By Dessa Bayrock (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: May 9, 2012
Boasting two stages, four visiting schools, 23 UFV directors, and the opportunity to see somewhere in the neighbourhood of 50 plays over the course of five days, it’s safe to say that the 17th annual UFV Directors’ theatre festival was a rousing success.
The festival (DFEST) was the culmination of several months’ hard work on the part of students, actors, directors, and faculty in the department. Overall, 63 shows (at two or three performances each) pulled in an audience of about 4000 over the course of five days – a record for the festival.
DFEST is a great experience for students to showcase pieces that couldn’t be performed as part of the regular season, either due to content or length. As Ian Fenwick, festival coordinator, faculty member, and founder of the theatre program at UFV, put it, “it’s a real wide range of plays. Some are suitable for younger audiences, some are very edgy… It really reflects the interests of the students.”
Waiting in the lobby in a break between shows, it was impossible not to feel the energy. Actors mingled with audience members and students from visiting schools, including several universities that contributed pieces to DFEST as well as secondary schools that came by the busload for a daytrip of culture.
“It keeps growing,” laughed Ian Fenwick. “When we started with our first directing class, I thought, well, let’s invite other schools around the province—other universities and colleges—to join our students in a similar experience… and that’s how the Directors’ Festival started. It’s really a celebration of student talent.”
And the UFV theatre department is quick to say that the fun isn’t over – The Droning of Bombers, a play that debuted at last year’s DFEST and has now been workshopped and shined into a piece in and of itself; it opens at the UFV theatre on May 31 and plays until June 10.
After a brief hiatus over the summer, the 2012/13 theatre season will start again in early November with Kaufman and Hart’s 1930s comedy Once in a Lifetime, followed by Tomson Highway’s Ernestine Shuswap Gets Her Trout in January and Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice in the spring – ending, of course, with the 18th annual DFEST this time next year, which promises to be bigger and better than ever.
