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With our Diamond Festival now behind us planning begins for the 61st Festival in May 2011. The 2011 Syllabus and application form will be available to download soon, but, in the meantime Jeannie Russell has been announced as the adjudicator for next year. A full biography is now available by clicking on The Adjudicator in the contents list above.
If you have any questions about the festival which are not answered on these pages please do contact Alan either by telephone on 01394 274203 or by e-mail.
As well as our Felixstowe Drama Festival, Suffolk plays host to a wide range of other Festivals each summer. Details of many of them can be found in the Suffolk Events - Suffolk Tourist Guide.
The Felixstowe Festival is run by a committee of eight people. Towards the end of the year previous to each festival amateur drama groups throughout the UK are invited to submit their plays for consideration. From those submitted the committee choose a short list who are then invited to perform at Felixstowe. Although comedy is always popular, the aim in choosing the plays is to have a broad balance of high quality entertainment spread throughout the festival week.
Before the actual performance commences on the opening Saturday night there is a short Opening Ceremony then, following each night's performance, the adjudicator gives the audience a brief idea of his or her thoughts on the play itself, the way the producer and technical team handled the production and how the performers themselves played their particular character.
All of this culminates eight days later on the final Saturday when, after the performance, the adjudicator will briefly talk to the audience and then make up his or her mind about who has won which of the various trophies. There is then a short Closing Ceremony, during which the awards are presented to the winners. Winning the Felixstowe Festival qualifies the team for invitation to perform in the National All-Winners Festival. Details of this event, along with information about other member Festivals, can be found on the National Drama Festivals Association web site.
As many of you will know, Mona Vince was closely connected with the Festival for many years. As part of our 40th anniversary celebrations Mona wrote 'A History of Felixstowe Drama Festivals 1949-1989'. The current Festival Director, Alan Dix, used Mona's document as the basis for his History of the Felixstowe Festival which was published in our Diamond Anniversary programme. If you would like to read it please follow this link.
Please note the change of dates for the 2011 Festival which will be held over the week 16 - 21 May at the Spa Pavilion Theatre on Felixstowe's picturesque seafront. Performances will begin each evening at 7.30pm.
Tickets can be booked in any of the following ways:
Tickets will go on general sale around the end of March 2011. Please contact the Box Office for further information.
When booking directly with the Felixstowe Box Office there is a charge of £1.50 per transaction if you use a credit card. There is no charge if you use a debit card. For any transaction there will be an additional charge of £1.00 if you wish your tickets to be posted to you.
When booking through Ticketmaster, using either the 24hr. phone number or on-line, there will be a per ticket service and booking charge.
By becoming a Friend of the Felixstowe Drama Festival you will be able to:
If you are interested in becoming a Friend of the Festival and would like to know more please contact any member of the committee.
* subject to availability
Jeannie Russell is a senior member of the Guild of Drama Adjudicators and a former member of its council. She trained in Speech and Drama at The Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama and has an MA in Modern Literature and Drama from the University of Leicester.
Besides having spent much of her life as a drama lecturer, directing, acting and running drama and creative writing workshops, Jeannie has written plays, novels, short stories and poems. Several of her plays have been presented in drama festivals and on the London fringe. Her novel, Life Drawing, has been published under her married name, Jeannie van Rompaey.
Engagements as an adjudicator have taken her all over England, as well as to Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Guernsey, Gibraltar and Holland. She has adjudicated at all levels of the All England Theatre Festival from first rounds through to the final. In 2009, she adjudicated the Central Area Semi-Final at Burton-on-Trent and has been invited to adjudicate the same event there again this year.
Jeannie is pleased to have had a long association with the National Drama Festivals Association, including adjudicating the All Winners at the Spa Theatre, Felixstowe, in 2000. This will be the second time that she has adjudicated the Felixstowe festival and she looks forward to meeting the organisers and the teams, seeing the plays and old friends and making new ones.
Jeannie has lived in Gran Canaria for nearly ten years where she spends her time writing, painting and soaking up the sun. She still returns to England to adjudicate when asked and is particularly delighted to have been invited back to the Felixstowe Festival. She understands that you cannot promise her warm weather, but feels sure she will receive a warm welcome.
The Plays and Players for 2011 will be listed here as soon as they are chosen. This usually happens towards the end of February.
Each performance is broken down into four areas - acting, production, stage presentation (set, costume, sound and lighting) and endeavour, originality or attainment. The performance of each team in each area is then awarded marks by the adjudicator according to the System of Marking shown below. The winner is decided by the aggregate marks given by the adjudicator. The first nine trophies are awarded in this way. The SCDC Trophy is awarded at the discretion of the adjudicator to anyone for any aspect of the festival which he or she feels should be rewarded, but, it is not necessarily awarded at every festival. The winners of the last two trophies are decided by the Friends of the Festival who are present in the Last Night audience. Their voting slips are collected up and counted by the Festival stewards whilst the adjudicator is making the final decisions about who has won what.
