I am in what I like to call an acquisition phase.I believe all artists are also audience, can’t possibly create in a vacuum, and that we swing between production and acquisition phases. Most often, some sort of balance is struck, but other times are dominated by one or the other.

The last few weeks, I’ve produced little but read voraciously. Frivolous reading (six Harry Potter volumes in preparation for the release of the seventh), semi-frivolous (The Contract with God trilogy by Will Eisner, after whom the Oscars of the comics world are named), serious fiction (Middlesex, and The Ocean in the Closet by Yuko Taniguchi), and non-fiction fodder (NYT, Salon, various posted links from the MEA, MediaSquatters, or a dozen other daily email digests). There are simply times when I feel the need to fill up the tank with raw material.

And then there are times when beyond balance, these two aspects become one.

At 14/48 - the world’s quickest theatre festival, production and acquisition, artist and audience, achieve synergy. Not only did the stories presented on any given night not exist 24 hours earlier, they don’t exist in any real sense until the moment they hit the stage.

I’ve written for 14/48 a half-dozen times, and every time the story that began with my script astounds me, not because it is such a reliable rendering of my vision but because it has grown so far since I left it with the artists eight hours before. And the dozen-plus times beyond that I’ve attended as audience, I’ve felt myself part of and in the presence of stories coming to life, actualized in the moment before me.

Of course I am biased as I’ll be writing for my seventh festival this coming weekend, but 14/48 is something not to be missed, an opportunity to produce and consume art in its freshest form.

What: 14/48: The World’s Quickest Theater Festival
Where: Capitol Hill Arts Center - 1621 12th Avenue
When: July 13,14,20,21 - 8:00 & 10:30
Cost: $15