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One act plays are sometimes an under-appreciated art form. It takes a huge amount of skill to craft a plot and build characters that the audience invest in and then reach some kind of resolution, all within the space of 40 to 50 minutes.
Boston Playgoers have often used one act plays as social events or for play readings but have found it challenging to put them on in full scale. We ran a night of a trio of one act plays several years ago but this didn’t sell very well. We know that other local societies have tried similar and faced similar problems. We can only reason that audience members prefer a full play; they want to know what they are getting for their money, but this is a huge shame as there are some brilliant one act plays out there. As a society we also have a lot of budding writers and they often start by writing a one act play to dip their toe in the water. We support them by using play readings as a way for them to hear their writing come to life and allow them to go back and rework and redraft their scripts. It just always seemed a shame that there was no means of getting those one act plays performed without financial loss to the society.
In 2017 one of our members recommended that we enter the Hunstanton One Act Drama Festival. Historically the society had always enjoyed performing as part of the Skegness Playgoers Drama Festival that was held at the Embassy Theatre; unfortunately that stopped running in 2012. The Hunstanton One Act Drama Festival is staged at the beautiful Princess Theatre. The festival runs over the course of a weekend with societies from across the region getting to perform their one act plays. They have a panel of adjudicators who judge each of the plays, with the festival culminating in an awards ceremony on the Sunday night. As a society we tend to make a weekend away of it. Each society is given a one-hour tech slot during the day prior to their performance; we usually perform on the Saturday night, stay over and play tourist on the Sunday before attending the awards ceremony on the Sunday evening. The weekends always prove to be great fun and our members come away with fantastic memories and the experience of performing on a different stage. Although there is clearly a competitive element, we have only ever found the community involved with the festival to be warm and friendly: after all they all share the same passion for theatre. The festival rules also add to the fun and experience. Each society has 50 minutes; starting with a completely bare stage, the set needs to be put in place ready to start. At the end the set is struck quickly behind the tabs before they open again to reveal an empty stage once again. Well planned setting and striking of the stage is an absolute must.
As a society we have had great success with our entries over the years.
2017 – Last Tango in Little Grimley. We won Best Production, all four cast members were nominated for acting awards and Jo Warrick won the award for Best Supporting Actress.
2018 – Where the Mushrooms Grow. This was an original script written and directed by one of our members, Kei Bailey. We won Best Production, and three members of the cast were nominated for acting awards.
2019 – Clever Clogs. This was an original script written and directed by Kei Bailey. We won Best Production for the third consecutive year. Kei won the award for Best Original Script. Three of the cast members – Jo Warrick, David O’Brien, and Dan Poulson – won awards for their acting.
Unfortunately there was a hiatus due to Covid but we were delighted to return in 2022.
2022 – Sunny Side Up. Again, this was written and directed by Kei Bailey. We were nominated for Best Production. We won awards for Best Original Script, Best Technical for the set skilfully constructed by Julian and Jo Warrick and an award for Best Supporting Actor for Dan Poulson.
2023 – Last Orders. This was written and directed by one of our newer members, Laura Griffin, and this was their first foray into script writing. Dan Poulson won Best Supporting Actor for the third consecutive year. We were delighted that Laura won for Best Original Script, particularly as this was their first time writing a play. Callum Forman was nominated for Best Actor.
Looking forwards, we are already making plans for our 2024 entry and we hope to continue to champion our members who bravely share their own original scripts with us. For any societies considering entering then we would strongly urge you to do so. The whole experience, from start to finish, is great fun. A one act play can be rehearsed easily one night per week without putting huge demands on time for those people involved. Once on its feet and books down it can be run from start to finish twice in one night. Festival organiser Stephen P.E Hayter and the rest of the committee for the festival are incredibly welcoming and we are sure would be delighted to see entries from more societies, particularly those that have never entered before.
Dan Poulson, Boston Playgoers
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