Such Sweet Success

Illawarra Mercury

Saturday January 19, 2008

KILMENY ADIE

Illawarra talent has a big part to play in the 2008 Short+Sweet festival as KILMENY ADIE discovers.

Short+Sweet artistic director Mark Cleary sits in a Sydney coffee shop and ponders his connection to the Illawarra. An ex, he announces, before elaborating that he once dated someone who lived in the region. This answer is immediately laughed off by Cleary as a very tenuous connection to the area.

While the Short+Sweet founder may struggle to find a link to the Illawarra, there are many participants with regional ties at the 2008 five-week theatrical feast, which opened in Sydney this week. The number of writers, directors, actors and festival crew with Illawarra connections participating in the 10-minute theatre festival is unprecedented.

Most, Cleary included, place the reason for this level of regional involvement firmly in the lap of one woman; Sydney festival director Van Badham. The Illawarra-connected playwright has returned from her London base to take over the reins of the Sydney leg of the annual theatrical event.

"(It's) probably the involvement of Van Badham and, as a consequence, more people from the area have put up their hands to be involved," Cleary says. "But ... it is a vehicle for artistic people from all over Sydney and beyond."

Illawarra-based professional actor and writer Drew Fairley also pays tribute to Badham. Fairley grew up in Berkeley, studied creative arts at the University of Wollongong and his profession has taken him across the globe. He recently moved back to his hometown.

A regular at Port Kembla's The Vault Cabaret, Fairley has written and performed in the shows Bangers and Mash and The No Chance In Hell Hotel with his creative partner Kate Smith.

"I think (the number of Illawarra people involved) has got a lot to do with Van Badham being at the head," Fairley says. "She's a great energetic source. She has upped the ante, I think, on the festival this year."

Badham does not shy away from the comments made by her peers. In fact, she's even more up-front about her intentions to raise the region's creative profile.

"I have very much tried to tear down many of the barriers that we have from living outside of Sydney," she says. "Being from Wollongong is a huge part of how I represent myself as an artist."

Badham's works have been staged in the UK, US and in the Illawarra. She has lectured at the University of Wollongong and, as she marks her debut as Short+Sweet Sydney festival director, is overwhelmed at the level of regional involvement.

This year there are at least seven playwrights, eight directors and a whole host of actors who all have regional connections. There are also the festival interns Badham recruited from the university into organisational roles to provide them with industry experience.

To have at least seven playwrights make it into the final tally of 130 shows is impressive. Particularly, Badham says, when more than 1500 works from across the globe were submitted.

Those who are involved are a mix of established, emerging, professional and non-professional theatre practitioners.

Wollongong-based actor and director Luke Berman made his Sydney directorial debut at Short+Sweet with Gary Bryan's Little Blue Pills, which opened on January 16. The show stars Bel de Jersey and Wollongong university student Charlotte Connor.

"I realised that with the amount of exposure that Short+Sweet is going to get that I wanted to be a little ambitious. I wanted to pick a piece that was challenging and to see what I could do with it," Berman says. "(I wanted to show) my own fellow co-actors, the audience and the people I work alongside ... this is what we can do. This is some of the product coming out of Wollongong."

Berman, a graduate of the Wollongong university's creative arts faculty, is heavily involved in the region's community theatre scene and considers Short+Sweet an important step in carving out his professional career.

"I think one of the best things about the theatre circle in Wollongong at the moment is the attitude and the talent," he explains. "People are using that talent for art. It's not to boost themselves and it's not ego. It's for a love of theatre, a love for performance and a love for learning something new about the human condition."

Fairley's Short+Sweet motivations were as much about self-fulfilment as career development. The Stallion of Death, his 10-minute play on the Short+Sweet program, has been expanded into a full-length play.

"If I didn't do the 10 minutes at the beginning I would never have got to this point," Fairley says. "I wanted to start to write more and because Kate and I write together, I wanted to write separately. I thought the best way to get started was to think about short plays and 10 minutes felt really possible."

Illawarra actor Matt Ford is also involved in the festival. Ford, who studied creative arts at Wollongong university, lives and works in the region as a teacher. Ford is performing in two productions, Stanislavski's Daughter by Shaun Tinkler from January 29 to February 3 and Bordeaux by Keith Aisner from February 4-9.

"It's performing in Sydney, moving out of Wollongong and into Sydney to see what audiences are like," Ford says. "It's an opportunity to meet new people, develop creative partnerships and friendships. I was shocked at how many people from Wollongong were in it."

In light of the Illawarra invasion into the Sydney Short+Sweet festival this year, Cleary says he would like to see the event make its own regional mark.

Already a one-week program titled Short+Sweet Regional is scheduled for the Central Coast in July and he has the Illawarra in mind for another step on the short play circuit.

"I just need to find a venue. Then it's just the matter of the right (business) partner," Cleary says. "There are so many talented people in this country and so many people wish to express themselves in a fashion. The arts is a potent part of our personalities."

© 2008 Illawarra Mercury

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