| Twenty-four years is a lot of theatre, even when it’s only one act at a time. But for aspiring small companies and up-and-coming playwrights, the 24th Annual Calgary Region One-Act Play Festival is a chance to get their work produced on the Pumphouse’s stage and earn a little acclaim while they’re at it. With 10 plays vying for a chance to be featured at the Provincial One-Act Play Festival in High River on May 11 and 12, there’s more at stake than the prizes. Acting classes, Alberta Playwrights Network memberships and gift certificates are also up for grabs.
Long the city’s only unjuried festival until the recent revival of the Calgary Fringe, the One-Act Play Festival offers local artists an opportunity to premiere new works before live audiences. Local directors Simon Mallett (Downstage Performance Society) and Aaron Coates (Dark Forest Theatre) have both won awards for original script, with Coates’s The End of the Rope later enjoying a run at Vertigo Theatre. And, after winning all but one of the festival’s six awards, Judith Mendelson’s clown show Hothouse went on to open at Sage’s annual Ignite! Festival, another new works showcase hosted in the Pumphouse Theatres.
It’s proof, according to festival co-ordinator Amanda Chapman, that the festival’s modest scope is no restriction on the aspirations and ability of its participants.
"The (festival) is designed to be an amateur theatre festival and I make no apologies for that," she says. "Amateur means simply that – unpaid. Nobody questions the quality of Olympic athletes, so why would the word amateur impose a value judgment on theatre artists?"
Unjuried, the festival’s participants were all admitted first-come first-served, with a $60 application fee, that included membership in the Alberta Drama Festival Association under whose mandate the festival takes place. Over four days, from March 7 to 10, the festival’s participants will compete for awards in six categories, including outstanding actor, outstanding actress, outstanding director, outstanding technical merit, outstanding original script, and outstanding production.
The task of evaluating the festival’s entries will fall to adjudicator Brenda Finley, an actor, director and former journalist. In addition to the ever-important process of premiering a new play before a live audience, festival participants will receive feedback from Finley to help hone their new work.
"It's really surprising, but pleasantly so, how much you can improve after spending only 15 minutes talking to that pro about what worked and what didn't in your piece," says Chapman, herself a former participant.
From small town boyhood to a 19th century period piece, the festival’s submissions are an eclectic mix that includes three one-man/woman shows and a slate of nine new scripts. The festival’s lineup includes Bob Legare (In Tow), Theatre 29 (Ace Morran: The Snow Job), The Rolling Stock Theatre Company (Chainmail Bikini), Donald Wood (Brain), Blank Slate (Universal Language), The Gamer Players (Spies in the Oilsands: Whose Side Are You On?), 8-0-8 Productions (Kenny Timeless), Jared Mallard (The Daydreamer), Backyard Spaceship (An Informative Guide on How to Climb the Corporate Ladder) and Nickel and Dime (Complications).
The Calgary One-Act Play Festival runs from March 7 to 10 at the Pumphouse Theatres. For tickets and information, call 263-0079 or visit www.pumphousetheatres.ca.
ONE BAD DAY
Three-to-six-year-olds know it: life’s tough. How better to while away pre-pre-teen angst than by taking in an adaptation of the classic tale of bad days, Judith Viorst’s Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day? With cookies, by God, that’s how – and they’ve at least got those titular snacks at the Cookie Cabarets.
Gum in your hair? Lima beans for supper? Sing the blues and munch on some cookies, because it only gets rougher from here.
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day runs from March 2 to 25 at the Easterbrook Theatre. For tickets and information, call 216-0808 or visit www.storybooktheatre.org.
ONE LITTLE LIE
Because it’s never too early to make sure that children enjoy only the right kind of fiction (theatre) rather than what’s simply everywhere (magazines), Vertigo’s Y-Stage Series is taking early aim at dieting. Michele Riml’s The Skinny Lie tackles dieting and lying with a brother and sister haunted, respectively, by dinosaurs and diets, bringing the good word to their diminutive audience.
Dieting, deception and dinosaurs. Educational and alliterative.
The Skinny Lie runs on March 2, 3 and 4 at the Vertigo Studio Theatre. For tickets and information, call 221-3708 or visit www.vertigotheatre.com. |
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