” Short+Sweet has long been a time and place where writers, directors and actors may explore their ideas, develop their talents and make connections of a very special sort.”
Kate Stratford
Venue; Turner Hall
Ultimo
Dates: 16 + 17th May.
In what has become an annual event on the Sydney theatre calendar, the Short+Sweet Festival of 10 minute plays has reached its finale. Over 90 little plays have taken to the stage over 8 weeks of heats where the best of the festival were determined by either the crew, audience vote or industry judges.
Among the final favourites are a a few veteran actors, well-known on the Sydney theatre scene. Vee Malnar’s Plain and Pearl, stars Caz Adams and Christine Greenough as two retirement home residents proving that sexual desire has little to do with age. Solo performances come from Vincent Andriano in his own authentic consideration of the problems of being Christian and gay in What if the 12 Apostles Were Gay?; and the fabulous Debbie Westaway pulls out all the singing and dancing stops in Frank Leggett’s Stamp, Stop, Step.
There are salutes to Shakespeare with William Duke’s Alas, Poor Mummy, and Shakespeare Upon Tinder by Newcastle writer David Berry. There are elements of Black Mirror twists in with Misfortune by Mark Harvey Levine, where a romantic date night takes a weird turn when a fortune cookie predicts Barry’s death – Charlotte McKee Wright directs Julia Boyd, Angus Farrand, Lily Li, Katelyn Storey, Bethany Champion and Olivia Consentino. Similarly, in Dream Job, written and directed by James Kehoe, the metaphysical becomes reality when Stella’s nightmares become reality as she meets Dan, the sardonic entity who writes all her dreams. With Jacqui Bramwell, Angus Yee and Kehoe.
There are poignant little plays too which touch the heart. Karen Siff Exkorn’s The Pigeon directed by Annie Geissler, features Piper Farrell as a woman seeking to save her marriage by taking inspiration from a pigeon she releases from sticky tar. Suzy Wilds‘ A Bicycle Built For Two directed by Emily Garrettand with Lucy Jurd, Jenny Jacobs and Rebecca Liquorish, inverts expectations as an elderly woman reflects on life in a nursing home.
In a beautifully choreographed Wheel of Fortune Reverse by Scott Sickles, director Henry Lopez moves Michael (Max Shaw) through the last ten minutes of life as he confronts and dances with Death (Lara Heath.)
There are three winning films from the Short+Sweet Film Festival too, and it quickly becomes evident why James Lawler‘s The Pleasures of the Damned won best film and best director.
Ali Bendall has done a wonderful job of curating the 2025 season of Short+Sweet. It is not an easy gig to bring the disparate threads together and remain as upbeat and enthusiastic as she has. A festival such as this is exhausting; bringing together writers, directors, actors, tech, venues, judges – and budgets! – as it does.
The awards happen tonight (Saturday 17th) but there are no losers in this festival. It is more that there are preferences, for how can one compare apples with oranges with beer and fortune cookies? Anyway, that is not its purpose really. Short+Sweet has long been a time and place where writers, directors and actors may explore their ideas, develop their talents and make connections of a very special sort. Beginning in 2002, the festival has gone on to become a global phenomenon with offshoots into film, cabaret, dance, song and youth categories. Whilst the quality may be uneven at times, it does provide a safe haven and platform for emerging and established artists to showcase their work and a means of building theatre-going audiences.
Kate Stratford, Theatre Now
