Short & Sweet Sydney 2013

Post

Subscribe

Posted 2012-12-18 by Amy B ⇒ follow

Short&Sweet , the world's largest festival of ten minute plays is now entering its 12th season this year. I was luckily able to attend the Short&Sweet launch party recently and get the scoop on all the details about what's to come with this exciting event over the next three months.

Internationally successful Short&Sweet is producing 160 never before seen in Sydney 10 minute plays in January, February and March of 2013. There are over 300 writers and directors and close to 500 actors participating in Short Sweet Sydney.

Independent theatre companies will showcase their work both nationally and internationally coming from Melbourne, Brisbane, Newcastle, Dubbo, Broken Hill and India.

Director Pete Malicki says, "Short&Sweet is an excellent platform for the artists to get exposure and the connections that people make through this event are incredible." Malicki notes that if you add up all the people who've been involved in Short&Sweet Sydney since its inception in 2002, you'd have well over 10,000 people.

The plays will be shown at King Street Theatre , Newtown as well as at the Sidetrack Theatre , Marrickville for the People's Choice finalist week.

In 2013, the event will feature the Top 100 Wednesday to Sunday and the Wildcard program running to 3 performances, Saturday, Sunday matinees and Monday nights. Malicki says audience members will receive "more bang per buck."

Short&Sweet features independent judges and audience voting. The festival's grand finale will be at the Seymour Centre with the Gala Finals on 22 and 23 March where the plays that won from each of the 10 weeks of the festival, the best Wildcard play and the People's Choice will all compete for the awards and fantastic prizes.

Some plays to keep an eye on this year are, "Harry Potter in 10 minutes", award winning (Short Sweet and Tropfest) Down Sydrome actor Gerard O'Dwyer and WildCard play "For Our Kind". Chennai based theatre company Stray Factory are bringing their play, "My name is Cine Ma" to Sydney. They won awards at Short Sweet Chennai, Mumbai and Kuala Lumpur, so watch out for these guys.

As a part of Short&Sweet, free masterclasses will also be on offer for participants and supporters.The Masterclasses are a series of professional workshops on topics such as directing, writing and publicity taught by industry leaders in the theatre world. Go here to learn more about the free Masterclasses.

I spoke with founder Mark Cleary at the launch to get a better understanding of how this unique event came to be. Mark shared that its original format was a dance festival and since he is a writer he thought why not have a theatre festival? Sweet&Short Sydney began in Newtown in 2002 and it's been gaining popularity worldwide ever since. Stay tuned for Short&Sweet New York and Paris in the near future.

Do yourself a favour and get your tickets to Short&Sweet Sydney. This unique event is a Sydney native and one that we can be extremely proud of. You'll be supporting your local arts community and you'll be entertained by the fantastic actors, writers and directors that make Short&Sweet possible.