Short+Sweet 2012: revamped and ready to roll

Last night the Seymour Centre hosted the launch of Sydney’s 2012 Short+Sweet Theatre festival. Featuring 180 plays and 900 Australian artists, the world’s  ‘biggest little play festival’ is set to be bigger (with more little plays) and better than ever in 2012. 

 Last night, the Seymour Centre hosted the launch of Sydney’s 2012 Short+Sweet Theatre festival. Featuring 180 plays and 900 Australian artists, the world’s  ‘biggest little play festival’ is set to be bigger (with more little plays) and better than ever in 2012.   Sydney’s finest exponents of the short theatrical form gathered to hear the official announcement of which ten-minute gems will premiere in Sydney this summer.
Short+Sweet founder Mark Cleary and new Short+Sweet Sydney Festival Director Pete Malicki welcomed the theatre community to announce the program, which opens on January 3 at the Newtown Theatre. Short and Sweet, which began at the Newtown Theatre in 2002 and has expanded both nationally and internationally. The Short+Sweet family now includes dance, cabaret, musical, youth and touring versions and can be seen inMelbourne, the Central Coast, Canberra, Brisbane, Adelaide, Newcastle and Rockhampton, Auckland, Malaysia, Singapore, Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Bengaluru. It is, quite simply, conquering the world… ten minutes at a time. Short+Sweet Theatre Sydney 2012 – the eleventh season – will present 180 works from January to March at Newtown Theatre with two weeks at the Sidetrack Theatre in Marrickville. The Top 100 feature Tuesday to Sunday and the popular Wildcard program continues as one-off Saturday matinee offerings.   The top 100 plays and 80 Wild Cards can be viewed HERE  This year features some great new innovations and ‘tweaks’ to the successful formula which Malicki says will make it even more attractive to Sydney’s summer theatre crowd!
The Short+Sweet Festival – which features independent judges as well as audience voting – climaxes with the Gala Finals at the Seymour Centre on 30 and 31 March where the winning play from each of the 10 festival’s ten weekly programs, the best Wildcard play and the People’s Choice will all face off, competing for awards and rich prizes.
New this year is the first ever People’s Choice Showcase week. 
The most popular play by audience vote from each week of the season will win another week from 21-25 March at the Sidetrack Theatre. The winning play from this ‘best of’ week will then progress to the Gala Final – as well as winning the People’s Choice ‘gong’.
Audience members this year will also get to vote for their two favourite plays, not just one as in years gone by: this will help even out the perceived advantage for shows with big casts (and lots of one-eyed fans!) gaining disproportionate votes from friends and family! “Audience members can still do ‘the loyalty vote’ and also vote for their favourite play”, says Malicki.
In its ten year history Short+Sweet Sydney has presented more than 2000 of the best ten minute plays from writers all over the world, with more than half of those coming from Australian writers. 3500 actors and 1500 directors have taken part with hundreds more staff, volunteers and crew members.