More than 60 theater artists from Vashon and Seattle gathered to create “14/48 Vashon,” a whirlwind fly festival that resulted in the creation and performance of 14 world premiere short plays in 48 hours.

The event — Vashon’s take on the venerable theater festival that originated in Seattle more than 20 years ago — took place Jan. 23 to Jan. 25, at Open Space for Arts & Community.

Behind the scenes of all 14/48 productions, sleep-starved writers, actors, directors, musicians, designers and technicians raced against the clock to get new plays ready.

The fun on Vashon started on Thursday night when seven writers dipped their hands into a hat to randomly select a theme for a new play. Finished plays were due from the writers the next morning. After that, it was the directors’ turn to draw from the hat, determining which play they would direct. Actors were also chosen at random to be in the shows and rehearsals began. Then, the whole process was repeated again on Saturday with a fresh batch of seven new plays.

The show had four performances, drawing hundreds of eager “14/48” fans to Open Space, where the shows were both rehearsed and performed.

Mik Kuhlman, a local performer instrumental in bringing the theater festival to Vashon, described the process of creating the event as “taking the whole process of theater and concentrating it, and making time collapse, and saying ‘here it is.’”