5 min Festival

Introduction

We live in an age when no-one has time. Average viewers spend 3 and 7 minutes on an internet video. Advertisers get whole stories into 30 seconds. Reduced Shakespeare squeezed the bard’s works into 70 minutes. Hamlet thought brevity the soul of wit, the Japanese that haiku was the highest form of art. Can you join the masters and create a piece of theatre – comical, tragical, dialogue-based, musical, physical to bewitch an audience and make five minutes memorable? It’s the ultimate challenge, and if you dare try there’s a world of possibilities. We want you in the Five Minute Festival.

Venue

The LOST Theatre is a marvellous 180 seater theatre just 7 minutes walks from Stockwell Tube Station. Home to the LOST Theatre Company, this venue, completely re-built and kitted out to in 2009 offers a level of comfort and technical excellence few other fringe venues in London can match.

What’s included

If your entry is accepted by the Festival Artistic Committee, you will be offered the following:

• A performance slot at our venue within the time period given (see schedule). The slot will be of exactly 10min within which the entrant must get-in, perform & get-out. The slot allocated will be final so please ensure full availability within the performance period.
• A presenter to introduce and MC the whole evening.
• A Technical/Dress rehearsal on the days assigned for each category (see Timings). As with the performance slot allocation, this slot is non negotiable. Please ensure all cast are available and that everything required for your performance is available. This will be your only opportunity to rehearse the show in the venue prior to your performance.
• A Technical Operator and Festival Manager will be present for your Technical/Dress rehearsal and performance. We do not allow outside technical staff to operate lighting. Outside technical staff may not be backstage unless by prior arrangement.
• Full administration including Publicity, Box Office and Insurance.

We do have a preference for proposals backed by a director or producer with the aptitude and motivation to cast and rehearse their own play. We do NOT provide rehearsal space. However, subject to demand, we will assist where possible to help a director or writer assemble the necessary company to mount a production.

Entry fees

LOST is a non profit-making company but in order to cover costs, we ask that each company pay a non-refundable fee of £10. This fee covers membership of the LOST Theatre Company. This is a legal requirement for insurance purposes.

This is payable on your acceptance of the slot offered and must be accompanied by a £50 guarantee cheque which will be refunded once your performance has been completed.

Entry considerations

As well as keeping within the 5 minute performance time, we ask that you consider the following:

• The 5min Festival will not accept any entries of published work unless entered by the author themselves.
• Each production will perform on one evening only, if your production is unavailable for that date you are therefore unable to enter the festival.
• Each production must consist of no more than 4 cast members.
• LOST will provide 4 chairs and 1 table that will be available for each show to use. These will be the only items of furniture/set allowed on stage.
• No costumes or hand props can be stored at the venue before or after your performance day. So if you can't carry it to and from the venue it is not advisable to use it.
• There is a limited amount of space backstage, and please remember this has to be shared with 9 other shows. Therefore we recommend simplifying your show as much as possible.
• If there is a chance that the running time could exceed 5 minutes, please cut the script down. Shows that are over-running at dress rehearsal will be withdrawn from the Festival and their guarantee will not be refunded.

Expert Panel

One of the main aims of the Festival is to encourage all writers, directors and actors to develop and improve their work. To this end LOST will appoint a panel of experts from both Theatre and Television to view all plays and compose a series of short notes and comments of constructive criticism which will be available to all participants.

This year our panel will consist of Adrian Brown, Paul Kafno and Jeremy Kingston

Adrian Brown is a TV and theatre director, writer and teacher, with seven awards including an EMMY and a BAFTA Nomination, in categories of drama, musical, opera, documentary and ‘performing arts'.   A graduate of Oxford University, after military service with Forces Radio, he then toured the world with a ballet company, and worked in rep’ before joining the BBC as a trainee drama director.  Forty years later he has directed over 1000 television programmes of every conceivable type, and done perhaps a hundred theatre productions, of which the last was WILD OATS for the LOST company. Officially retired, he immediately began a new career as poet, with two books published Sahara and The Ram In The Thicket, with a third on the way.

Paul Kafno is a TV producer, director and writer, with credits across drama, documentary, music and education.  Awards include the Prix Italia, RTS, BAFTA, Golden Gate and Prix Gemini. A graduate of Oxford University, Paul taught in Swaziland before joining the BBC as a trainee.  After a stint in radio he moved to television, first at the Open University, then adapting classic plays for the small screen.  At Thames TV he produced education, drama and music programmes before setting up the UK’s first independent HD production company, with work ranging from the Olympics Games to musicals with Cameron Mackintosh and comedy with the Reduced Shakespeare Company. He has lectured widely, and published many articles on technical and artistic aspects of new media.  He was President of Amsterdam’s Nombre d’Or widescreen TV festival, and is a member of the Europrix jury.  A director of CTVC and Hillside Studios, he holds a senior research fellowship at Nottingham University and is a member of the Council of IBC.

Jeremy Kingston has been a theatre critic on The Times for the past twenty years, before which he was the theatre critic of Punch magazine for 10 years. He was born in London and brought up in various Home Counties. He started his theatrical career working at the Criterion Theatre where Waiting for Godot was running. This inspired him to write his first stage play No Concern of Mine (with John Fraser and Alan Dobie) which premiered at the Westminster Theatre. Three further plays followed; Signs of the Times (with Kenneth More and Liza Goddard) ran at the Vaudeville Theatre for six months; Oedipus at the Crossroads (King's Head Theatre) & Making Dickie Happy (Rosemary Branch Theatre). During his career he has written Radio & TV plays as well as being the restaurant critic for What's On for 6 years. He is the author of a novel Love Among Unicorns (Constable) and two children's books: The Dustbin Who wanted to be a General and The Bird who Saved the Jungle (Faber). His first book of poems, On the Lookout, was published last year.

Tickets

Tickets are sold for each evening of the Festival - they are not sold for individual shows within an evening. Out of respect to your fellow participants, we expect audience members to watch all shows on your performance day. New audience members will not be admitted once the performances have started. Please do not ask any one attending your performance to arrive purely for your show as they will not be admitted.

Each company will be allocated 2 complimentary tickets for the evening their show is performing (box office permitting other members of their company will be allowed in to watch the other performances on their night). It is the responsibility of the individual company to purchase tickets for anyone they wish to invite. LOST will provide tickets for industry professional at the concessionary rate provided we are given the names in advance.

Timings