Preview
10-MINUTE PLAY FESTIVAL
Produced by Ground Zero Theatre
Presented by One Yellow Rabbit
January 12
Big Secret Theatre (Epcor Centre)
Name something other than sex that makes people crazy, obsessive and sleepless for 24 hours and lasts only 10 minutes?
The answer? Ground Zero Theatre’s 10-Minute Play Festival, of course.
Ground Zero, as part of One Yellow Rabbit’s High Performance Rodeo, is once more hosting this brain-crushing, talent-straining, nerve-wracking, time-squeezing event, which has become a popular component of the annual theatre festival.
Always entertaining, always surprising, the 10-Minute Play Festival challenges eight companies to conceive, write, direct and rehearse a play 24 hours before it is to be performed – and it can be only 10-minutes long.
The concept of a festival of short pieces came from Theatre SKAM of Vancouver. Michael Green, curator of the Rodeo, liked the idea and approached Ryan Luhning, artistic director of Ground Zero Theatre, about hosting a similar event in Calgary five years ago. It has been a Rodeo highlight ever since and the one-night-only festival has sold out every year.
To help inspire the participating troupes, Luhning supplies each with one line and one prop to be used in the play.
"One year, we chose random lines of dialogue from One Yellow Rabbit plays," says Luhning. "Last year, we used professional wrestling catch phrases and props from Ground Zero plays. I try to tie it in with the theme that the Rabbits tie into the High Performance Rodeo. You want to have a line of dialogue and a prop that throws the companies for a loop and is geared to spark something fresh."
Entrants to the festival are invited each year and are never in competition with each other. "I am not into building a competitive space for the festival players," says Luhning. "I agree with Oscar Wilde: ‘Competition in the arts is fatal.’ We as artists have a hard enough time with critics, reviewers and whatnot. I don’t see any point… in judging or criticizing each other’s work or putting it up on a pedestal."
Luhning and Ground Zero have always believed the festival is all about the thrill of creating under pressure.
"In the past five years there have been amazing pieces. Not everything flew, but that is part of the process. The majority, by far, have been awesome," he says.
The response from the participating companies is just as enthusiastic. "Every year, the companies have said that the festival has been the most fun, challenging and inventive they have ever been a part of as a company," says Luhning.
One troupe, FireBelly Theatre, is jumping into the fray for the first time.
"We do have a secret weapon on our side – Stephen Massicotte (Mary’s Wedding and The Boy’s Own Jedi Handbook) is our writer for this festival," says co-founder Abby Charchun. "Although this will be our first year, our troupe members have a tremendous amount of experience and talent, and having Stephen as our writer has put us at ease.
"We expect that it’s going to be a gruelling but brilliant time," she adds. "All of us are basically preparing by trying not to think about ideas that could trap us or bog us down. The challenge is not just creating the play, but the fact that it is only 10-minutes long."
The challenge of this form of "micro-theatre" is not lost on the folks at Obscene But Not Heard, the Calgary sketch comedy-cum-theatre troupe that has been together for 15 years. The chaotic collective has been in the festival since the beginning.
Troupe member Peter Strand Rumpel knows the secret is in playing to the unique skills of the company. "We divide up and use our strengths," he says. "One is the writer, the other concentrates on directing and getting everybody together, and by the end of it you’re exhausted and hoping you don’t have something that’s lame."
Plays the group has written for the festival have included a parody of The Lord of the Rings and a spoof kids show entitled Bill the Carrot Happy Fun Show. "It was about a burned-out drunk in a carrot suit trapped in a children’s program," says Strand Rumpel of the latter. "The type of character who’d say, ‘I’m a carrot. What’s your problem? Fuck off!’ and he drank a lot of Jack Daniels. Last year’s play was 42 Plays About Fuck All, a parody of theatre in Calgary. Luckily, people are still talking to us after that one."
The 10-Minute Play Festival really is all that and a bag of chips, so don’t be surprised to find tickets sold out early. And remember, as with sex, it’s not the length that matters, it’s the performance. |
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