Recommended: The madcap world of Vashon 14/48

Published 10:30 am Tuesday, January 20, 2026

Absolutely no one knows what will happen at this year’s 14/48 theater festival, set to bow at 7 and 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Jan. 23 and 24, at Open Space for Arts & Community.

And that’s the whole point.

The annual event, now in its eighth edition on Vashon, is dubbed “the world’s quickest theater festival” because it all comes together in 48 hours, starting Thursday evening.

That’s when this year’s company — boasting more than 50 ensemble members including writers, actors, producers, designers and musicians — will meet to gather their courage for what’s to come and throw themes into a hat to determine what this year’s plays will be about.

After a theme is drawn, seven writers will head home to write new 10-minute plays overnight. Early Friday morning, they’ll turn in their scripts, and seven directors will draw the play they will direct and read it for the first time ever. Then they’ll draw their cast members and get to work.

Behind the scenes, another group of set builders, prop-makers and costumers will be scrambling to outfit the needs of each play, while the festival’s band composes and curates the music that will accompany the evening.

The result? Seven new plays are rehearsed, designed and scored throughout the day and performed twice on Friday night. Then the whole process starts all over again, after Friday night’s audiences pitch in to supply a theme for the next night’s shows.

For local theatermakers Steven Sterne and Mik Kuhlman, the experience is a high-wire act that can’t be beat.

“The 14/48 festival is the purest realization of theater that I have ever experienced, and it is my favorite thing,” said Sterne, who is one of the festival’s producers this year. “A few dozen people who are willing to take chances and trust each other work in a frenzied state — and over the course of two days, they make 14 new short plays where nothing was before. And then it’s over, leaving nothing in its wake but the experiences that practitioners and audiences have shared,” Sterne said.

Kuhlman, who was instrumental in first bringing the festival to the island in the 2010s, defined it as an adventure in risk-taking and camaraderie. Over the years, she’s acted, directed, written and designed shows in both the Seattle and Vashon editions of the festival.

Open Space, she said — a cavernous performance space with multiple rehearsal rooms, two design shops, a kitchen and a green room — is the perfect home for the event.

“We take it over like the ant hill we live on,” she said.

The 14/48 Project, founded in the 1990s by an intrepid band of Seattle theater artists, now takes place in Seattle, Vashon, Austin, Texas, and Hollywood, California. Internationally, the festival takes place in London and Leicester, in England, and San Miguel de Allende in Mexico.

Tessa Wood, in her rookie year as an actor in the Vashon edition, said she’s intrigued by how many island talents come together to make 14/48 happen on Vashon — and she’s bringing her sense of humor along for the ride.

“14/48 throws everything into a hyperdrive — it’s sink or swim, with sinking remaining a perfectly entertaining route,” she said.

Maria Glanz, a Vashon 14/48 veteran who is a writer for the show this year, counted the ways she loves the quirky yet powerful festival.

“It’s a chance to make theater that’s wildly unpredictable,” she said. “Multiple viewpoints, dozens of artists and random chance, all arranged one specific theme and a pressure cooker of circumstances. It’s dreamy — weirdly, energetically dreamy.”

Other writers signing up for what could turn out to be back-to-back all-nighters of play-writing are Jennifer Dice, Phoebe Buroughs, Darby Sherwood, Amy Drayer, Andy James and Chris Boscia.

Directors this year include Jon Whalen, Shawn Belyea, Samantha Sherman, Cate O’Kane, Elizabeth Klob, Meg Thompson and Kelly Godell.

Stephen Buffington will lead the 14/48 band — charged with scoring and bridging the many set changes between the plays each night.

The 26-member acting ensemble for the show is a who’s who of well-known names on the Vashon theater scene, with notable newbies and 14/48 veterans from the mainland also joining in the fun.

Find out more and get tickets at openspacevashon.com. Ticket holders for 9 p.m. shows may attend both the Friday and Saturday night shows with one ticket.