Eleven top Amateur Theatre companies will again perform 12 plays over four nights in this year’s fourth Lighthorne Festival of One Act Plays.
Four of this year’s participating groups, including last year’s Lighthorne winners, Abbey Players from Nuneaton, together with Lighthorne Drama Group and newcomers Great Witley Operatic Society from Worcestershire, are former national finalists.
Another Lighthorne newcomer, White Cobra from Northampton, won the 2014 national championships in the full-length play section.
And a two-handed play brought forward by yet another new group, Take 2 from Stourbridge, features two award-winning actresses.
The annual event will be staged this year in Lighthorne Village Hall from Wednesday June 8 to Saturday June 11, inclusive.
Festival Chairman Rod Chaytor said:”The Lighthorne Festival continues to attract groups from an increasingly-wide geographical area and of ever-growing reputation. Standards can only rise.
“But it is also very pleasing to see loyal stalwarts such as Banbury Cross Players and Phoenix Players, Stratford, returning again, having been with us from the start.
“Last year’s third-placed Armistice Theatre from Kenilworth are also back and their neighbours the Priory Theatre, Kenilworth, will no doubt be seeking to go one better than their last year’s second place.
“Highly-reputable Rugby Theatre are also with us again, having made their Lighthorne debut last year, and we are delighted to welcome our first Coventry amateur theatre group, Wheatsheaf Players.”
Abbey Players have submitted two plays.
As in previous years, groups will be competing for a £500 cash prize plus the right to donate a matching sum to a registered charity of their choice.
Lighthorne Festival is said to be unique because of its village setting, its charity-focussed prize structure and cafe-theatre format in which the audience sits informally at tables, a glass of wine in front of them, and a hot supper is served during the interval.
Entrants will be competing not just for the title, cash prize and handsome theirs-to-keep engraved glass trophy, but also for the right to enter the National Drama Festivals Association’s British All-Winners Finals to be held this year from July 25 to July 31 at the Hertford Theatre.
NDFA’s one-act playwriting competition, the George Taylor Memorial Award, has again attracted strong interest from Lighthorne entrants with nearly half the entries being self-written original work.
This year sees a change of adjudicator with Jan Palmer Sayer, of the Guild of Drama Adjudicators, taking over from Mike Kaiser, GoDA, who officiated at Lighthorne for its first three years.
The Box Office opens on May 2 and can be reached by emailing lighthornefestival@gmail.com or via a website link on lighthornefestival.org.uk or on 01926 651239. Tickets are £12.50 each including a hot meal. This year for the first time there is a four-night Season Ticket at a reduced rate of £45.00.
The running order in full of the 2016 Lighthorne Festival of One-Act Plays can be found in the Entrants section on the website.