SDA Provincial Festival 2015: Day 1

Day 1 of the Provincial Festival started off with a bang and never let up! The day began with my playwrighting workshop, Selfie: Using Social Media to Write Scenes and Monologues. I had the great fortune to work with students from Cornerstone Christian School, Robert Southey School, and Rosetown Central School. Believe me when I say that 90 minutes was not enough with these talented young writers. They came up with so many fantastic ideas in a very short amount of time. Some videos of what they created will be posted shortly to the SDA Playwrighting Workshop Facebook Page, just as soon as the wi-fi here at the hotel co-operates and allows me to upload them.

After the workshops were over is when the competition got started. The audience was treated to 4 very different, very creative plays. Here's a little bit about each of them...

MAGNA CARTA - Miller Comprehensive Catholic High School - This was an original play, written by the students from Miller Comprehensive. It was an intriguing mix of 12 Angry Men, Fatal Attraction, and 48 Hours Mystery. There was a particularly creepy scene near the end of the play where we witnessed a murder onstage. I thought the way this scene was handled was spectacular. The actress committing the murder made very choreographed movements to music as she poisoned a cup of tea. It was a very dramatic climax that had the audience on pins and needles.

SHUDDERSOME: TALES OF POE - Clavet School - I was blown away by the extraordinary use of movement, colour, ensemble, light, sound, and voice in this thoroughly inventive staging of a Lindsay Price play that I had never seen before. This stunning production was a wonderful introduction to the piece and I can only imagine that any productions I see in the future will be measured against the very high watermark set by Clavet's ambitious visual and emotional achievement.

THE 9 WORST BREAK-UPS OF ALL TIME - Swift Current Comprehensive High School - When the cast of a play is having fun, so is the audience. Such was the case with this delightfully giddy production. Every single member of the utterly enormous cast of 28 managed to take their small roles and milk them for every laugh possible. I also loved listening to the very vocal audience reaction. Several times I heard people in the crowd respond to what was happening on stage rather loudly, which is a terrific indicator that they were totally invested in the story.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM - North Battleford Comprehensive High School - I'm always impressed by the visual design of North Battleford's productions (they've been at Provincials many years in a row now) and this year was no different. The costumes, the set, the lighting, the everything was lovely. They even utilized the fly loft and hung a moon from the rafters. This simple touch, in tandem with a perfectly aimed key light, made a huge dramatic impact that made this midsummer night a dreamy one.