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From left: actors Tim Collins and Shanti Parsons and horn player David Peppas.
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Local actors find theatrical niche in Belfast
PHOTOGRAPHY AND TEXT
BY CORINNE VACCARO
Looking for your 15 minutes of fame? An event being held locally this summer, the first annual 15-Minute Performing Arts Festival, will give fledgling writers and actors that chance.
“What’s unique about this festival [the first of its kind in Maine] is that the pieces are short,” said Director Larraine Brown, a co-founder of the festival, along with Shanti Parsons of Belfast who serves as the project’s publicity director. Scripts have been accepted from original writers and original writer/performers of all ages and levels of experience. To date, Brown said, 35 scripts have been entered with another 40 promised (scripts had to be postmarked no later than June 15). All scripts must be 15 minutes or less and be capable of taking place “in a city park,” to be eligible for performance, she said. However, she added, all scripts will be read.
In addition, the festival offers the opportunity for the work to be introduced to other theater and film professionals, both locally and nationally, Brown said, and to the general public. Brown is still seeking talented actors of all ages to audition July 20 and 27. Rehearsals to perform the scripts will take place during August. An original set designer is also needed to round out the project’s production team, which is comprised of David Peppas, Frank Trocco, Sandra Piechocki and Mitchell Baum.
“Shanti and I came up with the idea to support talent in Belfast,” Brown said, seated in the high-ceilinged studio on the second floor of the post office from which she has launched several productions over the last year, including performances by Playing in Traffic, an experimental theater group she spearheaded.
The arrival of Brown’s longtime friend David Stucky in April gave the festival its director of development. Stucky, a show business veteran, met Brown during what he termed “a very swinging ‘60s moment in London.” Since joining Brown and Parsons, Stucky has used his theater connections to entice his best friend Margot Kidder - the internationally known star of stage, TV and screen, including the Superman movies - to present and host the winners of the 15-Minute Festival during its two-night showcase, Aug. 23 and 24, at the National Theatre Workshop of the Handicapped.
“I’m terribly attracted to the theater, but [I have] little specific talent of my own,” Stucky said modestly. “So, I surround myself with friends in the theater. I’m particularly excited for the opportunity to organize a showcase of people with exceptional talent,” he said.
Brown, who wrote and received a planning grant from the Department of Arts and Humanities to plan the festival, said once the seed was planted, the idea took on a life of its own, attracting such theatrical luminaries as the celebrated director Doug Hughes who has been involved in several of the most outstanding repertory theaters in the country, as well as Vanessa Gilbert, associate artistic director at the Perishable Theater in Rhode Island. Both Hughes and Gilbert will serve as script judges.
The judges will select six to eight scripts from among the entries to be performed. “Any writer would love to get their work in front of these judges,” Brown said, noting that several of the people she and Parsons approached to judge scripts wanted to enter scripts themselves. This is proof, Brown said, of the opportunity such a contest offers to have works exposed to a wider audience.
The response the festival has engendered seems to indicate that it is filling a niche in the community, Brown said. Giving people a chance to be heard, especially young people between the ages of 19 and 29, is important for Brown.
“We fail our young people here because we don’t listen to what they say,” she said.
For information about the festival or for entry rules, visit online at www.15minutefestival.com, or call Larraine Brown at 338-2734. If interested in being considered for a part, please send resumes, areas of experience and interest via e-mail to fifteenminutefestival@prexar.com or via snail mail to PO Box 1090, Belfast, ME 04915.