Each year the Very Useful Theatre Company puts on the Newmarket International Festival of One Act Plays, and this year it will include a known Canadian actor.
On Saturday, Sept. 9, the matinee show will feature Métis director Derek Groulx putting on the play Stray Cats starring Osawa Muskwa, of the Crave series Little Bird, with funds from the show going to a good cause.
“The play is about two homeless people on the street; it’s not your typical feel good story, it’s a very real story,” said Tom Pearson, president of the Very Useful Theatre Company. “We’ll be donating the proceeds from that show to Inn From the Cold because part of our mandate is to give to good causes in Newmarket and this year we thought because of the subject matter of the play this would be a great fit.”
Giving back to the community is of utmost importance for the festival because of the community support they’ve received, Pearson said.
“We don’t get the grants like some big budget festivals, but what we do have in our pocket is very supportive sponsors,” he said. “They allow us to pull it off.”
It’s not easy finding the time or the space to get ready for a festival of this magnitude each year… plays need to be picked, directors need to be found, and actors need to be cast, but none of it matters if the company can’t find the space for its rehearsals and workshops.
Luckily, businesses in the community like Old Flame Brewing Co. and Maker’s Mark have allowed the festival to utilize their spaces.
“Old Flame is doing our beer, wine, and cider for the event,” said Pearson. “Upstairs they have a music hall and they’ve offered that up to us. With Makers Mark, they’re letting us use a room for our youth workshops. The business community has really stepped up for us.”
But before any of the action can begin happening, plays need to be selected, which isn’t easy when picking only 12 from a great bunch of submissions, Pearson said.
There’s a committee in charge of reading through each of them and coming to a consensus. This year, the festival received a record 212 play submissions from around the world.
“It’s not an easy task, even for a committee,” said Pearson. “Our committee is eight people led by Bruce Williamson, two-time winner of best director in the festival, and he decided because of the number of submissions this year to break it up into groups working through them. We narrowed it down to a final 20 and picked from there and we wanted a good mix of comedy and dramas.”
Yet at the end of the day, strong community support and volunteerism is the reason the festival thrives each year, and having been involved with four different non-profits, Pearson said the biggest issue can be lack of volunteers, which couldn’t be further from the case here.
“It’s amazing because no one person could do something like this, it’s a group effort,” he said. “Volunteers in the community are stepping up to make this happen and because of them we can pull it off. There’s no such thing as a good non-profit without great volunteers.”
The Festival of One Act Plays will run Sept. 7 to 10 at Old Town Hall, 460 Botsford St., with That Thing With Feathers, One Night Stan, and Shapes & Stanzas on Thursday; I Miss You Already and What Do They Want? on Friday; Stray Cats and The Actress for the Saturday matinee; Provenance and get it off yer chest on Saturday night; and Phone Booth, Hair Theory, and Happily Never After for the Sunday matinee.
Learn more about the festival here and get tickets to the festival here.
