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MEDIA RELEASE 11/5/2006
FAST, FRESH, YOUNG AND DRAMATIC!
The 2nd annual festival of short theatre for young playwrights, actors
and directors is set to hit Sydney with an explosion of fresh talent.
Fast & Fresh,a youth version ofShort & Sweet (Australia’s - and the world’s - biggest theatre festival) opens for a week of original youth theatre from 15 May at the Riverside Theatres, Parramatta. And entries have trebled with schools from Dubbo to Wollongong, Port Macquarie to the Hunter Valley all represented.
Produced by Newtown Theatre and hosted by the Riverside, Fast & Fresh 2006 boasts the best new work of 10 minutes length or less - by writers and performers aged 18 and under. The five days of heats - with 11.30am and 7.00pm performances for each play - climax in the glittering final performance on Monday 5 June before an all-star panel of celebrity showbiz judges. A rich array of prizes await!
Like its parent festival, this exciting project offers young writers, directors and actors the opportunity to develop new Australian short plays, and to showcase them in front of the cream of Australia's theatre future.
Fast & Fresh is the creation of Short & Sweet Artistic Director, Mark Cleary of the Newtown Theatre, produced by well-known theatre professional Neil Gooding.
Cleary said the festival would “give new talent an opportunity to surface, produce original new work, inspire and educate theatre practitioners of the future and make theatre more accessible and affordable to a wider younger, audience”.
“Fast & Fresh will support existing educational aims in the English and Drama curricula and offer practical experience that will benefit both the students and their schools in an extra-curricular setting,” Neil Gooding added. “We’re also delighted that winning schools from last year have returned to defend their crowns!”
Schools who have won places in the festival (some presenting multiple plays) are: Oak Hill College Glenhaven, The Hills Grammar School, Rutherford Technology High Hunter Valley, Tara Anglican Girls School Nth Parramatta, Hurlstone Agricultural High Glenfield, St Joseph’s Catholic College Hunters Hill, Macquarie Grammar Dubbo, Wollongong Conservatorium of Music, Cherrybrook Technology High, Sydney Boys’ High, William Clarke College Kellyville, Marist College Kogarah, Abbotsleigh Girls School Wahroonga, Katoomba High, Meriden Girls’ School Strathfield, Christian Brothers Lewisham, Port Macquarie High, Miller Technology High Liverpool, St Scholastica’s Glebe, Broughton Anglican College Campbelltown as well as St Kiernan’s Youth Theatre Manly Vale, the Wayne Tunks Drama School Blacktown, Rehearsal Room Productions Narellan Vale, Nadia Vella’s Performance Studio Wetherill Park and Macquarie Uni’s Dramac.
FAST & FRESH
RIVERSIDE LENNOX THEATRE, PARRAMATTA
HEATS Mon to Friday 15-19 May 11.30am and 7.00pm
FINAL Mon 5 June 7.30pm
Tickets Heats: $18 (adults), $14 (tertiary students, seniors), $10 school students
Tickets Final: $22, $17, $12 Bookings: (02) 8839 3399
For more information, or interviews with Mark Cleary or Neil Gooding, or to be put in touch with a competing school or drama school, contact Geoff Sirmai, Watchdog Communications, (02) 9389 3907 or geoff@watchdog.com.au Visit www.fastandfresh.org for more.
