The Drama League festival

[angelophile]

Just got back from the Drama League festival - an interesting evening. There were 9 one act plays presented as part of the Festival in front of a paying audience. (We did an extract from Twelfth Night.) Each play was judged, then given a crit by a professional actress (forget her name) and then prizes were given out for the full run.

Had the chance to watch one of the other plays being presented that evening (it's on over three nights), but not both since we were the second play on. It all went rather smoothly - no prompts, no fluffed lines and performing in a theatre I'd never even seen before didn't present any problems. It's gonna take days to get the greasepaint out from whitening my beard, but hey.

The format basically went - the plays are presented, then a professional gives a crit of each of the plays in front of the whole audience, taking into account costume, setting, individual performances etc. You're timed on the length of the performance - 10 minutes to set the stage, performance times of 20 - 40 minutes, 5 minutes to strike the stage and you have to keep within these limits. Supposedly we only snuck into the minimum length - coming in at 20 minutes and 47 seconds, but I don't see how as each of our run throughs have been 25 minutes plus, and shaving off a fifth of the action would seem to be an impossibility.

No prizes, unfortunately, apart from a general certificate of merit. Olivia, who plays Viola in the extract, was singled out as being a close contender for Best Female performer, but didn't ge it. I'm not sure how old she is - 16 maybe - so it was nice for her to get the recognition. Using an extract from Shakespeare itself provoked comment from the judge - when using sections from larger works it's ruled that the scenes have to stand on their own. Our extract from Twelfth Night was said to have done so, successfully, and we were commended for tackling a challenge by taking on Shakespeare. A couple of the performances were more critically judged than others - unfortunate for those "new" performers in the cast, but hopefully it will help make them better actors rather than put them off. Strangely we were criticised for not making better use of more exits. Unfortunately, she seemed unaware that the theatre only has two workable exits - and for not hitting the right period with one of the costume details, and in that case we'd researched it and we were right and she was wrong.

My performance didn't get much comment - as she pointed out, I don't have much to do in my role as Sir Toby Belch in that particular scene - just to roll on drunk and roll the plot along. She commented that the character protested he wasn't drunk, but he plainly was and appeared pleased with my portrayal in that regard, as well as commenting that I looked like Toad of Toad Hall (which got a laugh, not least from me), but otherwise didn't make much comment. Probably that should be taken as a compliment, as pretty much everyone else got picked up on for some negative detail or another, along with the positives. Neutral remarks are probably better than any negatives and four lines is hardly a big enough role to provoke much comment.

Anyway, an interesting evening at least, although I could have done without the long drive back in the dark.

Next, we perform the extract as part of a larger "60th Anniversary Celebration" variety show later this month.