Winning Director Simon Winterman holds the (nearly visible) glass winner’s trophy alongside Festival chairman Rod Chaytor. Photo: Geoff Mayor

Following another highly-successful event, The Lighthorne Festival of One-Act Plays will have two entrants in the National Drama Festivals Association’s British Finals in the Isle of Man this July.

Lighthorne Drama Group is to compete alongside 2013 Winners Caramba.

The LDG entry will be “Tell Me Another Story, Sing Me A Song” by Jean Lenox Toddie, directed by Rachel Tompkins and Phil Quinn, acted by Jess Daniel and Dawn Gazey-Lewis, which came second in the 2014 Lighthorne Festival of One-Act Plays in June.

LDG’s opportunity has arisen because this year’s winners, Sudden Impulse from Nuneaton, were unable to apply because they are already committed to the Buxton festival, which clashes, and where they won the Best Actor award last year.

NDFA rules say that a second placed entry may apply if the winner of an affiliated festival is genuinely unable to compete and if both entries reach over 80% on the Guild of Drama Adjudicators’ scoring scheme. LDG achieved 83%.

Last year’s Lighthorne Festival winners, Caramba from Stratford-upon-Avon, have also been accepted to compete in the Isle of Man with their 2013 entry, Michael Frayn’s “Chinamen”, directed by Kate Guest and acted by Tim Guest and Nikki Baldwin.

Dawn Gazey-Lewis ( left) and Jess Daniel (right) share a tender moment as mother and daughter in the Lighthorne Drama Group production of “Tell Me Another Story, Sing Me A Song” by Jean Lenox Toddie, directed by Rachel Tompkins and Phil Quinn, at the Lighthorne Festival of One-Act Plays in June 2014. Photo: Geoff Mayor.

They qualify for this year’s Finals because last year’s Lighthorne Festival was held a little later in the year. When the Lighthorne Festival applied for NDFA membership after its inaugural last year, it was done on the basis that the 2014 Lighthorne Festival would be held two weeks earlier, to get in synch with the NDFA calendar, but also that, exceptionally for this year’s Finals, both winners would qualify to apply in 2014. In the event, both have also been accepted.

The NDFA Festival, which is held in a different location each year, features a youth section and full-length plays as well as the One-Act competition and will be held this year at the restored Gaiety Theatre in Douglas between July 20 and 26.

Caramba compete on the evening of Tuesday July 22 and LDG on the evening of Wednesday July 23.

Sophie Sherratt as the Tart, Ray Durkin as the Patrolman and Phil Malkin as the Naked Man in the Wheelie Bin in the Sudden Impulse production of “One Was Nude And One Wore Tails” by Dario Fo, directed by Simon N.W. Winterman, which won the 2014 Lighthorne Festival of One-Act Plays. Photo: Geoff Mayor.

Supporters Welcome!!

The Committee of the Lighthorne Festival of One-Act Plays wishes both entrants every success and its representatives will be there to will them both on.

As a reminder, the third annual Lighthorne Festival of One-Act Plays will be held over four nights from June 3 to June 6 next year. Expressions of interest from potentially participant theatre groups in writing, please, by October 31, 2014, and firm entries including the name of the play, the director and other details, by January 31, 2015.

In the 2014 event, Leamington-based Irish company Tir na nOg came third with “In the Shadow of the Glen” by J.M. Synge, directed by Gus MacDonald. The Talisman, Kenilworth, received an honourable mention from GoDA adjudicator Mike Kaiser for “The Last Bread Pudding” by Nick Warburton.

Rod Chaytor
Chairman
The Lighthorne Festival of One-Act Plays.