The unanimous Declaration of the artists of 14/48,
In CONWORKS, July 17th, 2003

When in the Course of producing theatrical events, it becomes necessary for a group of artists to dissolve the bands which have connected them to a process of play development, and to assume among the powers of the stage, the separate and equal station to which a Love of the Theatre entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that the random selection of theme and cast allows the divine to enter the creative process, that we have no idea what will make a good theme, that a live band is more valuable to the experience of theatre than a Dramaturg, and that we are endowed by our 14/48 creators with certain inalienable rights among these are beer on Thursday, beer on Friday and beer on Saturday night.
Whenever any Form of Theatrical Production becomes destructive of the human imagination, it is the Right of the artists to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new Process, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Risk-taking and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Processes of rehearsal and production long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and all experience hath shown, that artist are more disposed to suffer, while these methods are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the processes to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and insults evinces a design to reduce them to servants of an Artistic Director in thrall to a Board of Directors, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such an institution, and to provide new methods for their active talents. -- The history of the American Regional Theatre is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over the human imagination. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
They muster all the resources of the state not to explore the depth and soul of actors standing before an audience, but to build greater and greater palaces of production, which at every step become more bereft of the passion which spawned them
They subject actors to Cattle Call auditions for roles they have previously cast or are dangling in front of “name” talent.
They allot the exact same amount of time for rehearsal no matter how complicated or simple a play may be.
They jump on the Regional theatre bandwagon to produce this year’s “hot” play.
They construct Seasons out of fairy dust with plays that have no relationship to one another, the performers who work on them or the audience to which they are presented.
Absurd Person Singular.
They maintain at the public expense Literary Departments that have no purpose other than to write program notes and read scripts which they have no authority to recommend for production.
They employ year round standing armies of PR, Box Office, Development Departments, Stage Managers, House Mangers, Artist Liaisons, and Accountants but not one actor is on staff for more than a couple of months.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have cornered beleaguered artistic directors in bars and yapped at them mercilessly regarding our grievances. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our employment and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common love of theatre to disavow these actions. Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by “If you want to get a job move to New York”.
We, therefore, the Artists of 14/48, in General ConWorks, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of our imaginations, solemnly publish and declare, that14/48 is, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent; that we are Absolved from all Allegiance to play development, and that all connection between us and what passes for the rehearsal process is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that we have full Power to pick themes out of a hat, write plays connected to that theme on this night in this place, cast them at random, and present 14 new works of as yet imagined theatre in the next 48 hours. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection the 14/48 gods, we mutually pledge to each other our Time, our Talent and our sacred Honor.

THE 14/48 ADDRESS:

Four ounces of pot and 50 kegs of beer ago our 14/48 founders brought forth in this city a new theatrical form, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that if you throw forty actors, directors, musicians and writers into the same room for a weekend at the very least you’ll have a good party and you might just make magic. Now we are engaged in a new 14/48, testing whether that form or any theatrical form so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.
We are met in a great empty space of our city. We have come to dedicate a weekend of our lives to 14 as yet conceived of works of dramatic fiction so that the art of creating plays might wake from the comma inducing stupor of the American repertory theatre play development process. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
There has been a great deal excellent planning and dreaming regarding how 14/48 may grow in the future. But in a larger sense, we cannot plan, we cannot organize, we cannot predict how this grand experiment will play out. The brave artists, who struggled here have proved 14/48 far above our poor power to administer or direct.
The world will little note nor long remember what we create here. It is for us rather to be dedicated to the unfinished work which they who have written and performed here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is for us to be dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from those honored performances we take increased delight in that cause for which they gave their full measure of talent--that we here highly resolve that these plays shall not have been performed in vain, that the art of inhabiting a soul to give voice to a vision shall have a new birth of freedom, and that theatre of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.