SDA Provincial Festival: Day 2

Yet another terrific day at the Saskatchewan Drama Association Provincial Festival! It all got started with another session of my iPlaywrite workshop. I had some really wonderful students from Maple Creek and Yorkton who came up with some very thoughtful material in our time together. Using photos of tableaux and tweets from junior students at the Middle Years Festival, they put together scenes and monologues that have now been uploaded to Facebook. If you want to check out what they came up with, head over to www.facebook.com/sdafest. I've posted videos of all the scenes they came up with, as well as the students from yesterday's session. As you'll see, it's amazing what can be written in a short amount of time! Be sure to like the page and feel free to share with all your friends.

After a quick lunch, the plays continued with 2 productions in the afternoon and 3 more evening performances. Again, it was a nice variety of plays and there was a lot of great work happening up on the stage.

THE SPIRIT OF LIFE AND MAGDA AND JOSEF - Swift Current Comprehensive High School - Two plays for the price of one, these challenging plays about the Holocaust were respectfully brought to life by a strong ensemble of actors who really worked together to tell stories of various characters who were affected by the horror of World War II. I quite enjoyed the simplicity of the staging and how well all of the actors worked together. Plays with a lot of monologues are not easy and so I appreciated that the entire cast remained onstage throughout, providing solid support for one another.

KILLING BILL - Yorkton Regional High School - This hilarious play was so much fun to watch thanks to the actors, directors, and technical crew committing 100% to making every moment as big and broad as possible. There was a scene in which an enormous pancake was brought onstage by a huge ensemble of actors in martial arts attire (you had to be there) that had me laughing so hard, I wasn't sure I was ever going to rid myself of the giggles. All of the actors were awesome, but Nicole Logan and Nicole Hedley were particularly hysterical. There must be something funny about the name Nicole! I also thought the visual elements were very strong.

SEUESSPEARE: MEET THE MACBETHS - Greenall High School - This cute play in rhyme was done well and the audience was certainly with it from start to finish. Macbeth is my favorite of all Shakespeare's plays, so I enjoyed the absurdity of this translation. Tiffany Favreau as Lady Macbeth had a lot of really nice comedic moments as she slowly descended into madness and searched for ways to get the spots out, out, out of her dirty laundry.

GOODBYE TO THE CLOWN - Carrot River Junior Senior High School - I have a history with Carrot River, as they've produced several plays of mine over the past few years, and just when I think they could not get any better, they present yet another play that totally knocks my socks off. I wasn't sure if a play written more than 60 years ago would have the impact it may have had when first written, but all my doubts were cast aside the very moment the lights went up on this truly lovely production. The concept of setting the play in the 1950's, in a virtually black and white world, was an inspired one. The visuals were simply spectacular and added enormously to the overall impact the show had on the audience. What's more, the actors created wonderfully rich characters, each of them turning in a performance that moved the audience to tears. I know I was sobbing long before the lights came down.

GABRIELLE - Rossignol High School - In the 6 years I've been coming to Provincials, I have enjoyed watching how much the students and plays from the Northern Region have grown. Not only do the plays out of that region generally address important topical issues, but they continue to tackle more and more ambitious material every year. This play, written in the 1970's, is just as relevant today as the day it was written, and I appreciated ths group for stretching themselves with a play that required area staging, lighting cues, and sound elements. Sara Daugenault as Gabrielle had a very tough role to pull off, but with her powerful voice and strong stage presence, she certainly rose to the challenge.

I can't believe there are only 2 more performances to go! I swear this festival flies by faster and faster every year. So until tomorrow, that's a wrap!