One act festivals- friends and rellies
Tue, 11 Oct 2011, 08:59 pmJohnny Grim38 posts in thread
One act festivals- friends and rellies
Tue, 11 Oct 2011, 08:59 pmHaving taken part in a number of local one act festivals, the old 'bums on seats' or lack of same, continues to perturb me. The various organisations staging festivals do their best to encourage bums to find seats, however, despite their best intentions, the bums on average, fail to show up in sufficient numbers. Note: This is my personal view, as a partipant, said organisers may dispute this fact. Having spoken with a number of people re this topic, the following reasons were offered as reasons for non-attendance:
1: Cost of tickets is prohibitive. (I would agree here. Two sessions could cost you $30).
2: Actors / backstage people taking part, should be given 'special priced' or 'free' tickets. (Again, I would agree. Audience numbers would certainly improve if cheap /free tickets were made available. Given there's always plenty of seats, why not fill them with our own theatre community? How often do we actors / theatre groups perform and then bugger off without checking out other plays? Money, money money, could well be that reason.
3: General lack of publicity? 'I didn't even know it was on,' said more than one individual.
4: Unlike the Finley's night of nights; the one act festivals are minus the bright lights, and are seen (by some,) as somewhat inglamorous affairs. One would be hard pressed to argue the point, although to be fair, comparing the two would be a severe case of comparing the apple with the cheese.
5: The festivals are a forum for showcasing new works (evidenced by the recent ITA festival.) Punters are less likely to take chance on shelling money out on new /unseen - potentially average plays. I for obvious reasons, won't comment on that score, however, a number of people gave this as reason for not attending.
6: Too many plays, too many sessions. The yawn factor.
7: Plays should be screened pre-festival showing, and plays below standard should be excluded. (I'm not going there thank you very much.)
These are just a few comments I received. I thought them worth sharing. Note: As a local writer I find the festivals invaluable in showcasing my material, however, I find the current format, a hard sell for the theatre goers in my circle of friends and acquaintences. To add my two bobs worth, I think there is some merit in a panel selecting a suitable showcase of plays for the festival (perhaps made up of various genre's?) Of course, this won't agree with many. I suppose we need to ask, are we happy with the tried and trusted formula, or do we need to try something new. Personally, I'd vote for the new. I'll be most interested on hearing the views from the many who organise and take part in our festivals.
Footnote: I'd like to close, by saying, that none of the above is a slur on those who devote their time and energy to getting said festivals to the stage. It must be a tireless and thankless job, however, it doth appear from afar, that at times the 'whole weekend' events appear tiresome, and there's a sense of let's get this thing over, and let's get the hell out of here.
cheers
Johnny Grim
One Act rant
Thu, 13 Oct 2011, 11:12 amI believe that lack of numbers indicates not only a general lack of interest in community theatre, but theatre budgets having been exceeded by mining funded pieces of shit (I’ll let you guess what that is). Semi professional and professional theatre in Perth is doing quite well. The new State Theatre is playing to sell out audiences and the Blue Room is having a bit of a golden age, not only in regards to bums on seats, but quality of their productions as well.
And then we have community theatre. Cheaper than all of them, yet still unable to pull a decent crowd, bar one or two clubs that have a great subscriber base. Well, if we really want to be honest, let’s focus on the reputation of community theatre as being sub par, which believe me, earns that badge every now and then. Money isn’t the issue. It’s quality. People have a lot of money in W.A. Too much money and not enough sense. So, I can completely understand why they will pay over a 100 dollars to see a play with famous actors. They know it won’t be absolutely rubbish.
The only suggestion I can make is that certain clubs should perhaps merge to pool resources and audiences, or at the very least stop putting so many damn plays on. Cut down to 4 or so a year and put as much work as you can in them in order to make them a viable product. I’ve seen many an excellent community theatre production to know this can be done.
Which brings me to my next point; interest. I have discerned a high level of apathy amongst community theatre practitioners. Many of them that have been gun-ho about it for years, have recently given up and cannot be bothered to keep the flame alive. Which is sad. But looking at the play choices over the last few years (safe, well known plays AKA 2 hours of boredom), who can blame them? I don’t want to even see these shows, let alone be involved. I couldn’t think of anything more repulsive. We baby ourselves and our audiences too much. If you make the most offensive shows engaging and well produced, you’ll be surprised who will sit through it.
I was supposed to talk about the One Acts, but I got side tracked. Personally, I don’t like them very much. People get way too competitive and bitchy for my liking. I spent most of the One Acts not wanting to be there. I loved the fact that I got a chance to have my show performed at each venue, but that’s about it. I’m not in it for the awards. The play I produced was an exercise in my art form. The fact it took home a couple of awards has no bearing on how I feel about the piece. The One Acts were supposed to be a way to get some constructive feedback. However, I was very disappointed in some of this year’s adjudicators. Not because they didn’t like it – which I am quite sure they didn’t, but because their dissertation was inconsistent and sometimes illogical. Look, I know these people are probably lovely individuals, but they are getting paid to give adequate feedback and I personally felt that, in my case, it wasn’t received. I want to get constructive criticism in order to know how to improve, but I ended up just ignoring what they said, which is really counter-productive.
For me, Stephen Lee was a saving grace, because his feedback (on all the shows I saw in that session) was well articulated and completely justified. When he criticised aspects of my production, I found myself to be actively listening because I had respect for what he had to say. I also appreciated the fact he stressed his subjective response to the works.
Nothing is better than something else (unless you get into the mechanics of making theatre). What I am saying is that people who won awards (congratulations by the way) shouldn’t automatically think they are better than anyone else. On a particular day, a certain person just liked it for whatever reason. And come on, guys, it’s community theatre – if you win an award, you’re not a genius. Or maybe I am wrong and sadly no one has discovered your immense talent.
Sorry about the rant, but I think honesty in these matters is the best policy. I think you’ll find me hard pressed to participate in the One Act festivals in the future.
Thank you to all the organisers.