Festival Frenzy

Will someone please get me the name of the man/woman/committee in charge of choosing the plays that are read/performed at the American College Theatre Festival for Region 5? I have some questions for them. The main one being...


What the world?

Two days into our week long adventure that is ACTF. Two days of auditions, acting competitions, design exhibits, stage hand show downs, work shops, staged readings, and performances. I have made jewelry out of metal lids and bottle caps. I went to a workshop for playwrights talking about dialogue. I have sat through some really mediocre staged readings of student written plays, one that was pretty good, and one that was excellent. I got to spend a couple hours wondering through the design exhibit, getting to see techies showing off their skills. And best of all, I've had some really good conversations with some really great theatre people. That is what ACTF is about.

But that doesn't mean I don't have questions:

1. Who picks what comes and what doesn't? Is it one person or a panel? And what are the criteria? There were some one-acts written in my class that were better than what we watched tonight.

2. Why are we not encouraged to submit our stuff more? We know there are options, but we aren't really told what they are. As college students we should be able to figure it out, but some times a little bit of a push is good.

3. Why do professors who come and give workshops think that we want to sit in a lecture for over an hour? We got out of classes for the week, let us do something in your session other than take notes!

4. Why did they choose to hold the festival somewhere there isn't enough room for everyone to fit into one auditorium? It's Iowa State, for Pete's sake! There has to be somewhere we'll all fit!

5. Why do they hold two sessions for playwrights at the exact same time? Put something there that doesn't have the same interest base.

6. Why is it so popular to satirize the church? Sure, we have a history of making fools of ourselves, but so does every other people group in the world. Do we really need eighteen plays about skin deep, fake Christians?

I'm sure there are more questions. They always arise. I think ACTF is really, really good for that. We are given the chance to see things very different from what we do at NWC, given the chance to look at them from very different perspectives, and are able to learn and grow from them. It is great, and exhausting.

I just hope tomorrow's plays are better than what we've seen so far...

Until next time, ask a few questions. It never hurts to ask.