Axe
Around springtime every year a truckload of ten-minute scripts arrives in Melbourne, addressed to the good people at the Short & Sweet Festival. From Darwin to Detroit, from Godot spoofs to original dramas, the plays are a Pandora box-set, numbering over 1400 submissions.
Next, using chicken gizzards and a tuning fork, a judging panel reduces the shipment to an elite 100 or so. And given time, and intense window-shopping from interested directors, that long shortlist is whittled to a top-30 showcase, with the next 30 afforded Wildcard status.
Maybe the handicap rules of blue-water yachting are a tad simpler to explain. In a nutshell, those first 30 enjoy the FPT, or Full Professional Treatment from wardrobe upwards. Running across four nights, in three clusters of ten, these 30 scripts play downstairs at the Fairfax Studio in the Melbourne Theatre Company.
What follows, again involving arcane methods known only to the thespian universe, is the further funneling of plays – three from each week, plus a single Wildcard from the make-or-break matinees across three Sundays – into the ultimate gala program in mid-December.
Confused? I don’t blame you. Importantly the bottom line transcends silverware or ivy garlands. The crux is opportunity, a chance for writers, actors, directors and prop mongers to cut their teeth in the limelight.
Take me, for example. Since when will a puzzle-bum-cum-journo get his chance in First Life to finesse his words for the mainstream stage? In Spanish the word is nunca – which sounds more absolute than never. But this year my script, The Gentleman Had An Axe, is slated for a bout on the boards, and already the casting and creative argy-bargy has begun.
Under the title of Axe, I’m planning to run a sporadic blog of the Process, then playwright’s POV from now till post-show debrief in December. Of course, other stuff will intervene, such as Sunday Life research, offbeat entries, the weekly Birdbrain and life in general. But feel free to follow the Axe’s arc, care of Cassowary.
And in the meantime, tap here http://www.shortandsweet.org/ to reach the website du jour. There you can lavish in the festival’s finer points, its history and manifesto, the master classes and performance schedules. You might even care to plant your bum in a velvet seat and see some innovative theatre.