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Minifest is July 28

Theatre lovers will love this: Kincardine is hosting Minifest this year. Minifest is a weekend workshop to help budding actors, directors, technicians and playwrights hone their skills; and where they can be critiqued, get training, and gain proficiency in front of a friendly audience.

The aim of the Minifest Workshop Weekend is to give groups a chance to enter a festival without the problems of transporting a set, and to let new directors, actors and technicians try their hands at something on a smaller scale than the major competitive festival. The host group provides the set, basic furniture, lights, sound equipment, a Minifest Stage Manager and technical people.

The concept is great: up to six theatre groups from all over the Western Ontario Drama League (WODL) gather each summer in a different host town. Over the course of the weekend, each group mounts their own production of the same one-act play, which is usually an original script that has been submitted for consideration for Minifest, often by a new playwright.

This year, the selected play was written by Corinne Robertson-Brown, who is thrilled to see her inaugural script being produced not once but three times, and in her own town. Corinne is delighted to have a friendly Minifest audience for her first play.

You might think that seeing the same play several times would be boring – but it’s anything but! The members of the WODL are a tremendously talented bunch, and they each have full artistic licence to create whatever they envision, while still sticking to the words (if not the spirit!) of the script.

It is a wonderful opportunity to see how different directors, casts and crews solve the problems presented by the play chosen, and far from seeing the same play up to six times, you can expect several wildly different productions.

This year, Kincardine is the host, and there are three presentations scheduled. They are open to the public, and you can get tickets for only $5 each (so $15 if you’d like to see all three productions).

Minifest is at the Kincardine Centre for the Arts on Saturday, July 28, and the production times are:
9:10 am: Group A Performance
10:50 am: Group B Performance
1:20 pm: Group C Performance

Tickets are $5 per performance and are available at J’Adorn, or call the Box Office at (519) 396-9000.

Click here to find out more about Minifest:
http://www.kincardinetheatreguild.com/Minifest_Index.html

Click here to find out more about Kincardine:
http://www.sunsets.com/kincardine/index.php