The Every 28 Hours Plays

On August 19, 2014 the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown set Ferguson, Missouri ablaze and sounded a national rallying call to end police brutality and protect the lives of Black men, women and children. Motivated by the burgeoning BlackLivesMatter movement, a group of artists and community organizers gathered in St. Louis that same month to craft a national artistic response to the oppression, violence and resistance happening in Ferguson. That effort – spanning three days over which the participants witnessed, served and collaborated in artistic exchange – resulted in The Every 28 Hours Plays.

Originally co-organized by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and One Minute Play Festival, The Every 28 Hours Plays is a collection of 72 one-minute plays written by playwrights from all over the country in response to the events in Ferguson, MO, and the widely shared statistic that every 28 hours, a Black person is the victim of systemic violence somewhere in the United States.