This past July, Midland (TX) Community Theatre was proud to represent the North American Regional Alliance (NARA) and the USA at Tromsø Dialogue 2011, the IATA/AITA International Amateur Theatre festival in Norway. Midland Community Theatre submitted its application to NARA in December 2010, and was chosen by the Norwegian organizers in January 2011. Midland Community Theatre submitted its production of My Way – a Review of the Music of Frank Sinatra since Midland Community Theatre had previously toured this production to the Dundalk Maytime Festival in Ireland during 2004 and could travel to Norway with a small company.
Our company arrived in Tromsø on Friday, July 15, 2011, and we immediately were attending productions that night from Hungary, Denmark and Germany. Our first performance took place on Saturday, July 16th at 10 p.m., and we spent that day working on technical elements and preparing for our show. During the rest of the week, our group was also able to attend productions from Croatia, Cuba, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Monaco, Norway (2), Russia and our favorite Argentina. When we arrived, we were told that the group from Iran was unable to obtain a Visa to enter Norway, but suddenly on Wednesday the group was able to secure these documents and they arrived and performed on Saturday night to wrap up the festival.
Jaime Sotelo, Lisa Jebsen, Kristen Loyd, Rob Montgomery
Performing groups lived together in a local school, which was set up with cots in classrooms. Although not ideal, it was a wonderful opportunity to meet people from around the world and interact with them. Our men were on the same floor as the groups from Russia and Lithuania, and our women were located next door to the Hungarians. Several groups held parties with their national music and food and drink. Our group decided to host a special breakfast for everyone in the school. On Thursday morning, we awoke at 6:30 a.m. and started cooking scrambled eggs with cheese, peppers and onions and made breakfast burritos for everyone. Many people told us that they set their alarms in order to not miss our special treat.
One of the wonderful elements of having the festival in Tromsø was the fact that July is the time for the Midnight Sun. During the festival, the sun never went down, and this took some adjustments. However, we brought sleeping masks and darkened the windows in our schoolroom to allow us to sleep at night. It was a magical feeling to walk home late at night with full sunlight, but we were all glad to return home and see the sun go down again.
Rob Montgomery, Lisa Jebsen, Tim Jebsen, Ryan Loyd, Kristen Loyd, Jaime Sotelo
In addition to our participation in the festival, several member of the group were able to travel early to Oslo and tour the capital in addition to taking a train trip to the Sognefjord in Western Norway to see the beautiful scenery. However, the terrorism event of Friday, July 22, 2011 added a somber note to the end of the festival while reminding us that theatre can bring together people from different societies, and that the arts can be part of the process of education and knowledge. The terrorism event took place two hours before our second performance – and our thoughts and hearts were with our Norwegian friends as they dealt with the national tragedy.
Overall, our group had a wonderful experience in Norway. The people were warm and welcoming, and our new international friends gave us a greater global perspective on the world of theatre. If you or your company has the chance to travel and perform abroad, please consider the sacrifice of time and money – it’s well worth it!
Jaime Sotelo, Rob Montgomery, Kristen Loyd, Norwegian Chair Svein Svensson,
Tim Jebsen, Lisa Jebsen
