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Kincardine is not only hosting this year's Western Ontario Drama League (WODL) Mini-fest, but it is featuring a play written by Kincardine's own Corinne Robertson-Brown.

Mini-fest is a weekend workshop to help budding actors, directors, technicians and playwrights hone their skills, and where they can be critiqued, get training, and gain proficiency in front of a friendly audience.

The aim of the weekend is to give groups a chance to enter a festival without the problems of transporting a set, and to let new directors, actors and technicians try their hands at something on a smaller scale than the major competitive festival. The host group provides the set, basic furniture, lights, sound equipment, a Mini-fest stage manager and technical people.

The concept is great - up to six theatre groups from all over the WODL region gather each summer in a different host town. Over the course of the weekend, each group mounts its own production of the same one-act play, which is usually an original script that has been submitted for consideration for Mini-fest, often by a new playwright.

This year, Robertson-Brown's play, "Office Politics," has been selected for the production. And she is thrilled to have her inaugural script produced not just once, but three times, and in her own home town.

"I'm delighted to have a friendly Mini-fest audience for my first play," she says.

"Office Politics" takes the audience into a world most of us now plenty about - dealing with an assortment of co-workers whose ambitions, talents and degrees of truthworthiness are all over the map, even when faced with a common goal.

At the Isayso Company, a disparate team of advertising-firm cohorts is vying to impress its Holy Grail of clients, the formidable Mrs. Prendergast. Will they fail spectacularly? Or - just maybe, can any of them possibly succeed. Only the Ninjas know for sure.

The cast includes: Sam, the office manager; Eleanor Livingston, Sam's assistant schemer; Jojo Jones, the office clown; Ed Laing, the up-and-comer, eager to make his mark; Brad, the jaded, can't-retire-soon-enough sourpuss; Tiffany, the intern; and Mrs. Prendergast, the client.

People might think that seeing the same play several times would be boring – but it’s anything but! The members of the WODL are a tremendously-talented bunch, and they each have full artistic licence to create whatever they envision, while still sticking to the words (if not the spirit) of the script.

It is a wonderful opportunity to see how different directors, casts and crews solve the problems presented by the play chosen, and far from seeing the same play up to six times, you can expect several wildly-different productions.

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Monday, July 23, 2012