Michele LeTourneau
Northern News Services

NNSL (May 28/99) - It's almost time to lighten up, according to Under the Midnight Sun organizers Ina Murray and Mari Croizier.

Lighten up -- the theme for this year's one-act play festival -- already has its lineup of productions, though it has not yet been set in stone.

According to the two hard-working theatre enthusiasts, some people drop out. But -- this is the good news -- they are accepting applications until next Friday. All you producers, playwrights, directors and actors out there, Under the Midnight Sun offers the rarest of opportunities to get your work on a professional stage in a semi-professional situation.

The festival, running at the Northern Arts and Cultural Centre July 8 to 10 -- with the possibility of a fourth performance day, offers the same sort of support that the famous Fringe festivals offer down south.

NACC provides the theatre venue free of charge, a two-hour technical rehearsal at NACC including set-up and tear down, one technician to assist with the staging of your production, two crew members to run the lighting and sound board, and promotion of your production in the festival event program.

What you have to do is simple enough. Besides the obvious, staging a production, you promote your production, you cover your own costs for sets, costumes and props and if you need extra people, besides actors, that's your responsibility. Finally, collect box office monies and pay yourself and your crew!

There are a few more details, but you get the drift. This is an extraordinary chance for anyone with an interest in theatre, whether you've had experience or not.

There are eight brave companies in for the count so far -- two more than last year.

Organization of B.S.D.P.W.O.V., led by Amanda Dei, will stage The Effect of Our Objections. Wunderstudy Productions, led by Samantha Merrit, will stage two 15-minute monologues.

Lunch Pail Theatre will perform 40 minutes from their upcoming outdoor performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Gillian Dawe will perform Chicks.

Dawe teams up with Simon Taylor for a triptych of plays: Present Day Courtship, The Dark and Endless Skies, and a piece written by Taylor.

Brie O'Keefe, last seen as one of Tevye's daughters in Fiddler on the Roof, presents With or Without You.

Finally, Brian Wainwright of Theatre Yk brings two productions: five plays in 55 minutes and The Devil and Billy Markhan.

Murray and Croizier are veritable balls of energy when they discuss the festival and its potential. If they have it their way, the festival will grow and grow, offering ever more experimental, edgy theatre pouring forth from the imagination of Yellowknifers. So when July 8 rolls around -- Lighten Up! and get down to NACC.