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.”
For a full festival programme go to http://www.shortandsweet.org/shortsweet-theatre/our-festivals/dubai/festival-programme-2013
No comments:
Post a Comment