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FESTIVAL STEPS TO NATIONALS
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“FESTIVAL STEPS TO NATIONALS”
By Doobie Potter
Ah, Festival where do I begin? Let’s look at the technical aspect first. If you are planning to participate in the next festival, then I think it’s very important to plan a play in your season that would make a good competition piece. Usually the plays are cut from full length to a 60 minute version. So my advice is to produce the full length play first and work on cuts from there. Or if you want to compete with a one-act, then find a companion piece to go with it and do two one-acts in your season. Why? So much is discovered, improved on and changed once you have the opportunity to have a run with different audiences. Why do you think they take shows on the road before they produce them on Broadway? We were lucky enough to do a four week run of “Over The River And Through The Woods” before we cut it and started working on it for festival.
Next, find a rehearsal space that is large enough to set up your set and run the play. It is important that you have a 10’X10’ space just like your will be using in competition to store your set. You need to coordinate and rehearse the set-up as well as the play. If you only have 4 foot square boxes to move out, no problem. But if you have a set like OVER THE RIVER’S, then you need to have a blue print for fitting it all into that space and a plan to remove it and get it back in during the designated time. If you can do it without actors involved, fine, but sometimes you need them to also participate in the set-up and strike.
If music is a part of your play choose wisely. Sometimes specific pieces are called for and other times it has to be something period or in the right mood. Whatever the music, you must have rights to use that music before you can participate in Festival. For singing one line, “Five foot two eyes of blue, has anybody seen my gal”, I paid a company in L.A. some money, (they owned ¾ of it), and got permission from the son of the original writer for the other ¼. I finally reached him by phone from the theatre at nationals. He had no computer or fax, so I got him to call the theatre manager and give his verbal permission. From a C.D. of Italian mandolin music my sound man had found at a Flee Market for $2.00, I ended up getting permission from a company that owned the rights in Canada.
The other most important thing is how to raise the money. I had a cast of 6 and a crew of 6 which included me. The budget for the State level was about $2,275, for Regional about $1615 and for Nationals about $8615. Then we went to Germany so we probably ended up raising about $80,000. We did a huge letter campaign to everyone in our address book from as far back as elementary school, made up pledge cards, had a few fund raisers, begged a few foundations and asked anyone else we happen to run into for their support.
Luckily I had a dedicated cast, crew and their families. It was a wonderful unforgettable experience for all of us and we would do it again. In fact I am getting ready to produce the play again at The Cynthia Poteet Theatre in Oklahoma City six years later with all of my same grandparents.
(Ed. note: Even if you don’t win Nationals and go to Monaco, there are other chances to take your play abroad. “Over the River and Through the Woods” was invited to Germany to perform for the military. Her production at Cynthia Poteet was voted Best Play of their 2007 season.)
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