The Performing Arts Network of Southern Africa (PANSA) has announced the regional finalists for the Festival of Reading of New Writing – the scriptwriting competition for new, emerging or experienced writers.
Open to all South African- based writers, PANSA received nearly 50 qualifying scripts as entries to the 2017 competition. Since the closing date for entries, teams of judges in four regions have been reading and scoring all the qualifying scripts.
A few of the plays received widely differing responses from the judges, but judges were unanimous in their eventual choice of the three finalists in each region.
This tough, behind-the-scenes work was not without its moments of drama with one potential finalist being disqualified, and one playwright withdrawing his script after being selected as a finalist.
May the best script win!
In the Western Cape, there were only two finalists, as one of them, Anele Rusi, had submitted three scripts – and two of them made it into the top three scripts in the region! The other finalist, Tertius Kapp, disclosed to the judges that his script was already in rehearsal for production. While this in itself was not in breach of the rules, Tertius, in conjunction with the director for the production of the play, thought it best to withdraw the entry to avoid a conflict of interests between the staged reading and the proposed production of the play. This, in turn, created a unique situation for the competition, as the fourth best script was now promoted to the top three. What is particularly unique about this, is that this script was the third play submitted by Anele Rusi. Congratulations, Anele! May the best script win!
Other regional finalists
The other regional finalists are Sithabile Mkhize, Philisiwe Twijnstra and MJA van Niekerk in KwaZulu-Natal, Francesca Matthys, Keitu Kasonkola and Busisiwe Radebe in Gauteng, Mogomotsi Monnana, Xolisa Ngubelanga and Robert Lourens in the Eastern Cape.
A common theme emerging from the judging process across the country was how many scripts showed promise and needed more work before they could be considered as competitive. To that end, PANSA intends holding a series of workshops at the end of the competition to help those script writers improve their scripts.
Performed readings of the scripts that made it through to the regional finals are open to the public and scheduled for 1 April 2017.
Who: PANSA
What: Regional finalists for the Festival of Reading of New Writing
Performed readings: 1 April, 2017
Venues: https://www.facebook.com/PANSA-283121912627/
Social media: Follow PANSA on Twitter (@PANSANATIONAL)
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