Yellowknife (July 02/04) - The 10th annual one-act play festival at NACC might have a new name, but it's still the best theatre deal in town.

NACC NACC Who's There runs next Thursday and Friday nights and all day Saturday, with nine one-act plays to choose from. Each play will be performed twice. In all there will be 18 performances over three days.

Even organizer Amanda Dei has her own entry in the festival, a monologue called "Frankenstein."

"It's funny but touching," said Dei.

In the play, Dei's character attempts to explain her obsession with asking Frankenstein to a date.

Brian Wainwright is directing three plays in this year's festival: "Rude Circus," "Clara and the Gambler" and "Wake."

"Rude Circus" stars Roy Dahl as the best garbage collector in North York. On a break he tells the audience about the worst job he ever had, but tends to drift off topic. Wainwright said the play lives up to its name.

"We have language and content warnings on that one," he said.

The more family-oriented comedy "Clara and the Gambler" stars South Pacific alumni Kelley Merilees-Keppel and Allan Ross. The gambler has won Clara in a game of cards, but he gets more than he bargained for.

"It's a silent movie with words," said Wainwright.

"Or a Victorian melodrama without the music."

And then there's "Wake," as in funeral.

This is a drama with two characters, a middle-aged woman and a teenager, who meet at the aforementioned wake. It stars Joanna Tiemessen and Heather Williams.

Wainwright was happy to cast a teenager. Teen participation is something new this year, made possible by the elimination of the festival's tobacco sponsorship.

"At last, because there's no more tobacco money, there's no more rules," said Wainwright.

Two groups from St. Patrick high school also have entries in the festival. Percussion troupe Street Noise will perform Friday and Saturday. Students from the drama department will do "The Ugly Duckling," based on the story by A.A. Milne.

Ron Kent's original one act play "A Case of the McLeods" is a spoof of old radio plays set in 1955 Fort Simpson.

"I've made our hero Mickey Sibbeston, P.I.," said Kent.

Actors will perform in front of microphones with scripts in hand, and there'll be a sound effects table.

TV mystery feel

"It's a cold case mystery," he said. "I hope it's got all the feeling of the one-hour TV mysteries like Mike Hammer."

The play stars Gail Cyr, Jill Harbicht, Brian Collins and Jaysen Knight.

Margo Nightingale and Leanne Towgood star in "Lost," a play about two elderly women who come up with a unique method to deal with memory loss.

Director Jodi Woolam said putting on short plays (Lost is only 20 minutes long) gets the creative juices flowing.

"It's a great opportunity to try something different," she said.

Wainwright said that the play festival is a firmly established habit for theatre-goers in Yellowknife.

He said there's always people who make the most of the weekend by staying all day Saturday, and seeing every performance.

"At some point they club together and send out for pizza," he said.