OUCH Youth Festival

The Rotary Club of Bridgetown and the Bridgetown Youth Theatre (BYT) held a story writing competition with the competition’s main aim being to generate stories that could be used to develop theatre scripts for this year’s OUCH Festival. The competition was open to young people aged 11 – 17.

“The winning stories were highly commendable, other stories we received were also very good and we are working to bring those stories to the stage for the festival,” Meegan Cullen the Repertory spokesperson explains.

The stories are being developed into stage plays by Meegan Cullen and Chris Shedley.

“Samara Leary wrote a story ‘Food for the Family’, and Hailee Pratt’s story is a dark thriller, that is called ‘The Light in the Dark.’ Both the stories show how small acts of kindness can change lives.”

Samara and Hailee are both twelve years of age; both have wonderful imaginations, which, along with the encouragement from the Youth Theatre result in them being confident natural story tellers.

The story genre Hailee is drawn to is that of the dark thriller, a good versus evil story line. Hailee is playing the role of Alexis, the main protagonist. The play opens on a night when Alexis has an unholy row with her mother, vowing to never talk to her again, ever.

The next day while getting ready for school she eats her breakfast still so furious with her mother she doesn’t talk to her, later that day her mother is reported missing and is not seen again.

Weeks later Alexis receives a message giving an address for where her mother might be, Alexis is so eager to be reunited with her mother she races into a trap set by Lucifer, the villain in the play, and along with her mother will soon become casualties in Lucifer’s game.

Olive is the reluctant heroine in the play, she is the most unlikely to make a stand, a poor defenceless girl, a girl who was snatched away from her parents at an early age and sees herself as unworthy of consideration, a girl that is so frightened of Lucifer, she does his bidding.

Olive decides to help the captives at a critical moment in the play, gathering strength from an act of kindness shown to her earlier by Alexis.

Will an act of consideration and kindness give Olive enough strength to stand up to evil and save Alexis and her mother?

Samara Leary’s story, ‘Food for the Family’, is a moral tale. It’s a story that tells of the pain felt by a customer of a bakery who doesn’t have enough money to buy the food needed to feed her family. She leaves hungry and is demoralised by the baker’s attitude and the disgust he shows in her dilemma whilst pushing her out of his shop.

As time passes and circumstances change, this first customer in the tale is later able to help another person. She witnesses almost the same situation she once experienced unfolding on to another of the baker’s victims a girl who has come into his store to buy the food she needs with insufficient funds. This time she sees the pleasure the baker is having as he belittles another unfortunate customer.

Seeing this frightened girl in a similar situation to the one she had experienced all those years ago, she relives the trauma, feeling once again the pain that this second girl is now having to face.

Only now she is able to support this stranger by providing her with food she couldn’t afford. This act of kindness becomes a rewarding experience in itself, evoking feelings of immense joy.

Yes, two very different and interesting tales.

Part of the philosophy of the OUCH Festival is to involve teenagers in the planning, promotion and management of the event. These processes give those involved the skills that enable them to visualize, plan and implement community activities, making them valuable community leaders wherever they may end up.

The OUCH youth festival is to be held on 26th August, the performances for OUCH Festival are along the lines of a talent quest, in that there are many and varied acts.

This year’s festival promises to once again be a surprising display of the talent within our community.