Twelve Amateur Theatre companies will perform a dozen plays over four nights in this year’s fifth Lighthorne Festival of One Act Plays.

Participating groups include newcomers Total Arts Community Theatre from Tamworth, Staffs, who are former national champions, together with a number of other former national finalists, and previous winners Abbey Players from Nuneaton.

The annual event will be staged from Wednesday June 7 to Saturday June 10, 2017, in Lighthorne Village Hall.

Festival Chairman Rod Chaytor said:”The Lighthorne Festival has now become firmly established and continues to attract groups with national reputations from a wide geographical area.

“But it is also very pleasing to see the regular return of local groups who have been with us from the start.”

Paul Fowler (right), this year’s Lighthorne Adjudicator and current chairman of the Guild of Drama Adjudicators, appeared on stage as an Oliver Hardy impersonator in the 2016 Lighthorne Festival.Lighthorne Festival is said to be unique because of its village setting, its charity-focused prize structure and cafe-theatre format in which the audience sits informally at tables, a glass of wine in front of them, and supper is served during the intervals.

As in previous years, groups will be competing not just for a handsome, engraved glass trophy but also a £500 cash prize plus the right to donate a matching sum to a registered charity of their choice.

Entrants will also be competing for the opportunity to enter the National Drama Festivals Association’s British All-Winners Finals to be held this year from Monday July 17 to Sunday July 23 at The Lamproom Theatre, Barnsley.

NDFA’s one-act playwriting competition, the George Taylor Memorial Award, has again attracted strong interest from Lighthorne entrants with half the entries being self-written original work.

This year sees a change of adjudicator with Paul Fowler, chairman of the Guild of Drama Adjudicators, taking charge. Paul, a Lighthorne regular, has unique experience of the Lighthorne Festival, having been an audience member in the inaugural year of 2013 and last year having appeared on stage with his theatre group, White Cobra of Northampton, in “Another Fine Mess” by Gillian Plowman, and also directing the winning entry, “Housebound” by Simon Mawdsley.

The Box Office for this year’s Lighthorne Festival opens on Friday April 28 , 2017 and can be accessed by emailing lighthornefestival@gmail.com or via a website link on lighthornefestival.org.uk or by ringing 01926 651411. Tickets are £12.50 each including a meal. A four-night Season Ticket is available at a reduced rate of £45.00.

The running order for the 2017 Lighthorne Festival of One-Act Plays can be found in the Entrants section on the website.