South Burnett theatre lovers had a full menu of one-act plays at the Heritage NananGO PLAYfest.
The one-act play festival, staged at the Nanango Cultural Centre saw a great variety of plays competing for awards and prizes.
The twelve plays held over 2-4 September, encompassed dramas, dramedies and comedies with many moving performances.
PLAYfest convenor, Jon Fearnley, said the quality of plays was astounding with those who stayed for the whole program finding it hard to judge which was their favourite because of the diversity.
For some, the quality was overwhelming and left them amazed by what PLAYfest offered, finding it hard to recall which session or play they preferred.
Drawing plays from the South East Queensland Drama Festival Circuit, and judged by the very experienced Mark and Shirley Lucas, of Excalibur Theatre, Caboolture, the winner was a historic drama 146 Point Flame about a fire in a New York migrant textile factory in 1911.
With haunting staging and a cast of six actors, the play wove the story of the impoverished migrants, brilliantly staged and costumed with a complex supporting soundtrack, as their locked factory burned down around them.
While it was a rather sombre subject, the play won the team from KSP Theatre in Burpengary both the Best Play from the adjudicators and the People’s Choice Best Play from the season ticket holders.
The result surprised a lot of the audience as it won over a number of very slick comedies and poignant dramas.
Adjudicator Mark Lucas praised the People’s Choice Award as he felt it showed maturity in the audience, showing the impact of a well-acted and staged drama over comedies that were well acted and had the audience in stitches.
Nanango Theatre Company presented three plays with Speed Dating winning the Runner-Up for Best Short Play, with Natalie Fenton winning Best Minor Female role and Hayden Harrison winning the Best Minor Male role for his depiction of a nightclub bouncer in his first stage performance since high school.
Their director Valerie Mathews was ecstatic with the results and so pleased for the actors after all their hard work in rehearsals.
I, a drama performed by Nanango’s Beth Geoghegan and Neil Melville received commendations from the adjudicators as did Beth for her direction of the Toowoomba Repertory Theatre’s dramedy Towpath.
The Best Comedy award went to Ipswich Little Theatre’s Blind Date with Shane Mallory and Julie Anne Wright showing wonderful comedic skills and slick direction, with Julie Anne winning the Best Actor (Female) award.
Audience members came from across South East Queensland to follow cast members or to catch the plays they had heard about, with the comments suggesting they would be back next year.
Jane Heath from Caboolture came to last year’s PLAYfest Fringe concerts and said she would keep coming back because of the warm community welcome.
Heartening from the organiser’s perspective were the people who came for the first session and converted their tickets to season tickets and attended all the plays.
When asked which was their favourite session or play, most responded with a long silence before they chose and then commented on the variety of plays that had stimulated their fancy.
Stella Wade from Nanango commented that it was wonderful to have such a rich cultural program for the region.
She said she loved the line from Blind Date where the actress read a Tinder profile.
“Belgian man into scuba diving, crochet, alligators, leather bondage, fantasy role play, Bavarian cookery and spanking; seeks similar”.
The actress then commented, “That’s why we only went out the one time…. Just kidding”.
John Edenborough relished the diversity and professionalism of the plays and suggested a little more of a synopsis of information as he really enjoyed the winning play after he understood the context.
South Burnett Regional Councillor Jane Erkens opened the festival and later decided to watch the whole program as she was so enthralled.
She commented that it was wonderful to attract such quality community theatres to the South Burnett at a reasonable price.
Convenor Jon Fearnley was relieved that PLAYfest had been such a success.
He relayed the closing comments from adjudicator Mark Lucas that the festival was a double success for the town of Nanango as it was one of the few places where banks and the arts are working together for community theatre and he thanked Heritage for their support.
Jon commented that the audience response had been almost overwhelming and that the team running PLAYfest had learnt a lot through good planning and their wonderful volunteers.
