A host of one act plays will be coming to Okotoks this weekend.
The Alberta Drama Festival Association (ADFA) is holding One Act Play Festivals around the province, with the Rotary Performing Arts Centre (RPAC) playing host to one.
The ADFA consists of ten zones, such as Calgary, Edmonton, and the Foothills region, with the latter hosting six plays from four regional theatre groups, including Dewdney Players and MacDaDa Theatre from Okotoks, the Nose Creek Players from Airdrie, and Pine Tree Players from Canmore.
“We were trying to revive the thing last year then the restrictions hit again, so we’re happy to be back at it this year,” said Dewdney producer Ed Sands.
WIth adjudication by Karen Johnson-Diamond, founder of Dirty Laundry Theatre, one play will be chosen to advance to the provincial festival, held in Camrose on May 27 and 28.
It’s been several years since Dewdney showed a batch of one act plays.
The gap predated the pandemic, Sands said, as the last batch was performed in 2018. The current plays from the troupe were ready to be shown in 2020, then COVID hit.
Sands, along with his wife Debbie, are making a rare simultaneous appearance in a play themselves, as the elderly couple in I’m Herbert written by Robert Anderson, where a golden-aged couple carries on a confused conversation, perpetually mixing each other up with past lovers, untangling the memories that come with it.
“It’s so fun, we saw it done in High River a bunch of years ago by Windmill Players,” Sands said, joking that the performance felt oddly like foreshadowing.
“Debbie and I are playing a little old couple who’s losing their memory, which isn’t a great stretch.”
The conversation, which jumps around as the couple try to recall connections, required the Sands’ to remember an incredible amount of not remembering.
“The funny thing about the script is it’s so all over the place,” Sands said. “How do you remember? Because nothing flows. To steal a line from Rod Stewart, the ad lib lines are well rehearsed.
“It’s good fun. It’s been a fun show.”
Other plays in the festival, Sands added, come off darker, such as that by Stephen Buoninsegni, an Okotoks actor and theatre teacher at Bishop O’Byrne in Calgary.
His performance of Every Brilliant Thing written by Duncan MacMillan takes a heavier tone as the monologue of a boy coming to grips with his mother’s depression.
“A lot of people can relate to it, it’s kind of the story of a lot of us,” Buoninsegni said. “It’s a profound piece.”
With the range of expression in the over 50 minutes of dialogue, Buoninsegni credited his director Fionrentina Maione with giving him the needed perspective to fulfil his role.
“Fiorentina is great because sometimes when you’re on stage you don’t realize what you’re doing right or wrong,” he said. “Having that outside eye to shape that is really critical.”
Sands had only praise for his fellow player.
“Steve is brilliant. He just finds a level of emotion, and this thing brings every emotion you could imagine to the stage,” Sands said.
The one act plays will be performed at the RPAC at 7 p.m. on April 1-2. For tickets go to dewdneyplayers.com
