"The Bed"...makes the Semi-finals for Short & Sweet/Sydney!!

"Good play."

- Alex Broun, Artistic Co-ordinator of Short & Sweet (includes Sydney/Brisbane/Melbourne/Singapore/Malaysia), the largest ten minute play festival in the world, and one of the world's most produced ten minute playwrights.

Yeehah! My 10-minute play, "The Bed", has been officially shortlisted (semi-finalist, same thing) for Short & Sweet/Sydney, to be held in Australia in January/February 2009! This is the 2nd year in a row I've gotten to this stage - my award-winner, "Pass the Salt, Please." (that dirty little play) was a semi-finalist last December as well. Now if I can just get over that hump...

"The Bed" is a dramatic short about an elderly man who takes an introspective look at his life - from infancy through death. No dialogue. Just first-person narration (the elderly man) set to music (“Adagio in G Minor”) and performers on stage acting out the narration. From nearly 1,000 entries, 300 were "shortlisted". Each play was read by 2 to 3 adjudicators and considered under the following five criteria: Story, Character, Dialogue, Dramatic Tension and Theatricality. The shortlisted plays are then distributed to directors who put together a Top 5 list and a slate of shows is chosen from the 300 to encompass four weeks of theater in Sydney in January/February 2009. Like last year, I'm very happy to be a semi-finalist. And yet, like last year, I feel "The Bed" has the moxie to get into the finals. We'll see. By the way, only 39 US writers made that shortlist of 300.

You can check out the Short & Sweet shortlist press release here - from there you can tool around the site at your leisure. And if you'd like to read an excerpt from "The Bed", go to my play website, Plays of Jeffrey James Ircink. Or email me at irc_64@hotmail.com if you'd like to read the play in its entirety. And, of course, if the play makes the finals I will be looking for patron (sponsors, same thing) to help me get over there to see the production.