Geelong’s newest arts festival is encouraging budding playwrights and actors to get involved.
The inaugural Geelong Short Play Festival, which will be held in November at the Geelong Arts Centre, is accepting submissions of previously unperformed 15-minute plays on any theme from today (Friday, February 28) until Sunday, April 27.
Judges will compile a shortlist of six plays, which will be performed by local theatre groups at the festival in November.
Festival organisers at Geelong Writers Inc will run two workshops facilitated by Melbourne-based playwright Christine Croyden at Eastern Hub Community Centre in March to assist writers ahead of the submission due date.
Festival coordinator Paul Bucci relocated to Geelong four years ago from the South West district, where he was a writer and coordinator with the Port Fairy Short Play Festival.
He said the beauty of short plays was they involved far less work to both write and produce, lowering the barrier to entry for people new to both writing and performing.
“What we found in Port Fairy, and I’m going to assume it will happen here too, is that a lot of people got involved that hadn’t been involved with theatre before,” Mr Bucci said.
“Short plays are very accessible… so it will hopefully attract people who have done some writing but perhaps never written a play before.
“Also, people who are already involved in theatre have a capacity to become a performed playwright, which, as a performed playwright, is a real buzz.”
Geelong Repertory Theatre, Queenscliffe Lighthouse Theatre, Theatre 3Triple2 and new Geelong West group Kaleidoscopic Void are among the local theatre organisations who will be randomly allocated plays to perform.
Mr Bucci, who has both won and judged short play competitions, said natural-sounding dialogue was key to a good short play.
“One of the big turn-offs when you judge is plays that don’t actually sound like real people speaking,” he said.
“Also, while a longer play gives much more opportunity for character and plot development, different kinds of sets and costumes, in a short play you don’t have time for any of that.”
Email competitions@geelongwriters.org.au for competition information or to submit plays, or call Paul Bucci on 0428 326 012 for general information on the festival, the competition or acting opportunities.
