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The 28th Sancta Annual One Act Festival
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Sancta 28th Annual One Act Play Festival The 28th Sancta One Act Play Festival came to an exciting finish at The Actors Centre last Saturday with many surprise nominations, awards and winners. The 28th Annual Sancta One Act Play Festival came to a grand finale at an award ceremony followed by a cocktail party, after the re-performance of the 3 “Best Plays”, on Saturday 19th April at The Actors Centre, with a number of surprises in nominations, awards and the Final three plays, with each group receiving nominations. This festival was made primarily possible by a grant from the National Arts Council, who gave us money mainly for education, courses and mentoring, which we outsourced entirely to The Actors Centre with their professional expertise, who provided Sancta members, particularly the 8 groups participating in the festival, with 40 hours education and courses and 10 hours mentoring, as well as large contingents of groups in the Secunda area, sponsored by Sasol Ltd, Secunda as well. The theme of this year’s festival was “Making theatre out of nothing”, with minimal concentration on sets, lights, technicals and main concentration on how did the groups use their 50 hours education to improve their play, which was chosen purely on the merits of the script and whether Sancta/TAC felt it could get to stage. Mr Ismail Mohamed, the chief spokesman for the other two adjudicators - Ms Vinette Ebrahim (Charmaine in 7de Laan) and Sancta Patroness, and American Mr Antonio Lyons, our first foreign adjudicator - felt that all the plays had benefited highly by the whole process through TAC, that the standard was considerably raised and that many of the plays performed should be pursued further for a much wider audience, especially as 8 plays were brand new SA works, so here too Sancta was enabling the showcasing of works of new authors. He was also gratified at the camaraderie amongst the groups that came from all over Gauteng, Pta, and Secunda and felt it was more than time that Sancta now spread its wings to become a force to be reckoned with, link with other Community Festivals particularly in the Western Cape and Pta, and run its own national festival hopefully next year. Watch this space! He also commented on the much higher audience attendance than usual, in some cases outdoing professional show audiences. This festival also had brand new talent as well a people of years of standing in Community Theatre and the results of this combination certainly showed in the nominations, awards and winning plays and he felt that the groups should now try and support each other with their expertise, irrespective of where they came from and even possibly do joint productions. Mr Steven Feinstein, Artistic Director of The Actors Centre made a short speech on how pleased they had been to be a part of the whole process and hoped it would continue into the future. The winners of the 20 award categories are: 1. Best foyer display – WINNER - Teatime for the living dead - The Franklin Players, Roosevelt Park 2. Best backstage technical excellence - WINNER - Edenvale Acting and Drama Society - Powdered Water 3. Best set – WINNER - Teatime for the living dead - The Franklin Players 4. Best original script – WINNER - Some fathers sons by Craig Van Zyl 5. Best performance in a cameo role – WINNER – Paseka Arnold Raputsoe as The Blind Man in Ding–Dong – The Burning Action Drama Group, Pta 6. Best actress in a supporting role – WINNER – Alexandra Hattingh as Mrs Bell, - Teatime for the living dead – The Franklin Players 7. Best actor in a supporting role – JOINT WINNERS - Ricky Veale as Ian Bradley in Teatime for the living dead – The Franklin Players and John Mtsweni as Ndbezitha in Let's go back to our roots – Y-People in theatre project, Secunda 8. Runner up to best actress in a leading role - WINNER – Nthabiseng Skhosana as Hlengiwe in Class of ’85 – Kudide Development Theatre, Secunda 9. Best actress in a leading role - WINNER – Faith Mokoena as Nonto in Ding-Dong, The Burning Action Drama Group 10. Runner up to best actor in a leading role – WINNER - Subisiso Nkosi as Solly in Class of ’85 – Kudide Development Centre 11. Best actor in a leading role - WINNER – Craig Van Zyl as Christopher – Some father’s sons - Rebel Productions, East Rand 12. Best novice production – WINNER - Flat 309 - by Linda Michael Mkhwanazi - St Endas Secondary School, Inner City, a project of the Lutheran Community Outreach Programme (Hillbrow Theatre) 13. Best ensemble – WINNER - CLASS OF '85 – Y-People in theatre project, Secunda 14. Theatrical excellence - Powdered Water by Edenvale Drama and Acting Society for overall technical excellence - integration of lights, sounds and costumes 15. Best Director – WINNER - Roy Wilkinson for Some father’s sons – Rebel Productions 16. 2nd Runner–up to Best Overall Production – Ding–Dong - The Burning Action Drama Group 17. Runner–up to Best Production - Class of ' 85 - by Y-People in theatre project, Secunda 18. Best overall production - Some fathers sons - Rebel Productions 19.The adjudicators special merit award - The Adam Leslie Rosebowl – awarded to The Actors Centre for their excellent education and mentoring process. This was first won in 1998 by Ismail Mohamed and handed over by last year’s winner, TJ de Klerk of Artslink.co.za. 20. 2nd adjudicators special merit award - the Richard Whitby Trophy - Joint Winners – Boniswa Holland and Joel Sethlali for Stage Manager and the lighting technician for the festival on behalf of The Actors Centre. After thanking the adjudicators, VIPS, The Actors Centre, sponsors and media, handing out various gifts, The Sancta National Chair, Noel Mc Donald expressed the wish that all groups would now inject new blood into Sancta, and more Sponsors would be found to carry Sancta to new heights especially after the extraordinary success of this “New Festival”. He also made mention of the fact that the winning play is one of the possible plays eligible as Sancta’s entry into the 2008/9 Naledi Theatre Awards “Community Best of the Fest” play off at the end of the year. Sancta expresses its gratitude to its other sponsors – The Arts and Culture Trust; Dalro - Samro Endowment for the National Arts; as well as BASA for their general support; TMSA, The Naledi Awards and Computicket Pty Ltd and TJ de Klerk of Artslink.co.za. Sancta is the SA National Representative of The International Amateur Theatre Association (IATA) and has been short - listed again for the 4 yearly Festival du Mondial in Monaco in 2009. For any information on Sancta and its member groups, contact The National Chair, Noel Mc Donald 083 309 4315. |
