Tuesday 19 February 2013

Short+Sweet set to take Dubai by storm!



The biggest ten-minute theatre festival in the world is set to explode on to the Dubai theatre scene next week when Emirates NBD, Marina Home and 7DAYS present the first ever Short+Sweet Dubai at DUCTAC in the Mall of the Emirates from Thursday February 21st.

The festival, which runs until March 2nd, will feature over 200 local actors, writers and directors as they bring to life 50 plays, all ten minutes or less. For the first time ever in Dubai, Short+Sweet will bring together all of the leading local theatre groups in one theatre in one night.

Companies to perform at the festival include The Human Spirit Project, Drama Dubai Workshops, Dubai Drama Group, Backstage, Theatrewallas, Star Too, Third Half Theatre and OpenThinking. The festival will also feature visiting Chennai theatre group, Stray Factory.

The cream of the crop of local actors will also be on show with Dubai’s leading local actor Dana Dajani gracing the Festival as well as Brook Butterworth, Jassim Lone, Liz Hadaway, Tania Siddiqi, Assem Kroma, Toby Mason and Eric Dury.

Top local directors involved in the festival include Kemsley Dickinson, Sol Abiad, Brent Jenkins, Gautam Goenka, Phil Ridley, Sanjeev Dixit, Mohammed Rahmo, Anish Rao, Nina Hein, Priyanka Johri, Jamal Iqbal, Naima Thompson, Phil Ridley and Sadia Noori.

And local writers to have their work showcased at the festival include Hananah Zaheer, Marie and Frank Dullaghan, Clifford and Jana Single, Vinod Poojary, Iyad Mourtada, Ankita Rao Manikantan, Shina Ahmad and Enzo Messina.

No less than 35 local playwrights will have works presented while the international flavor of Short+Sweet is also on show with six plays from Australia, three from India and one each from New Zealand, Canada, Singapore and the USA. Abu Dhabi is also represented among the scripts on show.

Leading local schools are also featured with high quality offerings from the American School of Dubai, Dubai American Academy and the National Charity School (Dubai), performing in Arabic. The National Charity School (Dubai)‘s participation in the Festival has been generously supported by Emirates NBD who facilitated workshops with the Festival Director, Alex Broun, and students at the school to help prepare a number of plays to present at the Festival.
Many of the artists will also display multiple skills with Kemsley Dickinson acting in his own play and Dana Dajani, co-starring, as well as co-writing and directing, the hip hop inspired MiC Prophecies with local hip hop star Jibberish.

An incredibly broad range of theatrical styles will be covered in the festival from English drawing room comedy to Indian social drama to physical theatre to improvisation.

There will literally be something for everyone with the smorgasbord of topics including Obama family squabbles, life in war torn Syria, Russian Email brides, the real story behind the creation of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, murderous Rottweilers, unicorns trying to get on to Noah’s ark, the rules of dating, the life of lobsters, Dubai taxi drivers, office politics and some suggestions on what to do with a broken shoe.

Local writer director Ankita Manikantan’s play A Spoonfull of Hope was written as a tribute to her father who is battling cancer, and is dedicated to “all heroes & martyrs of cancer the world over.” 

In another highlight in Top 20 Week 1 Dana Dajani and leading Abu Dhabi based actor Assem Kroma will present a play in Arabic, Yeki Bood / Yeki Na Bood.

Short+Sweet Dubai Festival Director Alex Broun, who has launched Short+Sweet Festivals throughout Australia and India, New Zealand and Singapore said he was incredibly excited about what audiences would see on stage over the next two weeks.

“Dubai has never seen anything like this” said Broun. “It’s a chance to see all the best local talent on the same stage on the same night.”

“Local audiences are regularly presented with touring versions of some great international theatre but Short+Sweet Dubai is about giving local writers, actors and directors a chance to shine – and I think people will be surprised just how high quality the local artists are.”

Broun said the response to Short+Sweet from the local theatre community was extraordinary, far exceeding expectations.

“When we first talked about Short+Sweet in Dubai people said we’d be lucky to get 20 directors, we got 50. They said we’d be lucky to get ten script entries, we got over 100. And they said we’d be hard pressed to summon up 50 actors, we have over 150.”

“The excellence of the local visual arts, film and literature communities are well known but this is a chance to put the theatre community in the spotlight. And best of all thanks to the Short+Sweet format you’ll get a chance to experience ten plays in just one night.”

Director of DUCTAC Joseph Fowler was also delighted to be hosting the first ever Short+Sweet Dubai.

“DUCTAC presents a world class programme of performing and visual arts” said Fowler, “and we are proud to provide a platform for local theatre artists through Short+Sweet. I’m looking forward to seeing the work on show during the festival. We’re all set for an incredibly exciting two weeks.”

Tickets are available from DUCTAC or TimeOut Tickets at www.timeouttickets.com

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