Gill Bowness brought honours and trophies back to East Leake following her triumph at the NANDA One Act Play Festival held in Long Eaton in June.  ELAPs had submitted Hindsight, Gill's first play, which had its premiere at our Spring production in East Leake in May.

ELAPs received the adjudicator's Special Award for having the courage and motivation to come to a major One Act Festival with an unknown writer and unknown play. The adjudicator said that he admired the play immensely and gave us some top tips for consideration. It never occurred to us at the time of entering for the festival that it was a crazy thing to enter an unknown play by an unknown writer.  We just wanted to give it the "airing" that we believed the play deserved.  He recognised this and we won with that in mind.

Gill herself received the trophy for the best newcomer to the festival.  The adjudicator loved Gill's play and greatly admired her writing.  He said that he had been uplifted by Gill's work and was very enthusiastic for new writers for the stage. He gave Gill some ideas, as he was a writer himself, and is looking forward to seeing more of her work. As indeed we all are!

ELAPs faced some tough competition against some accomplished groups, so we feel very proud of Gill's achievement.  With hindsight (!), we think we missed out by not having been there to see all the plays during the afternoon, as it would have helped us to understand how the winners of the different awards compared with ourselves and what they did that was so different and deserving.

Although we were on unfamiliar ground at the theatre in Long Eaton, it didn't stop us using the large stage, with an audience that felt as if they were in the park with us. The playwright herself helped to move trees.  She had dressed appropriately in black, the uniform for backstage.  Thankfully there were no hiccups with sound and lighting with Jarrod Makin on an unfamiliar deck and  with Sonya Oates and Jean Makin helping out in the wings.  The manic costume changes between scenes were particularly complimented by the adjudicator.

Congratulations to Gill for having the creative flair, motivation, time and energy to create such a great first play.  We look forward to premiering her first full-length piece in December.  She's written this year's panto, Cinderella, with some interesting twists on the traditional version.

By the time this edition of ELT comes out, there will be just one audition evening left for the panto - on Thursday August 2nd.  But even if you miss that, there's always masses to do backstage.  Come and meet us at East Leake Village Hall on Thursday evenings at 7.30 pm.

Contact details are at the website www.elaps.co.uk

(With thanks to Hayley Masom - who was there!)