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Art

Area Voices: One-Act Play Festival to debut 4 directors in Bigfork

Overhead shot of an audience sitting in the seats at the theater in Edge Center for the Arts.
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Edge Center for the Arts
Audience in the theater at an Edge Center for the Arts event in Bigfork.

The festival caps off the New Director Workshop at the Edge Center for the Arts and will be April 19-21, 2024.

BIGFORK — When community theater productions are staged, it takes more than actors.

In Bigfork, the New Director Workshop gave the community a chance to support local theater and become part of the team.

The Edge Center for the Arts has showcased theater since 1996, with Patricia Field as the main director and Valerie Conner as the main producer. However, the center also wants to give others a chance to put on shows in the area.

Field and Conner decided to run the workshop to expand the theater team because if either of them is unavailable, there would simply be no one else to put on a show. They worked with four people this winter to prepare them to become directors.

"People don't think about themselves as a director, but you can."
Stephanie Kessler, new director workshop participant

The upcoming One-Act Play Festival is the culmination of the workshop. A short play is more manageable for first-time directors instead of diving into a two-hour large cast production, they said.

Stephanie Kessler is one of the up-and-coming directors. Usually an actress, Kessler is making the leap into directing after some encouragement.

“When Patty and Val suggested it, I was like, ‘Sure, I'll learn how to do it. I like a challenge,’” Kessler said during a recent Area Voices interview.

Kessler said she found the experience rewarding with Field and Conner guiding participants through everything it takes to direct a play.

“[They] make sure that we do know everything. Because I don't really know how to move the curtains and I don't know how to get ahold of the light guy when I'm up front and he's backstage and those kinds of things,” Kessler said. “So we're all still learning.”

Each student chose a one-act play they wanted to direct, and those choices cover a little bit of everything. There will be a children’s musical involving 17 kids, a monologue, a comedy and a satirical drama.

Kessler selected a play she performed earlier this year at the 24-hour theater event InsomniActs 5 in Grand Rapids. It’s a survival comedy involving a camping trip. The day after the event, she contacted playwright Josh Cagle for permission to use Jerry Girls for the One-Act Play Festival.

Actors including Stephanie Kessler, left, perform in a one-act play titled "Jerry Girls" during the InsomniActs 5 event in January 2024 hosted by the Grand Rapids Players in Grand Rapids. Kessler is set to direct the same play at the One-Act Play Festival at the Edge Center for the Arts in Bigfork.
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Grand Rapids Players Facebook page
Actors including Stephanie Kessler, left, perform in a one-act play titled "Jerry Girls" during the InsomniActs 5 event in January 2024 hosted by the Grand Rapids Players in Grand Rapids. Kessler is set to direct the same play at the One-Act Play Festival at the Edge Center for the Arts in Bigfork.

“It was honestly a major surprise to me when I got the e-mail,” Cagle said. “I was like, this is just so far out there ... so it was surreal.”

Kessler said she really enjoyed being in the play and felt comfortable taking a chance to direct. Cagle also was more involved at the beginning of the production than with InsomniActs. He rewrote parts of the script to make it more family-friendly.

“But other than that, I just kind of let her run with it and that’s the fun part about being the writer," Cagle said. "You write it and then you get to see what somebody else interprets it as.”

Kessler said she hopes there will be another workshop in the future for directors. It has been a fun experience for her, and some people didn’t get a chance to participate in this one because of their schedules.

“People don't think about themselves as a director, but you can. ... It is a very exciting way to be involved in theater because acting is not for everybody, and costuming isn't for everybody, but directing? Hey, you never know,” Kessler said.

Kessler said she thinks the variety of one-act plays will appeal to everyone. “You'll be able to experience all kinds of different genres and different ages of actors and different directors, and it should be a really entertaining time.”

Performances will be at 6:30 p.m. Friday, April 19, and Saturday, and 2 p.m. Sunday, at the Edge Center for the Arts. Tickets are available at the Edge Center for the Arts website and at the door. Children younger than 12 get in free.


Tell us about upcoming arts events where you live in Northern Minnesota by emailing psa@kaxe.org.

Area Voices is made possible by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

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