Rural Root Theatre hosts One Act Plays Festival
Festival at Rural Root Theatre to host nine single act plays over the weekend
Area theatre goers accustomed to chasing the One Act Play Festival around the province are in for a break.
The Rural Root Theatre in Constance Bay is hosting this year’s festival, from Nov. 3-5 at the NorthWind Wireless Fibe Centre (formerly the Constance and Buckham’s Bay Community Centre) on Len Purcell Drive.
The annual event is staged by the Eastern Ontario Drama League (EODL), which was founded in 1933 to foster arts in the region.
“For theatregoers it’s a rare opportunity because there are nine different theatre companies, producing nine different plays for you to see on a weekend,” said festival chairman Lee Powell.
“The bonus is the fact it’s adjudicated,” Powell says.
“After each of the sessions, the adjudicator (Steve Russell) gives a talk that the audience can sit and listen to. And so he will give his thoughts on each of the plays.
“There are three plays in a session, so he will go through everything — from lighting to costumes, character, the whole gamut, it becomes a good learning experience for people who aren’t all that aware of theatre or want to learn more about the production of plays.”
Three plays will be presented Friday evening, three more on Saturday afternoon and the final three Saturday evening.
Tickets are $20 per session and Friday’s session is already sold out. For further information see ruralroot.org.
In keeping with the Canada 150 theme, all the productions in this festival have a Canadian theme. Playwright Peter Taylor of Belleville has two plays in the mix, one produced in Belleville and the other from Trenton.
Rural Root director Martin Weeden is presenting Still Stands the House, set in the Canadian Prairies in the 1930s.
Martin and his wife, Helen Weeden, were part of the original Rural Root production in 2005 and haven’t looked back.
Helen Weeden, the Rural Root artistic director whose launch into local theatre began with a script writing course at Algonquin College, says the atmosphere at the festival is congenial, despite the adjudication aspect.
“It’s sort of like old home week,” Weeden says. “Very friendly. There is a lot of camaraderie.”
While actors, directors and playwrights are in line for awards presented at the Diefenbunker Sunday morning, the rival theatre groups tend to be supportive rather than combative.
“We try to get away from the idea it’s competitive,” Weeden says.
“You just want to have experience teaching your peers.”
The learning concept extends through each performance right up to the adjudicator’s comments, which Weeden says, “are all done very kindly.”
Like the authors of short stories, playwrights and directors of one-act productions confront the sometimes daunting task of delivering a compelling tale in a limited time frame.
“You’ve got to get that whole story out in one act,” Weeden says.
“Most two-act plays, you lead up to the intermission, leave them hanging, so to speak, and then come back. Quite often the second half is actually the best half, the first part is preamble.
“In one act, you’ve got less than an hour to do that same thing. So it’s quite a challenge for a director.”
This is Rural Root’s first shot at hosting the festival, and the local group has faced its own challenges offstage. They had hoped to have a series of renovations and upgrades done in time for the festival, but the work schedule was derailed by the June flooding that turned the community centre into an emergency shelter temporarily.
In the spirit of the show-mustgo-on, the theatre staged a fundraiser for the flood relief effort.
The Rural Root production along with the Peterborough Theatre Guild (with Parent’s Night) and Domino Theatre from Kingston (Tea with Enid and Pearl) are in the Friday evening slot.
Saturday afternoon, beginning at 1 p.m., presents the Perth Studio Theatre Production’s offering of Hamlette, Brockville Theatre Guild with Check Please and Vagabond Theatre of Cornwall with The Death of Me.
The final session, at 7 p.m., features the Highlands Little Theatre with Cut!, Old Church Theatre of Trenton’s Tea with Roger and Belleville Theatre Guild with The Green Thumb Gang. The awards brunch is 11 a.m. Sunday at the Diefenbunker Museum in Carp.
Most two-act plays, you lead up to the intermission, leave them hanging, so to speak ...