Æ in the hot seat
SCDA One-Act Festival takes shape
Plays by David Greig, Peter Quinter and Eleanor Fossey feature in this year’s one-act festival from the SCDA, playing at the Church Hill Theatre Thursday 19 – Saturday 21 February 2015.
The event features three plays a night from local amateur companies and forms the first round of the SCDA’s one-act play competition. The three winning plays will then progress to the Eastern Divisional Final, held at the Church Hill Theatre in early April.
All Edinburgh Theatre is proud to announce that editor Thom Dibdin is this year’s adjudicator. He will be responsible not only for marking the productions according to the strict criteria laid down by the SCDA, but will also have to give a public justification of his decisions at the end of each evening.
Seven different local companies are taking part this year, with Leitheatre and St Serfs Players both putting forward two entries. There are three other companies in competition: Edinburgh People’s Theatre, Edinburgh Theatre Arts and, from Galashiels, the Dramateurs. The Penicuik Community Theatre and Edinburgh’s Mercators are both staging non-competitive entries.
Performances start at 7pm, with each play required to last at least 20 and no more than 50 minutes. Tickets can be purchased on the door and are £10 for each night or £24 for all three evenings.
Running order
Thursday 19 February 2015, 7pm.
Penicuik Community Theatre: The Unmentionables by Lynsey Cullen
World premiere of Penicuik-based Cullen’s play about four homeless women and their daily struggle with society. Poignant, funny, filthy and disgusting but very, very true.
Leitheatre (Sunnyside): The Long Shadow by Christine Hardy
The story of the experiences of a young soldier in the trenches in 1915 and the long shadow this would cast on him and his future family. A play about the courage of ordinary people and the power of forgiveness.
St Serfs Players (Bangholm): Please Release Me by Neil Robertson
A sixties setting for this play about love, letting go and the lure of leaving home in small town Scotland for swinging London and delights of running with the pack.
Friday 20 February 2015: 7pm
St Serfs Players (Afton): Old Folk by Archie Wilson
Leonard is newly arrived at an old people’s home and the only man there. The ladies nearly come to blows over him while he tries to fathom the mysteries of Bingo, random medicine assignment and teatime wrangles.
Leitheatre (Kirkgate): Playing With Daisy by Eleanor Fossey
A taut, funny and dark two-hander about the use and abuse of an imaginary friend in childhood and then, suddenly, as an adult.
Edinburgh People’s Theatre: Yellow Moon by David Greig
The ballad of teenagers Leila and Lee, teenage misfits in the mould of Bonnie and Clyde – although they are from Inverkeithing – who head off to the Highlands in search of Lee’s dad.
Saturday 21 February: 7pm
Dramateurs: Waiting For The Whale by Ron Nicol
A dark tale of a man pushed to the edge. Seeking to highlight his plight, he acquires a gun and decides to make a stand in his local jobcentre – with disastrous results.
Mercators: Last Post by Jean McConnell [NC]
The widow of a much-respected army colonel discovers he was paying maintenance for a secret child. She is determined to protect his reputation and retain her own dignity – not so easy when the mother of the child in question turns up on her doorstep.
Edinburgh Theatre Arts: Blind Date by Peter Quilter
Jonathon and Wendy are on a blind date and hoping to get it right this time even though they’ve never got it right before.
Listing
SCDA One-Act Play Festival
Church Hill Theatre, 33 Morningside Road, EH10 4DR
Thursday 19-Saturday 21 February 2015
Tickets £10 (£24 for all three nights).
Full details on the SCDA website: http://www.scdaedinburgh.org.uk/
ENDS
