The Newmarket National 10 Minute Play Festival has cracked the top 100 festivals and events of 2020, an honour bestowed upon it by Festivals and Events Ontario.
Festivals and Events Ontario announced the top 100 recipients Feb. 27 during its annual conference INNOVATE-Elevate-Enhance-Evolve in Richmond Hill.
The top recipients represent festivals and events that excel within the industry, the organization said, and were selected from submissions by its members and judged by an independent panel.
After the wild success of its 2017 inaugural year, and continued growth in 2018 and 2019, the Newmarket National 10 Minute Play Festival is back for a fourth season in 2020, celebrating the country’s diverse voices and regional perspectives.
The fest, also known as The Newmarket National Play Festival, puts the emphasis on “New” and “Market,” hearkening back to the early 1800’s when traders came to the “new market” along the Holland River instead of making the long journey down to York (Toronto) — the “old market.”
In that spirit, the fest offers artists from across this great country a national “new market” for their stories, and a national stage for their regional perspectives.
Twenty-four original ten-minute plays are packaged into four “pods” of six shows playing at Newmarket's newly refurbished Old Town Hall Theatre.
Plays are selected from submissions sent in from across the nation and from Canadian writers living around the world. Cash awards are presented to the top three plays submitted.
The 2020 festival runs seven days, from July 20 to July 26, and will feature all the extra programming festival-goers loved last year and some new surprises.
Festival-goers have a selection of pods to choose from on weekdays and can see all four pods on each day of the weekend. Pricing is $20 per pod.
Ten-minute plays are not “sketches.” They demand, just like full length plays, fully realized characters that make us laugh and weep, and stories that touch us to the core of our being.
The challenge to the playwright is to create a world in 600 seconds that keeps each audience member fully committed to the truth of the story being told.
For more information about the Newmarket National 10 Minute Play Festival, play submission, auditions, volunteering, and more, email the festival’s artistic director Michael Halfin at [email protected] or call 905-953-5106.
Visit online here.