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The Inernational Music Theatre Festival in Cardiff: Some ThoughtsDateline: 9th December 2001 A big hurrah for the Cardiff International Festival of Music Theatre? After all, with the Vivian Ellis Prize gone, don't we need something like this? Should we not be praising BBC Wales and Cardiff City Council for their support of music theatre and wishing them well in their efforts? I hate to be a party-pooper, but there are, I think, things in this festival which will not do. The requirements listed by the organisers - submission of various material such as CDs and scripts - are quite reasonable requests in such a competition, you may think, and so they are - except that the organisers say that no material will be returned. So even those who do not make it past the first round will not get their material back. And every entrant must pay a £60 fee for each entry (up to three) submitted. If the entrant is prepared to send return packaging and postage, it is unreasonable not to return his/her material, particularly if the entry doesn't get past the first round. Those who make it to the showcase stage have every chance of their work being seen by producers and others who may well be prepared to invest in new talent, but the others gain nothing, for the rules say there will be no feedback. To refuse to return expensive material after a £60 fee has been paid is really not acceptable. OK, I can acept that it would be too time-consuming and expensive to attempt to give feedback to every entrant, but that, to me, makes it all the more important that the material should be returned. It represents a fair investment on the part of the entrant, and those who are rejected - and they will be the vast majority, obviously - are paying money to enter, spending money to meet the requirements of the competition, investing time, energy and their hopes, and they will not be getting anything back, not even a "thank you, but you have been unsuccessful" letter. At least, that's what I assume. After all, if they can send out such a letter, then they can certainly return material to those who provide the means for doing so, and so, as they will not return material, we can only assume that they won't be sending a letter either. The showcase will not be of the whole musical: it will last for 45 minutes, which is fine for shorter shows (any length of show, even ten minutes, can be entered) but less than kind to full-length shows. And only one musician will accompany. This raises all sorts of queries. Who chooses the 45 minutes worth of show? Does it contain music, lyrics and libretto equally? What about a piece that has a complex plot which cannot be effectively reduced to 45 minutes? The rules and regulations set out on the website are very clear about what the entrants must do and what the organisers won't do, and that worries me - a lot. To be totally honest, I get no sense from the website that it is being organised in the interests of the development of music theatre in Britain. On the contrary, I get the feeling that it's nothing more than a big PR job. I could be wrong, of course, and the organisers may well have the very best of intentions. If so, then they're going about it in totally the wrong way. Sorry, but it's not a big hurrah, just a rather tentative "Hmm, we'll see". In January the organisers responded to my criticisms. Read their reply here. Articles Indices:
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