Author: John Corless

New short plays wanted for fourth Claremorris Fringe Festival of Drama

The Claremorris, Co. Mayo, Drama Festival Committee is looking for scripts for the 2016 Fringe Festival which will be held in March of 2016. The scripts must be fifteen minutes long and must be new original work and be previously unpublished and unperformed.

The Fringe commenced in 2013 when Ken Armstrong from Castlebar won first prize for his play, ‘The Doubles Partner’. In 2014, The Fringe ran alongside the Confined Section of The All-Ireland Amateur Drama Finals, and was won by US playwright and screenwriter Bob Canning with his play ‘What Would Tippi Hedren Do, Hypothetically Speaking of Course?’ Bob Canning was back in 2015 with another winning entry ‘Neustra Dama de las Vinas’.

“As in previous years we’re looking for contemporary work,” said John Corless, Director of the Fringe. “The Fringe serves to showcase new writing and new writers. With that in mind, we’re looking for fresh ideas – fresh approaches. Ideally writers will challenge established thinking and practice. Playwrights should be brave; their work should be entertaining and relevant.”

The 2016 Fringe Festival will be held on Thursday March 10th to Sunday March 13th and on Friday March 18th and Saturday March 19th in Claremorris Town Hall Studio. Two plays will be performed each night – that’s a total of twelve new plays. The plays will be fifteen minutes duration (plus or minus two minutes) and will be independently judged. There will be a first prize of €500 for the writer of the best play with the runner-up getting €250.

Local drama groups will perform the plays and there will be numerous prizes for performance and production. If a writer whose play makes the shortlist wishes to have a drama group to which he or she is attached perform the play, that’s fine too.

Entries must be made here on the Fringe Festival Website. The entry fee for submitting a script is €5.  (There is no admission charge to see the plays during the Fringe.)  The closing date for the receipt of entries is midnight Monday November 30th.

Links: Enter the Fringe Festival 2016 | View the submission guidelines

Submission guide for Fringe 2016

Entries are now being sought for Fringe 2016!  If you think you have what it takes to write a play for the Fringe, please read these submission guidelines.

Submission Guide for Playwrights:
What we are looking for? The Fringe is about contemporary drama based on fresh ideas or fresh approaches. We don’t, and we never will, short-list for performance, scripts based on clichéd characters, themes or approaches. We are looking for fresh, contemporary plays that will entertain and engage the audience. Writers should keep this in mind before submitting.
Include Action. Many entries are too static – they lack action – something happening on stage. People sitting down having a conversation does not make a play irrespective of how interesting the conversation is. Plays need movement.
Cast. Scripts with a large cast won’t make the shortlist.
Length. Each script should have a playing time of fifteen minutes (plus or minus two.)  If you give your script a quick read after you have written it and it reads anywhere around that time, it is in all probability too long. Plays play slower than they read. If your entry is too long or two short we can’t consider it. Length is difficult to judge.
Plays must be new. The play must be your own work and it cannot have been published or performed prior to entry. If your play is shortlisted it cannot be performed or published prior to the Claremorris Festival.
Formatting. Plays will have to be correctly formatted to be considered. (You’d be surprised how many we get that are formatted incorrectly. We simply don’t have the time to try and decipher who is saying what and what is speech and what isn’t.)
Title of file you submit must be the title of the play. (Again, you’d be surprised how many we get that have a different filename to the actual title on the entry form and on the script.)
Your name, address and contact details cannot appear anywhere on the script.
Please use page numbers. These are vital in case we drop your script after we print it.

Continue reading “Submission guide for Fringe 2016”

2015 results

Here is the complete list of award winners from the Claremorris Fringe Festival of Drama 2015.

Best Script: Bob Canning, California, USA, for ‘Nuestra Dama de las Viñas’
Runner-up Best Script: Sarah Pitard, London, for ‘2:18 Finchley’

Best Actor Male: Martin Wade, The Grey Lake Actors, who played #2 in ‘Crumbs’
Best Actor Female: Vivienne Lee, Half a Breakfast Theatre Group, who played Mam, Wife and Girlfriend in ‘Four Decembers Ago’
Best Director: Ken Armstrong, The Doubles Partnership, for ‘The Visibility’

Adjudicators’ Special Awards:
• Director Ken Armstrong of The Doubles Partnership for multiple roles played by actors in ‘The Visibility’.
• Director Frankie Moran of Long Haired Freaky People Productions for artistic use of sound effects in ‘2:18 Finchley’.
• Director John Paul Murphy for imaginative portrayal of animals and for costumes in ‘The Ape Cage’.
• Director Robbie Gallagher of Grey Lake Actors, for artistic effect of bed prop in ‘Crumbs’.
• Director Moira Mahony of Blendiva Productions, for use of simple door frame representation in both ‘Sleeping Dogs’ and ‘Mr Average’.
• Gearóid Ó hOireachtaigh, Half a Breakfast Theatre Group, for spectacular skateboard stunts in ‘Feline High-Rise Syndrome’.
• Liz Browne and Seamus McNally, St Patrick’s Drama Group for command and fluency of Irish language in ‘Failures’.
• Director Michael Goulding of Half a Breakfast Theatre Group for costume in ‘Four Decembers Ago’.
• Karl Healy of Blendiva Productions for the lighting and sound effects of the death scene in ‘Mr Average.’
• Director Christine McKeogh, Pansart Drama, for paparazzi entrance in ‘Nuestra Dama de las Viñas’.
• Director Michael Goulding of Half a Breakfast Theatre Group for dramatic entrance and use of space in ‘The Last Waltz.’
• Director John Nolan of The Red Card Players for imaginative and artistic use of mannequins in ‘Hospitality’.

Thanks to all who made the festival a success.