2/17/10

Festivals are a Treasure

During this past week (February 7-13) as you may have noticed, I have been absent from my blogs. The reason is because I was in St. George for the American College Theatre Festival (ACTF). It is a festival for students in all sorts of categories in the theatre departments, anything from acting, to directing, to makeup design, to costume design and play writing. (Play writes can have ten-minute plays, one-acts and full-length plays submitted).

Over the course of the year, different judges attend every show put on by every college in the nation. They then nominate the students they feel did the best, those students then go to the festival and compete in the category they were nominated for.

I submitted a ten-minute play I had written, and it was one of the six selected to go and compete in our regional competition. There were quite a few plays submitted, and only 6 were chosen. Then the judges choose two to become semi-finalists, and their plays will be considered to go to the final national competition. Only 4 ten-minute plays total, out of all the regions, will make it to the final competition. I'm not sure how many regions there are, but I know there are at least 8 (we're region 8 :)

A side note, I was the only female play write out of the six in my region. I just thought that was interesting.

During the week I met with my director, stage manager, and dramaturg. We then cast my play, and had rehearsals all week. Then, on Saturday, all six were performed for the judges.

I did a lot of editing, and cutting to make it fit in the ten-minute limit, and to become completely happy with it. I feel I have learned a lot as a writer, I was able to make my play stronger, and I did my very best.

My play is a comedy, and it is very stylized. The crowd seemed to have liked my play, (they laughed and cheered a lot) and the judges said nice things, and gave me good feedback; however I am not one of the semi-finalists.

This past week got my fire burning, and I am looking forward to writing more plays! My passion for writing has been rekindled, and I have many ideas for plays and stories!

I plan on expanding my play, "The Play," into a one-act and getting it published. Perhaps I will write and tell you a little more about my play, if that is something you would be interested in?

1 comment:

Amber said...

You are such a good writer (your play should have been picked! It is so good!) I'm glad to hear that your writing fire has been rekindled, I can't wait to read what you have up your sleeve!