After the hugely successful first edition of Fourplay, the curators have taken a much needed few weeks of rest. But reclining is not all we’ve been doing since December.
Almost immediately after Fourplay presents NOW, you’ve been contacting us with your ideas for future events. After a plentiful rest and a lot of talks with a variety of people, we have decided that the best way to move forward is with that old cliché: quality over quantity. While we are still very open to hearing all of your ideas, we have decided to refine our schedule: producing two high-quality festivals a year, with the potential to produce one or two smaller scale but equally high-calibre events in between. Each event takes weeks, if not months, of planning to ensure it’s as good as it can possibly be, so it’s essential that Fourplay stays focussed and succinct. Thanks to everybody who participated and supported the first edition, we are confident that we can make something really exciting and unique which will hopefully continue for many years to come, so if you want to take part, it’s only a matter of time.
With the house keeping done, it is with great pleasure that we announce the next edition: Fourplay presents THEM. Based on the same structure as NOW, four 20 minute long plays will compete to make the best use of the four props we give them. As in the last edition, the playwrights will be allowed no more and no less than these four props, which for this round will be pieces of art. We are currently calling to artists and artisans of all disciplines to submit one physical object which may be selected for use in the shows. We will organise an exhibition of these objects during the first week of March (hopefully – in any case there will be an online exhibition of high quality images with exact weights and measurements) so that playwrights will have a decent amount of time to get inspired and write their pitches. As with the inaugural Fourplay, and all of those to come, these pitch/submissions are not limited to Paris-based artists and writers: all are welcome. Another change we are making is to open submissions for playwrights. For transparency, in the first edition we didn’t want to tread on the toes of another Paris-based, English writing-oriented theatre festival and so we asked for pitches from one specific selection of writers. Submissions will be open from the time of the exhibition until 21st March. In addition to this, we will be organising a proper casting to ensure everybody has a fair chance to audition.
Aside from that not much will change in the layout of Fourplay: there will still be three performances over two days (dinner on Friday, matinee and music on Saturday). Your feedback and positivity has been greatly appreciated – we couldn’t have begun this venture without the support you’ve given us.
In the meantime, we have one more slow-burning project which we want to get off the ground. We want to publish two non-fiction essays a month. They are not limited to words – they could be photographic, or cinematic – and the criteria is simple: they must be about art. One we’ve collected a big enough bunch, we will publish Fourplay’s first magazine.
So that’s all really. It’s looking to be a busy year.
fourplaytheatre.com 