and expressive and, in the course of it all, learn some solid lessons about theater and what it means to work with other people.

“That’s really the best part of Triage,” Tolu said. “Every year the people who participate get closer.”

By Paige Aten ’08, communication major, Napoleon, Ohio