Short and Sweet (festival)

Short And Sweet (festival)

Short+Sweet (originally known as Short & Sweet) is a multi-form arts platform presenting festivals in theatre, dance, music-theatre, comedy and cabaret across Australia and Asia. The one common thread between all festivals is that all works presented - be it theatre, dance, music-theatre or cabaret - must be ten-minutes or less. Short+Sweet's vision statement is: a more creative world ten minutes at a time.

Short+Sweet Theatre was founded at the Newtown Theatre (now King Street Theatre) in Sydney, Australia in January 2002 by Mark Cleary, beginning with the first ever Short+Sweet Theatre festival.

In January 2004, Alex Broun took over as Artistic Coordinator of Short+Sweet Theatre Sydney. Many new elements were introduced to Short+Sweet during this time, such as a strict time-limit, limit of one play per playwright, one play per director and two plays per actor, people's choice voting and the competitive aspect of the festival where plays are chosen from each week to progress to the Gala Final.

Short+Sweet Theatre Sydney is now the largest ten-minute theatre festival in the world, with around 180 new plays being produced every season. Festivals are currently held in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Regional NSW, Canberra and Townsville in Australia, as well as Singapore, Malaysia, India and Auckland. Short+Sweet Theatre currently receives around 1500 script entries from writers across the world annually.

Short+Sweet Dance premiered at the Newtown Theatre in Sydney in 2007 for one week. In 2009 the Sydney season expanded to three weeks and the first ever Short+Sweet Dance Melbourne was held at Chapel Off Chapel under the direction of Alister Smith in June, 2009.

Short+Sweet Song, which comprises ten-minute music theatre works, began in 2007 at the Seymour Centre and the third Short+Sweet Song was held in October 2009 at the Pilgrom Theatre in Sydney in association with the Australian Institute of Music. The 2009 Festival was led by Festival Director Andrew Threlfall and Musical Director Bev Kennedy.