Author: The Hippo Press

The New Hampshire State Community Theater Festival shows off NH and Mass. theater companies

By Zachary Lewis
[email protected]

The New Hampshire State Community Theater Festival at the Concord Auditorium opens on Saturday, Sept. 7, at noon. The Festival is put on by the New Hampshire State Community Theater Association in conjunction with The Community Players of Concord.

“Anybody can participate in it,” said Festival Chair Joe Pelonzi. “They have to be a member of good standing with AACT, which is the American Association of Community Theater.”

“This is for people who like to do theater but they’re not professionals,” he said.

And it’s a Festival that has been drawing curtains for many decades. “You can say 50-plus years safely.”

Essentially, if this black box were in a nutshell, it would be a four-show festival cracked into two sessions. “The first session is the New Hampshire shows, and there are two New Hampshire shows. Then there’s a second session, which will be the two Massachusetts shows,” Pelonzi said.

The AACT required that the festival have two separate sessions, one for each state, according to Pelonzi. Tickets are $15 for individual sessions or $25 for the whole day.

The results of the Festival will determine the New Hampshire state winner from among the New Hampshire shows, and each performance has a chance of being chosen to represent the region, Region 1, at the national competition.

What types of plays can participants expect to see? “The acts don’t matter; the show must be performed in 60 minutes or less,” Pelonzi said.

Physical limitations go along with the temporal one.

“We just tape off a 10-by-10 square on the stage,” he said. “They start at a 10-by-10 square. And that includes all your set pieces and everything. You have 10 minutes to set up your set. You have 60 minutes to perform your show, and then you have 10 minutes to put everything back into the square.”

Any genre or style is welcome. “They can do whatever they want as long as it fits within an hour time slot for a performance,” Pelonzi said.

The Festival starts at 12:30 p.m. with a performance from Bedford Off Broadway of Sammy’s Game. “That’s the only show we know exactly what time it will be starting because everything after that is dependent on how long each of the shows are,” Pelonzi said. He is the artistic director at Broadway Off Bedford but is not involved with their performance at the festival.

After that show, the Windham Actors Guild from Windham will be presenting The Yellow Boat in the 10-by-10 square.

Then there will be a short intermission immediately followed by a panel-style adjudication of those performances. “We have three adjudicators so there are no ties,” said Pelonzi.

The panel is like a master class in theater.

“The best part, I think, of Festival is the adjudications, because they tell them what they did well and what didn’t work. They always keep it positive and they tell them how they can do better if they do go on. They’re very good at what they do,” Pelonzi said.

Cut to: a short break and then the second session, the Massachusetts session, begins. First the Burlington Players will present Natural Shocks. The Quannapowitt Players from Reading, Mass., will follow with their performance of Time Stands Still. Then there will be another judging.

After a dinner break the awards ceremony will commence, where the New Hampshire winner will be presented as well as who will be going on to the national competition.

Individual awards will be presented as well. “They also give out awards for acting excellence, directing excellence, they might give out awards for lighting, for sound, for ensemble,” Pelonzi said. “The adjudicators have a wide range of awards that they can choose individually or to a group.”

Pelonzi is excited for the contest and what to expect from the performances. “You’re going to see four quality shows. Shows that the groups have been working on all summer long. So you’re going to get the best of the best and get to see four of them in one day.”

The New Hampshire State Community Theater Festival
Saturday, Sept. 7, at 12:30 p.m.
Concord Auditorium, 2 Prince St., Concord, 344-4747
$15 for one session; $25 for both sessions

Featured image: Courtesy photo.