FEATS
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[edit] The event
FEATS stands for the Festival of European Anglophone Theatrical Societies, an annual festival of English-speaking amateur theatre held in continental Europe. Each year, usually over the Whitsun weekend, amateur theatre groups travel to one city and spend an enjoyable weekend presenting one-act plays. Traditionally three one-act plays are performed on each of the four evenings. This presents some logistical challenges for both the groups and the organisers/hosts, the solving of which contribute to all the fun of competing.
Here the word competing is correct as this is a competitive festival, judged by a qualified adjudicator who gives his or her summary at the end of each evening's performances and awards marks for various elements of each production. These marks lead to results (and prizes) that are presented after the last performance on the final evening of FEATS. It has long been the dominant attitude that people participate in FEATS primarily for the experience of doing so and that, at the end of the day, the prizes are a nice bonus. The emphasis is clearly on presenting high-quality theatre under interesting and often challenging conditions.
FEATS has grown into a four-day festival of international renown. There are activities during the day to ensure a busy weekend, including workshops, tours of the town/region, discussion forums, and the now (in)famous Fringe Festival which provides a platform for the most varied types of entertainment.
[edit] The history
FEATS originated in 1976 in Rotterdam as a friendly 'sparring match' between a few theatre groups in the BeNeLux countries. Early festivals were held over just two days but the discovery of more and more groups wishing to compete grew the event to its current four-day duration. In early years, it rotated between Antwerp, Brussels, Luxembourg and The Hague until, in 1991, Bad Homburg was included as a 'permanent' venue. In 1999 Geneva made a delightful change and in 2005 Hamburg bravely hosted for the first time. The 2008 festival is planned to take place in Stockholm.
[edit] The participants
Who in their right mind will commit to spending dozens of unpaid hours rehearsing lines, knocking scenery together, sewing costumes, planning lighting and sound and then travelling sometimes not inconsiderable distances to perform on a large stage in a strange theatre in front of a highly critical crowd and sharp-eyed adjudicator? The answer is that a few hundred volunteers do just that each year. They come from a broad cross-section of business and trades in their 'normal' lives and devote much of their spare time to amateur theatre. They are typically expatriates, immigrants or local nationals who wish to exercise their knowledge of a foreign language or love of theatre, or both. The resultant mix of skills, nationalities and cultures often provides a creative atmosphere that facilitates the production of excellent theatre. Amateur theatre groups that are resident in mainland Europe are eligible for inclusion in FEATS, whereby it is strongly recommended that members attend at least one festival before applying to the organising committee in order to obtain a good idea of the resources that will be necessary to present a good performance.
[edit] The plays
The hosting group sets the time limit for each play, earlier just 45 but now usually 50 or 55 minutes. This restricts the number of published works that can be performed at FEATS somewhat, but can also lead to creative staging and, with the author's permission, cutting of text. A typical festival will feature both serious drama and light comedy, as well as new and previously unperformed original scripts. Plays from respected and well-known authors such as Alan Bennett, Anton Chekhov, Jimmie Chinn, Caryl Churchill, August Strindberg, George Bernard Shaw and Harvey Fierstein to name but a few are to be seen. But FEATS is also often the platform for new playwrights to have their work staged for the first time and for them to receive constructive criticism from a learned audience.
[edit] More information
The FEATS website can be found at www.feats.eu. This site is maintained for the benefit of all the participants and audience members who are scattered throughout mainland Europe and provides news of the forthcoming festival, reviews of the most recent and an archive. The FEATS festival is always organised completely by the hosting group alone, with support available from a small non-executive Steering Committee.
