This year's One-Act Festival dates were :
Glamorgan One-Act Play Festival: Thursday 5th - Saturday 7th May 2011, Dylan Thomas Theatre, Swansea
Tickets cost £8.50 per night (£6.50 for concessions), but a special 3-night Festival Ticket was available at just £20 (£15 concessions).
And off to the west we went, back to our familiar home for the Glamorgan One-Act Play Festival: The Dylan Thomas Theatre, hosted by Swansea Little Theatre.
GDL Chair Teri McCarthy was once more at the helm - thankfully, this year not held up abroad by Icelandic ash, or motorway-seizing-up road accidents on the M4 - with her team of GDL helpers lending their support with box office, raffle, publicity etc. Thanks, as ever, to George Smith, Annette Littlechild, Jane Donoghue, Lon David and Ben Wheeler and the Swansea Box Office crew for all their help in these areas.
Teresa Hennessy brought along her DAW 'roadshow' enabling participants and guests to the Festival to see the latest offerings that the DAW has to offer. It was interesting that several plays performed at this year's festival are published by DAW, and Teresa made the most of the opportunity to promote them! DAW was also represented each night by Neil Maidman, DAW Vice Chair.
Thanks are due, as ever, to Swansea Little Theatre for their support of the festival, and to Derek Traverse who accompanied festival adjudicator Ben Humphrey GODA, who was making his debut at the Glamorgan Festival. Glamorgan was the final round of the Wales tour this year, and there was much excitement on the last night as the chosen productions were announced for the Wales Final festival in Mold on 3 and 4 June.
We enjoyed, yet again, the usual sterling support from all the technical, FOH and bar crew at Swansea Little Theatre, led by the ever-smiling Festival Stage Manager Ben Wheeler.
Another successful festival then, with all 9 productions from GDL member companies - as is now the norm. Also becoming the norm is that the houses are smaller than we would like, even, disappointingly, on the last night of the festival, when a large crowd had been anticipated to hear the selected productions for the Welsh final.
As last year, the Glamorgan County Cup was not awarded for the overall winning production at the festival; instead the Telstars-donated David Davies cup was again awarded for the highest-scoring adult production, and the Mari Major trophy for the highest-scoring youth production.
There was another change to this year: the GDL delegates' committee had voted that the age limit for the youth category should be lowered to 21, in place of the traditional 25. This meant that there was a definite change to the festival: The Unknown Theatre Company didn't enter the youth category for the first time in 6 years. At the same time, there was another change to the line-up: STARS Performing Arts, traditionally a youth company, also entered an adult production this year. Altogether, this meant that only 2 of the 9 entries this time were 'youth' entries. Not many years ago, the emphasis was very much the other way round, with youth entries dominating the line up.
A varied programme, this year, but small casts was quite a feature of the festival. The Unknown Theatre (twice), Telstars and STARS all brought two-handers, with only Dylan Thomas Youth Academy featuring a large group on stage for Macbeth, and Players Theatre fielding seven actors for A Strong Smell of Burning.
Players Theatre brought back to the festival successful productions from the past - A Strong Smell of Burning and the festival winner After I'm Gone, which positively brought the house down on the 2nd night of the festival, with strong performances from all, but with Mavis Gibbs on never-finer form, picking up both acting awards in the process.
STARS Performing Arts, brought two challenging pieces of new writing Fragile and Beast, very innovative and experimental in style, and which were acknowledged by the Adjudicator's award for a commitment to innovation. For the first time, STARS brought an adult production. And it was a great pleasure to see how the young people in the youth production Beast, who have been performing at the festival for some years, are continuing to develop their performance skills.
More conventional one-act fare from Telstars and The Unknown Theatre Company, with A Dog's Life, In the Blinking of an Eye, and Eggplant respectively, but Unknown also brought to the festival new writing in the form of At First Sight: the Welsh premiere of the winner of the 2010 DAW playwriting competition. We were delighted to welcome to the festival Lesley Ross, the writer of Eggplant, and we were treated to the unusual sight of the adjudicator and author discussing performance possibilities across the stage/auditorium during the show's summing up!
Dylan Thomas Youth Academy once again showed how director Clare Friswell Owen brings the best out of her young people, as their discipline and focus was clear throughout Macbeth. Special mention came for the witches: their costume/hair/makeup and their performances.
Full details of the winners are listed below.
GODA Adjudicator Ben Humphreys, a newcomer to us in Wales, did sterling work through the week, and built up quite a fan base! His easy, informed, entertaining and communicative style was hugely enjoyed, and his constructive and though-provoking feedback was well received by all.
Neil Maidman, of DAW, announced at the awards ceremony that Ben would be adjudicator at the 2012 Wales Final Festival when it's held at the Congress Theatre in Cwmbran next year.
In the meantime, Players Theatre have reached the Wales Final this year with After I'm Gone, which will be the last production on the final night of the festival in Mold on 4th June.
Wales Final: Friday 3rd and Saturday 4th June 2011, Clwyd Theatr Cymru, Mold
Players Theatre gave a storming performance of After I'm Gone, at the Welsh Final, with Mavis Gibbs yet again picking up the Best Performance award for her extraordinary portrayal of Mam. It was a good Festival and adjudicator Ian Sarginson stressed how close it was, but in the end it was New 'Tabs' Players production of A Kind of Vesuvius which won through and which will be representing Wales at the final in Swindon in July.
Players represented Glamorgan extremely well, and we had much to be proud of.
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British Final: Friday 1st and Saturday 2nd July 2011, the Wyvern Theatre, Swindon
The transfer to the different playing space, and the unfamiliar challenges that the theatre posed, caused a few problems for some companies at the British Final in Swindon in July. New 'Tabs' Players production of A Kind of Vesuvius went well, but there were some audibility problems, as was the case for the Northern Irish team with Can't Stand Up for Falling Down.
In the end it was the English (and local - this team were playing in their home theatre, the first time anyone can remember this in a British final!) team with The Recidivists and the Scottish team with the first act of Reza's Art that really caused some discussion.
It was Scotland who took it, with a witty and imaginative take on the piece, but not without prompting some discussion as to the appropriateness of including individual acts of full-length plays. A warm and welcoming weekend, where Wales was represented by Sarah d'Ivry, Chair of DAW, who accepted the invitation to host the British final festival in 2012 in Pembrokeshire.
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The Wales One-Act finalists this year were :
Friday 3rd June 2011
| 1. Phoenix Theatre Company | Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All | |
| 2. Blackwood Little Theatre | The Tobacco Tin | |
| 3. Blackwood Little Theatre | I.E.D. |
Saturday 4th June
| 1. Loose Cannons | Father's Day | |
| 2. New Tabs Players | A Kind of Vesuvius | |
| 3. The Players Theatre | After I'm Gone |
Winners at the 2011 GDL Festival were: (and here are the photos)
name of award |
winner |
production |
group |
The David Davies Memorial Trophy for the adult production attaining the highest marks in the competition |
The Company | After I'm Gone | Players Theatre |
| Bob McTurk Memorial Trophy for Best Director | Lon David | At First Sight and Eggplant | The Unknown Outcasts/The Unknown Theatre Company |
Best Individual Performance Award |
Mavis Gibbs | After I'm Gone | Players Theatre |
The Bea Wells Memorial Trophy for the Best Comedy Performance |
Mavis Gibbs | After I'm Gone | Players Theatre |
Youth Trophy the Youth production attaining the highest marks in the competition - donated by Mari Major |
The Company | Beast | STARS Performing Arts (Youth) |
The Jean Howell Trophy Adjudicator's Award |
for their commitment to innovation | STARS Performing Arts |
The running order for the 2011 Festival was:
| Company | Play | Playwright |
| Thursday 5th May 2011 | ||
| STARS Performing Arts, Cardiff | Fragile | Nerys Jones & Kayleigh Bates |
| Telstars Theatre Company, Cardiff | A Dog's Life | Pam Valentine |
| The Unknown Outcasts, Cardiff | At First Sight | Barney Norris |
| Friday 6th May 2011 | ||
| The Players' Theatre, Rhymney Valley | A Strong Smell of Burning | Graham J Evans |
| The Dylan Thomas Theatre Youth Academy, Swansea (youth entry) | Macbeth | William Shakespeare, adapted by Nelly E. Ceullar-Garcia |
| The Players' Theatre, Rhymney Valley | After I'm Gone | Frank Vickery |
| Saturday 7th May 2011 | ||
| Telstars Theatre Company, Cardiff | In the Blinking of an Eye | Jeremy Hylton Davies |
| STARS Performing Arts, Cardiff (youth entry) | Beast | Nerys Jones |
| The Unknown Theatre Company, Cardiff | Eggplant | Lesley Ross |
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