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Onstage in Marshall

Marshall hosts Minnesota Association of Community Theatres festival

Photo by Jenny Kirk Workshop presenter Christopher Russo demonstrates how to apply makeup for theater on volunteer Jenny Homan during the 2017 Minnesota Association of Community Theatre festival on Saturday in Marshall.

MARSHALL — Community theater enthusiasts throughout the state joined together in Marshall for Minnesota Association of Community Theatres 2017.

It was the first time in MACT’s 23rd biennial year history that Marshall had the opportunity to host the festival. And on behalf of Marshall Area Stage Company, President Bob Schwoch said the “Little MACTFest on the Prairie” went rather well.

“Many people were impressed with the facilities, both here at Marshall High School with the Schwan Community Center for Performing Arts as well as at Southwest Minnesota State University, where we were kind of partnering to use theirs for workshop space, which was truly a blessing,” Schwoch said. “MACT is a statewide organization, so we have theaters here from Cloquet, which is just south of Duluth, from Stillwater, St. Cloud and Chatfield, which is down in the southeast corner, along with Dassel-Cokato and three from around the (Twin) Cities. It’s definitely a statewide representation.”

Nine theaters, including Marshall Area Stage Company and Pipestone’s Calumet Players, competed in the festival on Friday and Saturday. Rehearsals actually started on Wednesday.

“I think the festival in general has been a tremendous success,” said Alex Castro, who is a board member and actor for MASC. “Having it locally for the first time, there’s always challenges when you bring groups from far distances to a particular place, but the committee has done an amazing job in getting this here.”

Castro was among eight MASC actors who performed “The Phony Physician” onstage on Friday.

“The performing arts, especially theater, it’s magic in a bottle,” he said. “When it all comes together, it changes lives. Nobody on these stages is getting paid for this work. This is theater for the love of theater, and it doesn’t matter if you’re in Marshall, Minnesota, or New York City.”

Like so many fellow actors, Castro got started in theater when he was young.

“I got started in theater because my family liked it,” he said. “I was 8 years old when I was in ‘The Music Man’ in 1996, and I’m turning 31 this year. One of the few things constant in my life has been theater.”

Castro noted that people usually describe theater as an art, but he believes that theater is a collection of arts.

“My strongest asset is acting,” Castro said. “But as an actor, I’m nothing without somebody else’s art of makeup or somebody else’s art of costume making or somebody else’s art of lighting or somebody else’s art of sound design. All of these things come together to make this beautiful world that happen in 10 minutes or an hour or two onstage.”

Schwoch likens the festival to the high school one-act play.

“It’s similar in that they start out with a 10 by 10 square that they can put their set, costumes, props, all of that stuff, into,” Schwoch said. “Then they have 10 minutes to set up their set, and it’s amazing what will come out of a 10 by 10 square. A couple cycles ago, they pulled an entire front of a bar and a full-size pickup truck out of the 10 by10. They zip-tied the truck together in 8 minutes, and the horn, lights and radio worked.”

After getting 10 minutes to set up, each theater group had 60 minutes to do its show. Along with three timers, a national organization representative was in attendance as the primary rules enforcer.

“The American Association of Community Theatres (AACT) has a commissioner here,” Schwoch said. “Mary Jo DeNolf is our AACT commissioner, and she’s here for all the rehearsals and the shows.”

Depending on the number of theaters competing determines how many “Best in Show” groups are allowed to represent Minnesota in the regional competition.

“The national rules say if you have four or fewer theaters competing at your festival, then you send one representative,” Schwoch said. “If you’ve got more than four, then you can send two. Minnesota has nine productions, so we will be sending two.”

Schwoch said his pre-festival favorite was “The Mad Tea Party” by County Seat Theater Company from Cloquet.

“They’ve been strong,” he said. “A couple of cycles ago, they brought a show to MACTFest called ‘Wiley and the Hairy Man.’ They won the state and the regional competition. They did well enough at the national competition that they got to take it to Japan.”

“The Voice of the Prairie” performed by Dassel-Cokato Community Theatre’s The FungusAmongus Players and “On the Road to Verona” performed by The Minnesota SkyVault Theatre Company from Rochester were selected as Best in Show and will advance to the regional festival.

Schwoch calls 2017 a big year for community theater in Minnesota.

“We’ve got the trifecta,” he said. “There are seven states in Region 5, and since they do this every other year, every 14 years, it is Minnesota’s turn to host. This is our year to host the regional festival. That will be in Brainerd at Central Lakes College (April 27-30).”

In addition, the national festival (AACTFEST) will also be held in Minnesota, from June 26 to July 1 in Rochester.

“We kept encouraging people, ‘If you want to get involved but you’re concerned about travel costs, this is your year,'” Schwoch said. “It’s not going to get more convenient than this. It’s Rochester, Minnesota, not Rochester, New York.”

Putting on a quality festival took a great deal of planning and organization. It also required a lot of volunteers.

“It’s great that we have the ability to draw theater on a statewide level out here on the windswept prairie,” volunteer Bill Cole said.

Hosting Little MACTFest on the Prairie also gave theater buffs several opportunities to attend workshops on Friday and Saturday. Castro attended Christopher Russo’s makeup session called “Aging Techniques for All Ages.” Attendees learned a wide variety of information.

“It seems that everything is a study of nature, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel,” Castro said near the end of the session. “The lines are very much the lines that are already on the face. You’re enhancing them.”

Russo explained that everything is “hard edge, soft edge” and that you really don’t know how your makeup is going to look until the lighting is set. He also taught the group how to load a brush, drag it and refine it, which means to put the makeup on your wrist so that it doesn’t go on in a glob.

Jenny Homan, who portrayed Judith in Marshall’s show, volunteered to let Russo demonstrate the many techniques on her face.

“I enjoyed it,” Homan said. “Once you figure out shading, it’s easier to understand.”

“It’s going to be heavier at the top, and that will push the cheekbones out when you highlight them,” Russo said. “Then it fades out till you get to the jawbones, and that will be highlighted.”

Russo compared putting makeup on an actor to an artist putting color onto a flat piece of canvas.

“It’s only two dimensional,” he said. “It’s the same thing. There’s no depth.”

Russo also talked about wiping off makeup.

“Anyone see the movie ‘The Karate Kid’ and how the young boy learns to ‘wax on’ and ‘wax off?'” Russo said. “That’s what this is. It’s always makeup on, makeup off.”

During the session, Russo was asked by attendee Mary Beth King whether putting makeup on an African American actor used the same techniques.

“Is it the same principle of contrast, dark and light and all of that, or is there something different you have to do with a dark, dark, natural skin to pull out shades?” King asked.

Russo replied, saying that the principles of art are always the same.

“Everything is based on nature,” he said. “Since nature never changes — the sun comes up pretty much in the same place every day, the light hits you in the same place, the colors of the rainbow are always the same — you don’t have to learn a million things.”

Castro said he believes the joy of community theater is when people get the chance to do things they wouldn’t necessarily get to otherwise do.

“There’s a reason that there are more people in the audience than on stage,” he said. “It’s uncomfortable. The great paradox of theater is that it is intrinsically human, yet at the same time, it’s intrinsically artificial because it’s on a stage.”

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