SECUNDA – The South African National Community Theatre Association (Sancta) will be hosting its 34th one act play festival at the Johannes Stegmann Theatre from 2 to 7 March.
According to the organisers, this festival will be slightly different in nature in that virtually none of the previous well-known winning groups received an entry and they have 12 unknown groups from the Govan Mbeki and Gert Sibande regions and one from eMalahleni (Witbank) as well.
“They will be joined by two plays from other provinces,” said Mr Noel McDonald, national chairman of Sancta.
He said it is as a result of intensive courses that Sancta has grown in Mpumalanga over the last four years.
Mr McDonald thanked Ms Dorothay Ann Gould, Mr Michael Maxwell and the professional artists for giving up their time to read plays, do workshops and mentoring sessions over weekends.
A total of 43 plays were submitted for consideration for the festival and the top 12 were chosen from the scripts organisers felt had the ability to translate to the stage.
Tickets for this festival are R20 per person and are available from the groups who will take part in the festival, at the theatre box at the Johannes Stegmann Theatre or people can contact Mr Henning Botha at 082 440 8120.
When you buy a ticket, you will get a Sancta badge that includes entrance to all 15 plays as well as the gala performance and awards evening.
The festival will have three well-known professional adjudicators this year, namely Hazel Bilsland-Brown, Tallowah Phindile Suntshwa and Karin van den Laag.
They will give verbal critique on the plays seen every night, so that the groups can take the ideas with them in case they reach the top three plays.
The top three plays of the week will be announced on Friday night and they will perform their plays again on Saturday night at the gala performance and awards evening.
The groups also have the opportunity to do a foyer display on their groups in the theatre for which there is a trophy.
Mr McDonald also thanked Ms Thobile Mogale from the Mpumalanga Department of Culture, Sport and Recreation for the grant.
“Our high quality professional adjudicators have been kindly sponsored since 2000 by the Southern African Music Rights Organisation in Johannesburg,” said Mr McDonald.
“In addition, the previous year’s grant enabled the top Mpumalanga group to go to the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown in 2014 for 10 days to attend a remix course and workshop and we hope the same will happen this year.
“The groups have the opportunity to expand their wings at other prestigious national festivals and some have attended national schools festivals.
“Some Sancta groups over the years have even performed overseas.”
The plays performed also have an opportunity to be entered into the prestigious Professional Naledi Awards where there is a community theatre award category.
The 2013 festival winner from the Hillbrow Theatre Group won the 2013 Naledi Award.
The acts will begin at 6pm every evening.
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