The 2023 International Remote Theatre Competition
So here is it! A little bit later than planned we’re finally launching the 2023 International Remote Theatre competition.
It’s going to be a bit like last year’s competition in that each play that is submitted needs to be a collaboration between students in Palestine and one other country in the world. But there are also a couple of differences…
Firstly we’ve got rid of the rule about one student per camera. There will need to be at least two cameras (one per country of course) but if you want you could have up to three students acting in the same camera. In this way it’s more like how we used to do the competition before the pandemic.
Secondly, we want to really emphasise the learning potential of this activity. So we’re going to offer lots of free Zoom drop in sessions for anyone who wants to participate. This will be an opportunity to find partners in another country and to get some feedback on your performance from some Remote Theatre specialists (who aren’t judges) . These will be at different times during each week to accommodate the different time zones of participants.
We believe that so much learning (and fun) can be had by rehearsing a remote play with people in different countries working together. It’s a challenge of course: students and teachers have to deal with different time zones, different varieties of English, different approaches by the teachers, and even different expectations of what theatre is. But as with most challenges, this can lead to a lot of learning. Listen to Hanaa Mansour, one of the teachers involved in the International version of “Live your life’, talking about what the benefits to learning of doing intercultural collaborative remote theatre projects may be.
So, because of these benefits to learning and because our aim as a charity is to make connections around the world for young people in Palestine, for this year’s competition we’ve decided to keep the international element of the competition. If you’d like to enter you’ll need to submit a recording of a Remote Theatre version of one of the plays from ‘Doing Remote Theatre’ and it will need to involve at least two students from Palestine, and at least two students from another location in the world. Don’t worry if you’re new to Remote Theatre, and/or don’t have international connections yet. There’s plenty of time until the submission deadline of 12th May and, as I said, we’ll be offering lots of free drop in/training sessions where you’ll be able to make these connections over the next couple of months.
The Rules
This competition is open to young learners of English as a foreign language aged 11-15 (grades 6-9 in Palestine) anywhere in the world.
This is an international competition. Each play submitted must be performed by 1, 2 or 3 young people who live in Palestine, acting together with 1, 2 or 3 young people who live in one other country in the world. There must be a maximum of five actors with speaking parts in each play.
This isn't about writing a play. It's purely about putting together an interesting well-acted Remote Theatre performance. So we're asking participants to work with a play that has already been written. In fact the play must be taken from our latest book, 'Doing Remote Theatre' which is available in digital or hard copies here. The play can be adapted and edited slightly, but the starting point must be one of the 28 plays included in this book.
Each young person can only participate in one play. It must be a maximum of 10 minutes long.
We need to receive an email at info@handsupproject.org with a link to an unlisted Youtube recording of your Remote performance by midnight Palestine time on Friday 12th May 2023. Any entries received after this time will not be accepted. The recording needs to be done through Zoom and must be an absolute maximum of 10 minutes unedited recording (you may remove the beginning and/or the end of the video in order to make it fit to 10 minutes) The virtual background or any other effect available through Zoom is allowed. In the email you'll need to include the name of the play from "Doing Remote Theatre", the names, country of residence, and ages of all the participants, and attach a completed data protection form signed by a parent or guardian for each participant. These forms are available for download either in English or in Arabic.
There will be an international panel of judges assessing the plays based on the criteria of creative expression, clarity of expression, and acting ability. The best plays will be performed live and remotely at a big event in London in the summer. Also the Palestinian actors and teachers from some of the winning plays will be invited to Jerusalem where they’ll have an opportunity to rework their plays into a face to face show to be performed in a theatre there.
If you’re looking for inspiration then have a look below at the previous overall winners from the competition, or at our Youtube channel for the plays that have been published in our books. Good luck to everybody, everywhere!
‘Inner Thoughts’ the 2017 winner of the competition.
‘I can smell her’ the overall winner in 2018
‘Behind bars of silence’ was a finalist in 2019 (we didn’t pick an overall winner)
The overall winner of the 2020 Lockdown theatre competition - ‘My mother- in-law is a trouble maker’
‘Welcome to Earth’ with students in Palestine and Czechia, was the overall winner of the 2021 International Lockdown Theatre competition.