The idea for a One Act One Actor Play competition came some time ago when we had completed our first short story anthology with IdeasTap. We agreed with IdeasTap that far from being a mere ‘gobbet of entertainment’, these efforts needed to be pieces of drama that took up contemporary issues and presented them in intriguing new ways for audiences to consider.
Drama is that area of literature where the language can’t just sit on the page; it needs to make the journey onto the stage through the inventive vision of a creative director and an actor who can bring the writer’s vision to life and imbue the text with something that carries part of today in it, a harmony with any discord that the subject matter may present.
The eighteen plays we present in this collection represent just a small section of the vast entry we received before the competition closed in August 2014. Throughout these mini sagas of contemporary life, there is something each script possesses that incorporates the darkness of the second decade of the twenty-first century. We hope that you enjoy reading all of these successful submissions, and that you possibly get the chance to see them performed sometime in the next year or so. The first five of the collection Universally Speaking, The 7-11 Butterfly Effect, Three Sides of a Fence, Fat and Hole are to be part of a collective show directed by notorious Edinburgh Fringe Acolyte Simon Jay in 2015. It is hoped that the other thirteen will achieve similar treatment in the months ahead.
The cover for the competition was designed by Joshua Hibbert and was the winner of our competition run by IdeasTap. The title was dreamed up by Alison Down.
We hope you enjoy the collection.