Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!

Week Four of Short+Sweet’s 10th anniversary season begins Australia Day at Newtown Theatre with 10 more tasty treats of short theatre and, appropriately, most of them are by local Australian writers.

Week Four of Short+Sweet’s 10th anniversary season begins Australia Day at Newtown Theatre with 10 more tasty treats of short theatre and, appropriately, most of them are by local Australian writers.

Short+Sweet Theatre Sydney 2011  is presenting 170 works from January to February in two parallel venues – Newtown Theatre Wed-Sun for eight weeks from January 5 and The Parade Theatres (NIDA) Tues-Sat for three weeks from February 8. The festival, which features independent judges as well as audience voting, climaxes at the Gala Finals on March 11 and 12.

Week Four highlights include East to the Ocean by Sonal Moore (whose play The Shadows Within, recently won the inaugural Short+Sweet Delhi). Directed by Jim Hare and starring Kym Parrish and Alice Keohavung, this is a road-trip comedy of two besties. But will they even get out of the kitchen??

Double Date [pictured] by Philip Linsdell is at is sounds… with a twist. Lewis Scamozzi directs Amber Gokken, Brenton Amies, Mel Grob, Michael Faustmann and Robert Edwards.

Happy Anniversary by Nicky Davis and directed by Stephen Carnell for Blancmange Productions is a powerful one-hander about a woman who makes a video for her parents’ 50th anniversary. Her message is an arrow straight to the heart on the subject of sexual abuse. Based on a true crime.

Judy Judd-Sandwell’s The Kiss is a fly-on-the wall hairdressing spectacular: what women really think of men, love, relationships… and of course, each other. Directed by Paul Winchester with Annabel Cotton, Ilya Levey, Ursula Paddon and Georgia Woodward.

Preconception by Larry Hamm is the classic love story of sperm meets egg, egg repels sperm but he persists, even if it means banging his head against the wall… Deborah Mulhall directs Amelia Tranter and Vincent Andriano.

Perfect by Therese Cloonan and directed by Pollyanna Nowicki is a twist on the Jack and Jill love story – starring Erica Josephine Brennan and Roman Smoliakov.

Suckers by Larry Woldenberg is directed by Helen George and sees a foursome of theatregoers get a hands-on audience participation experience when they attend a play about Dracula. It stars Shai Alexander, Karen Garnsey, Peter Morris, Sally Williams, Kyla Ward and Ron Garnsey.

Full schedule of works for Short+Sweet Theatre Sydney 2011 and online booking is available at  www.shortandsweet.org/shortsweet-theatre/Sydney