Cabaret – Taking Over the World Ten Minutes at a Time. By Adele Scott
So you’ve heard of Short Film festivals, but what about a short theatre festival? Or a short dance festival or short cabaret? Well Short+Sweet is a banner that encompasses all of these art forms in the context of a short theatre festival. I spoke to Festival Director Mark Cleary and also the Artistic Director of Melbourne’s Short+Sweet Cabaret Subsection, David Read owner of Melbourne’s own The Butterfly Club.
Every year more than two thousand scripts for ten minute plays from around the world are submitted to the directors of Short+Sweet. The plays are short listed and then over a two week period, the plays are performed to an audience and a panel of judges and a finals round is selected. The prize pool in Melbourne last year was more than $32,000. The Short+Sweet festival is the world’s biggest short play festival, it has expanded from Sydney and Melbourne to almost all capital cities in Australia and also into Singapore and Malaysia. Over the years we have seen the growth of the festival move into dance, song, and cabaret with also several subsections for actors, play-writes, dancers and performers under the age of eighteen. Mark Cleary, director of the entire festival says that Short+Sweet is to make a “More creative world, ten minutes at a time”
This year, I have entered into Melbourne’s Short+Sweet Cabaret Festival. As a performer we have to write direct and perform our own self contained cabaret and present it to the festival director, David Read. There is an audition process for untried performers before making the shortlist. So I asked Mr. Read a couple of questions about what he’s looking for in a cabaret. For entirely journalistic purposes of course. According to Read there is a tendency in Australian cabaret at the moment for some performers to take the lazy option and sing their favorite audition pieces with a loose dialogue connecting them. Apparently this is not what the judges want to see. “Bring me dark and edgy cabaret, satire, excitement, a good yarn! Bring me vaudeville, burlesque, magic, circus, rock! Think big people!” says Read. So now I know I’m on the right track.
The next question is what happens now? Where will this festival take me as a cabaret artist? Read has a vision for that too. Cabaret occurs all over Melbourne all of the time, but because of its ephemeral nature by the time audiences hear of a good act it’s often moved on. Short Sweet+Cabaret provides an opportunity to bring all these performers together in a festival environment. “I’d like to see Short Sweet+Cabaret start up in other cities but I’m not convinced any other city in Australia has anywhere near the talent pool that Melbourne does, so we may need to look offshore.” Says Read “Each year we do Short Sweet+Cabaret, we are growing an extraordinary mix of ten minute performance pieces, and I’d like to see a ‘best of’ show featuring these acts, tour outside of Melbourne.” This may happen in 2010 with the inaugural Melbourne Cabaret Festival.
Cleary says that as the openings of the festivals approach his time is quickly spiraling away, however he did spare me a moment to wish me luck and give me a sneak peek into his vision for the future “World domination (ten minutes at a time) next target NZ, the UK and USA.”
Short Sweet+Cabaret will be held at Chapel Off Chapel in Prahran from Thursday 12 to Sunday 22 November 2009.
Bookings: www.chapeloffchapel.com.au
or (03) 8290 7000
Cabaret performers Reuben Krum and Cara Cleary perform at Chapel Off Chapel
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