Song

ITC: Dial One
Title: Annie & Joshua
Director: Thomas Sainsbury
Composer & Musical Director: Robbie Ellis
Writer: Robbie Ellis (adapted from Tom Sainsbury)
Cast: Bridget Costello & Callum Blackmore with pianist Robbie Ellis.
Synopsis: Joshua a hotel bell boy proclaims his over-the-top devotion to Annie, a hotel receptionist way out of his league. It’s unrequited love on the late shift until it becomes a marriage of two sleep-deprived minds.

ITC: Amplitude
Title: Quiet Desperation
Director& Creator: Celeste Oram
Cast: Elizabeth Mandeno, Phoebe Borwick, Celeste Oram, James Roberson & Adam Thompson
Synopsis: Five performers.
A treadmill. A pair of boxing gloves. A skipping rope. A washing machine.
This absurd, frenetic and darkly comic piece of physical music theatre stretches the physical and vocal capabilities of each performer beyond the limits in an arresting and disturbing evocation of the modern-day rat race.

ITC: Flashbulb Theatre Group
Title: What Love Can Be
Writer: Tamasyn Clare (NZ)
Director: Kinloch Anstiss
Cast: Cassie Baker & Liam Coleman
Synopsis: Emma and Jeremy have been together for five years. Emma is beginning to realise their love doesn’t look the way it used to.

ITC: Freelance Bohemian
Title: Hole in The Road
Writer & Composer: Scott Koorey
Director: Jonathan Hodge
Cast: TBC - changed due to illness.
Synopsis: There’s a hole in the road and I don’t know how to mend it … coping with shaking foundations.

ITC: The Oryza Foundation for Asian Performing Arts
Title: The Adventures of Kazu and Kengo (a.k.a. This is how Ninjas say hi…!)
Director: Gerald Urquhart
MD & Composer: Jun Bin Lee
Cast: Kazuhide Shaun Okuda, Kengo Hosaka & Hiroshi Nakatsuji
Synopsis: A tale of how two ninjas save the day (or try to at least). Not once not twice but thrice and all in under 10 minutes (in three acts).

Invited as part of the showcase …

Title: I Wish I Learned
Director: Matthew Grice
Composer & Musical Director: Vicki Millar
Writer: Vicki Millar
Cast: Alexandra McKellar
Synopsis: Revisiting the classroom she attended as a 5 year old, Abigail prepares to send her own daughter off to school. With another baby on the way, she talks to the little one about the things she wishes she learned in school – an alphabet of real life lessons.

Short+Sweet Song is the all singing edition of Short+Sweet (the world’s biggest little play festival) . Perfectly packed mini musicals, each one no longer than ten minutes.

Brand new in Auckland this year, some of our brightest talents come together to take you on a journey around the musical theatre world. From rock to opera. From serious drama to seriously funny. And all in 10 minutes each.

How does it work?

Short+Sweet starts with a call for entries where we ask composers, writers and directors to team up to create independent theatre companies which submit proposals. We take on-line submissions from anyone keen to be involved.

We assess the best proposals which then make the festival short-list. The proposal may already have cast and creatives attached or we help them find cast and rehearsals begin in earnest.

We break the festival into two divisions, the main bill (for the more experienced practitioners or interesting pieces) and the wild cards (for the newer participants). From there the audience and selected judges vote to send the best to our Gala finals.

The best of the festival gather in front of a panel of judges and the audience and perform one last time. On this night the panel of judges choose their best plays and the awards are given. There are winners chosen by the judges for overall production, playwright, director and actors. The audience choice award for the whole season is also announced.