Onward and upward.

Right. Time to explain another massive hiatus, I suppose.

It’s all been kicking off this past month. The chaos created  by final judging and casting has rendered me incapable of doing much blogging, mostly because I have very little idea of what’s going on myself. But the dust is beginning to settle, and I am proud to finally reveal our nine successful entrants, and the plays that we will definitely performing in June:

• The Blazers by Chris Tolley
• The Mason’s Apprentice by Yvonne Lake
• Purgatory by Roxanne Wells
• Daddy’s Bed by Georgina Lock
• Selina by Ryan Sullivan
• Thanks to his Sister by Robin Acland
• After Life by Nick Athanasiou
• Be Rain for Me by Susi Wrenshaw
• The Price of Legs by Cath Nichols

For a short synopsis of each show, check out the new page on our website: http://www.triliteral.co.uk/shows.html.

Massive congrats to everyone who was successful! I’d also like to thank everyone else who submitted a play to the festival; the standard of writing we have seen has been inspiringly high, and the judges’ final scores were incredibly close. If all goes to plan, Triliteral will be happening again next year, so why not try your luck again next time!

But what a wonderful and diverse range of plays we have to put on this year! We have comedies, romances, thrillers, a history (kind of) and only two plays that feature a murder! I can confidently say that there will be something for everyone during our production weekend.

We’ve also made a start on casting our glorious nine. Fortunately we’ve managed to avoid having nine separate ensembles, and have devised a cunning system whereby a team of four or five actors will perform three different shows, all under the guidance of the same director. This, we hope, will minimize anarchy. But I digress- a veritable swarm of very talented people descended on the Grosvenor pub on Wednesday and Thursday to audition. It was hectic to say the least (I’m glad everyone who auditioned was fairly patient) but we got through it a, and made a good deal of progress. We’re still working stuff out among us, but by this time next week we intend to have assembled three full casts.

I’m also pleased to say that the erudite  dramaturg Gareth Morgan, and mighty directors Paul Sellwood and Sammi Searle are all fully ensconced within the project, and handled auditions admirably. With the dramaturgical abilities of Mr. Morgan and the input of the play writers themselves, we hope to work the scripts into a fully stageable piece of theatre- this project is turning into the collaborative masterwork it was always meant to be!

On that note, I would like to issue a reply to Mr. Pilgrim’s recent blog entry, entitled ‘Bye Bye Baby’ (http://richardpilgrim.blogspot.com/2010/04/bye-bye-baby.html), in which he begrudges being left out of the loop now that he is working full-time ‘down’t pit’. Richard, if you haven’t been paying attention to my blog over the past months, is the man who has made Triliteral Festival possible up to this point – oh, sure, we’ve all had a hand in it, but without his wealth of experience, wisdom, good judgement and his endless list of connections, Triliteral would have undoubtably fallen flat on its face. Richard, we thank you deeply for the work you’ve done, and are sorry that you are having to take a back seat as the festival progressively moves away from the literary and towards the theatrical. There is, of course, an easy solution to all this- hand in your notice at that Godforsaken Northamptonshire salt mine and come and work on the Festival full time! It is awfully fun, even though I moan a lot.

Right, I think that’s me done. I hope you like waffles, because this has been a big one.

I promise to blog more often.

Richie G