SHORT+SWEET Week Eight, this is the final week of heats of the Top 80, with the SHORT+SWEET Finals Series beginning next week, including the penultimate heats that include the S+S PEOPLE’S CHOICE SHOWCASE 2019 and the S+S WILDCARD FINALS 2019 and the S+S CREWCUT FINALS 2019, and soon the ultimate event with the SHORT+SWEET GALA FINAL 2019.
There are thirteen very different and very original plays, in a tasty assortment of theatre treats being performed live on stage this week, at Short and Sweet Week Eight of “The biggest little theatre festival in the world”.
A delicious comedy halloween antics, the audition process, comedy mission to mars, aged care, dating super-heroes, all provide laugh-out-loud entertainment, plus message plays about relationships, millennials, dramatic intrigues and dramedy.
Second year in this big new venue for S+S, and comfortably seating a maximum of 171. Top 80 WEEK EIGHT is a huge week of must-see comedic delights with each brand new play under ten minutes, Thursday 28th March 2019 until Sunday. The S+S festival has new shows every week for eight weeks, and runs through to April 2019.
(1) ONE POPCORN BALL, ONE BABY SNICKERS AND ONE ALL DAY SUCKER
Romantic costume comedy on Halloween Night, and a passive-aggressive wheelchair-clown provides a twist that you will never see coming.
Writer: Rick Davis
Director: Susan Farrell
Cast: Gianna Serbati, Ben de Klerk, Harry Eggington
(2) TURN! TURN! TURN!
At a funeral with friends, Dianne has deep-felt regrets, and as a devils-advocate she discusses her forgotten wedding anniversary and her fears that her husband Benji has betrayed her.
Writer: Bara Swain
Director: PJ Collins
Cast: Monette Lee, Barbara Hastings
(3) TIMING … ALL IN THE
John and Paul are lucky/unlucky roommates and the play operates on a nifty gimmick, focusing on happenstance by having two distinct early/late parallel adventures. The fate/chance gimmick is very very reminiscent of the almost-ifs/what-ifs of the 1988 movie “Sliding Doors”, with a screenplay having nine distinct scenes, all in under ten minutes.
Writer: Jim Martyka
Director: Leanne Bowden
Cast: Theon Ajax, Gunjeet Singh, Mary Saldevar, Deborah Yaban, Angelina Volmer, Rebecca Abdel-Missih
(4) A SPACE ODDITY
Comedy with a space travelling robot left in charge of three kidnapped animals, monkey/dog/pig, all wide awake on their space mission to Mars.
Writer: Mary Granfors
Director: Bradley Ward
Cast: Arthur Gallagher, Kaylee Ashton, Alex Groombridge, Alexander Cuff
(5) AGE IS JUST A NUMBER
Crisp dialogue galore in this wonderful relationship comedy, with the mother plus daughter team, of Kathy and Hayley. Cougar versus Millennial. Divorced mum who used to be cool, shocks her daughter because mum is now dating on-line.
Writer: Kellie Silver
Director: Mark Fowler
Cast: Addie Fowler, Jen Davidson
(6) THE LAST SHUFFLE
Message play set in an aged care home, two elderly ladies deliver a unique suicide/euthanasia dramedy, are planning their one last cruise-ship adventure.
Writer: Teresa Plane
Director: Anthony Langford
Cast: April Pressler, Mickey Richards
(7) TRUE TO YOU
This very entertaining relationship comedy is all about an awkward first date. Their inner voices bluntly expounding a very unique methodology, quickly revealing just too much about themselves, until their costumed alter-egos appear.
Writer: Nicky Denovan
Director: Harriet Hope Streeter
Cast: Harriet Hope Streeter, Sebastien Scott
(8) COPY BOY
With his excessive stage fright, but dreaming of being a musical theatre star, Phoenix gets offered the singing audition of a lifetime.
Writer: Simone McGennisken
Director: Simone McGennisken
Choreographer: Teneale Clifford
Cast: George Burgess, Liv Robertson, Roisin McDonnell, Linda Chong, James Stokes, Claire Perry
(9) GODDESS
Deliberate Poetry Slam compliments this huge comedy hate fest. Frank has died, and Sharon and Thalia are creating his memorial poem for his tombstone, and they discuss the relationship that each women had with him and others.
ITC: duGuarde Productions
Writer: Tom Peach
Director: Tom Peach
Cast: Cara Severino, Kaylee Ashton
(10) FOR HIRE
Killers Under Management. Excellent drama intrigue and comedy repercussions as two old friends meet, both are assassins, but one has been hired to murder the other.
Writer: Alexander Cuff
Director: Alexander Cuff
Cast: Julian Levani, Alex Groombridge
(11) JUST A GAME
Drama as a retired elderly couple, who are very lonely as their children no longer visit. Husband employs a rent-a-crowd outfit, to provide a fake daughter and a fake son, for his wife to enjoy their visit.
Writer: (Late) Sisir Kumar Das
Director: Asim Das
Cast: Smritish Ray, Sharmila Ray Sabyasachi Sarkar, Arunava Chaudhur, Sunanda Chaudhuri
(12) ROGER RECONSTITUTED
Localised updated comedy, connecting with your dearly departed by using a iPhone app, bereaved wife Nancy brings back deceased husband Roger.
Writer: Wendy Crew
Director: Wendy Crew
Cast: Amanda Lieber, Luke Denny
(13) IS THIS A DREAM
Audience Favourite on opening night. Existential angst comedy as whilst asleep, Lisa is dreaming and talking with Dorothy from Wizard of Oz, then Joan of Arc and then Florence Nightingale. Lisa also creates concepts via comedy dialogue segues always delivered direct to the audience, each used to deliberately explain away the theatrical restraints.
Writer: Katrina Samaras
Director: Lilly Christie Daly
Cast: Lillian Woods, Naoise Champion Annie Roberts, Olivia Harris
Short+Sweet Theatre (@ Tom Mann Theatre) Academy of Music and Performing Arts (AMPA) 136 Chalmers Street, Surry Hills
SHORT + SWEET THEATRE – Top 80 – WEEK EIGHT – 28th March 2019 until 31st March 2019
7:30pm Thursdays-Fridays-Saturdays
6:00pm Sundays (followed by the official presentation)
TICKETS: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/shortsweetsydney
WEBSITE: https://shortandsweet.org/festivals/shortsweet-theatre-sydney-2019
https://www.facebook.com/pg/shortsweetsydney/
https://shortandsweetsydney.wordpress.com/
SHORT+SWEET SYDNEY 2019 FINALS SERIES
S+S PEOPLE’S CHOICE SHOWCASE 2019 – 7:30pm Thursday 4th April and 7:30pm Friday 5th April 2019
S+S WILDCARD FINALS 2019 – 3:30pm Saturday 7th April and 2:3pm Sunday 8th April 2019
S+S CREWCUT FINALS 2019 – 7:30pm Saturday 7th April and 6:00pm Sunday 8th April 2019
S+S GALA FINAL 2019 – 7:30pm Saturday 27th April and 6:00pm Sunday 28th April 2019