Idiots who think they can plan things.

As you know, I will be going to a regional theatre festival on Thursday. This is a big deal to our little community theater and I'm sure it's a big deal to the others attending as well. However, it seems as though they found the most incompetent person to actually plan the festival. So, what should be an honored event to attend, is a thrown together piece of crap. Let's see, where to start...

First, the regional festival dates weren't officially set until end of March - only about 8 weeks until the festival will take place. (other regional festivals have been completely planned for months) It's not cheap to travel to a different state with 7 people, costumes and a set. We won the state festival in June 2008, but because we didn't know IF there was going to be a regional at all, we couldn't fundraise during that time. And there wasn't adequate time between when we were told the dates of the festival and the actual event to plan anything successful. Luckily, we received some donations, but they won't even cover half of the expenses.

Second, information about the festival itself was impossible to find out. I had to send several emails to the nitwit organizer asking questions that should have been easily answered - where will the festival be taking place, who is participating, when will there be a schedule, where should we stay, what are the technical specifications of the theatre...and so on. More often than not, the organizer wouldn't respond at all. I had to send several follow up emails just to get a response to 1 of my questions. One of the most important things was obtaining official registration forms for the event. We got these a mere 3 weeks before the trip.

Next, I had to bring up issues with the organizer that she most certainly should have been aware of before the planning process begun. AACT has very specific rules for the festivals, but it seems that the idiot organizing the event didn't bother reading them. I had to bring up the fact that we needed to send in copies of the script and permission from the playwright to produce the play. She responded essentially saying, oh yeah, you should send those to me at X address. HELLO! This is something that you need to make sure you have well in advance! GRR!

There's a whole laundry list of grievances I have with the organization of this festival. It is costing the theater a significant sum of money to attend this haphazardly organized festival. Oh and did I mention that the awards ceremony is at 11pm at the Applebee's? Ugh.