7th Annual WriteFest

I couldnt resist this photo of WriteFest director Stuart Merrall painting some stage urinals for his play Toilet. I should start a new series 'Things you never thought you'd find yourself doing'.

 

 

There were other directors busy making props - reupholstering chairs with sheets, installing a lifebuoy and creating a gameshow host's podium from a dream. As you can see quite a varied range of plays at this years WriteFest and co-producer Matt Drury explained to me the process of whittling down the 74 submitted plays to the final 7 chosen for performance.

Submissions are sent to Matt who skim reads them all to check they meet the entry requirements particularly that they shouldn't be longer than 20 minutes in performance. He also runs some Internet searches on key phrases to check the plays are all original work. He then removes the author's name from the scripts and sends them to Progress Play Production Committee for assessment.

Everyone on the committee reads every play and gives them a ranking based on 'gut feeling' and also ones on more specific technical aspects like the strength of the opening, characters and plot. These individual rankings are then fed into the WriteFest Web System created by Progress member Chris Hoult which gives each play an overall score. The top 12 plays are then considered as a shortlist and from this plays are chosen to create a balanced evening's entertainment finishing between 10 and 10.15pm.

Once the plays are chosen anyone who has expressed an interest in directing for WriteFest is sent all the scripts and asked to submit a proposal outlining their ideas for up to three of the plays. Matt and his co-producer Emily Goode make the final decision about who will direct what. Then the fun starts trying to co-ordinate rehearsal space, props and set designs.


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7th Annual WriteFest 14th - 17th November 2012, Progress Theatre

Auditions for Little Shop of Horrors by Howard Ashman. Saturday 17 November 2 to 5pm or
Wednesday 21st November 7.30 to 10.30 pm plus Saturday 24 November 2 to 5pm (Main characters and call-backs)

Auditions for New Directors' Double Bill Wednesday 5th December, 7.30pm or Sunday 9th December 2pm, Progress Theatre

Progress Youth Theatre presents For the Love of a Nightingale by Timberlake Wertenbaker 10th -15th December 2012, Progress Theatre

The Fifth Elephant by Stephen Briggs based on the book by Terry Pratchett 17th - 26th January 2013, Progress Theatre

Details of all our productions and auditions can be found on our website.