MACT Logo. Upper portion is comedy/drama masks with comedy mask in yellow and drama mask in blue. Lower portion has the acronym "MACT" and below it the description MN Association of Community Theatres.

Minnesota Association of Community Theatres

Home of Minnesota’s Theatre Community

What’s more fun than a barrel of monkeys?

For theatre folks, it’s a play festival!

And your opportunity to have fun with fellow monkeys is coming up sooner than you think. Registration is now open for shows to be presented at MACT*Fest 2027. The deadline for registering a show is December 1, 2026. The festival will be February 18 (rehearsals) through 21, 2027 at the Reif Center for the Performing Arts in Grand Rapids.

What is MACT*Fest? It’s MACT’s multi-day festival of 60-minute shows. Auditions typically start on Thursday, but could as early as Wednesday, depending on the number of shows. (The festival is limited to 12 shows.) Performances start Friday afternoon with 2 or 3 shows. On Friday night there will be an additional session with 2 shows. Saturday afternoon brings 2 or 3 more shows to the stage. The performance wrap up Saturday night. Did I mention that after each performance a panel of three adjudicators will make comments regarding the show we all just saw.

There will also be workshops on Friday and Saturday morning on a variety of topics. Friday night and Saturday night will be topped of with social events to give everyone an opportunity to catch up with old friends and make some new friends. The festival ends with the awards presentation on Sunday morning.

Each show must fit their sets into a 100 square foot area, usually as a 10 foot by 10 foot box. The set must start there for setup and end there after strike.

Timing is everything. Each show has up to 10 minutes to setup, 60 minutes to perform and 10 minutes to strike. Go over any of those time limits and the show will not be eligible to advance to the regional festival.

And speaking of timing, the time to register your show is now. The show registration deadline is December 1. Registration fee is $250 if you have participated in a festival in the previous 10 years. For theatres that have not participated in the last 5 festivals (or never presented a show), the registration is only $150. The submitting theatre must also be a member of MACT for 2026 (when you enter the show) and 2027 (when the show is presented).

Other rules also apply. See the full AACTFest handbook on the MACT website for more information.

Come monkey around with us in Grand Rapids in February.