One of the USA’s more interesting ten minute playwrights, Jeffrey James Ircink, finally makes his long awaited Short+Sweet debut next up in the hard hitting Billy Balfoor Wants An Apology.- Alex Broun, coordinator, Short+Sweet
"(Billy Balfoor Wants An Apology)...saw the reprisal of Chris Turner from Separating The Dust in a very similar role which could have been slightly distracting for some, but at the same time gave the audience the chance to see the demands on some of the performers. It was difficult to pinpoint which character should garner the audience’s sympathies and perhaps this was the charm of the project – the premise of whether there could possibly be a truly evil child was one that was difficult to settle definitively in the short timeframe. Strong performances contributed to this compelling complexity."
-by Leisa Woodman
Left to right: Steve Warwick (Laird), director Grant Wilcox and Chris Turner (Billy).
My short play, "Billy Balfoor Wants An Apology", had its world premiere at Short+Sweet Sydney / The Biggest Little Play Festival in the World. Grant and I communicated via email (and me 16 hours behind him) for much of the casting and rehearsal process leading up to our week of production, February 16-20.
All I've wanted for three years was to get a play to the production phase of this festival. There's a series of ropes to jump through before you get there - like the 750 submissions received. Once those are read and pared down, 12 plays get a one-week run over the course of 8 weeks = 96 plays total in the festival. The judges top play from each week goes to the Gala Finals which is two nights in March. That's where they award the prize money for Best Play, Audience Favorite, Best Actor and so forth.
"Billy" was not selected to the finals. Fuckin' Aussies. Ha - I'm kidding. I had no expectations going into this. However, there's a bit of a silver lining. See, there's also a People's Choice selection which - at the end of the 8 weeks - determines the People's Choice play to advance to the finals. Long story short, "Billy" placed 5th out of the 11 plays my week (one play was dropped). Interestingly, the People's Choice vote selected "Billy" over the play the judges selected for the Gala Finals (that short placed 6th in the People's Choice).
So - the audience overall liked my play over the judges’ vote for best play (and 4 others…but who cares about those plays). Very cool. Grant had some nice things to say as he saw the play unfold in front of an audience:
"…I'm very happy with how the week went."
"…we all really enjoyed working on "BILLY" . It was different and it had impact."
"…it received one of the biggest ovations of the night. A guy sitting behind me…said 'that was fucking brilliant'."
"…you could hear a pin drop…the tension is palpable."
Everything Grant said is what I wanted to achieve with this play, so I’m very happy. If you wanna check out some previous Short+Sweet posts on "Billy", there's one of the show poster Grant made up and a blog post on the actors.
BILLY BALFOOR WANTS AN APOLOGY by Jeffrey James Ircink. Newtown Theatre. Sydney, Australia, Short+Sweet - The Biggest Little Play Festival in the World. Directed by Grant Wilcox and starring Steve Warwick and Chris Turner. February 16-20.
Fifteen years after his failed attempt at ridding the world of the most evilest boy on the planet, Laird finds himself in a bind - Billy Balfoor wants an apology.
Steve Warwick (sitting) and Chris Turner rehearse "Billy Balfoor Wants An Apology", my 10-minute short which runs February 16-20 at Newtown Theatre in Sydney, Australia as part of Short & Sweet/Sydney, The Biggest Little Play Festival in the World.
"BBWAA" is the third act of the full-length play, "How To Kill A Boy". Fifteen years after Laird Clazerbak took up temporary residence at the home of Billy Balfoor ("the most eviliest boy on the planet") and his mother, Billy somehow manages to track Laird down, kidnap and hold him bound and gagged in an abandoned warehouse. Why? Revenge - but all Billy really wants is an apology. Who’s gonna bend first? Warwick and Turner play Laird and Billy (respectively).
For more information on the play, click here. Click here for more details on Short & Sweet/Sydney.
Shot for last year's festival, this gives you a taste of the behind-the-scenes of Short & Sweet/Sydney, The Biggest Little Play Festival in the World. My short play, "Billy Balfoor Wants An Apology", will be performed some time in February 2011 at Newtown Theatre in Sydney, Australia as part of the Short & Sweet festival, running January 6 - February 27, culminating in the Gala on March 11 and 12. Sydney is the largest of Short & Sweet's play festivals, celebrating its 10th anniversary next year.
Click here for more information on Short & Sweet and here for a list of the 160 plays (culled from 720) from which the final plays were chosen from for production.
I alluded to some "big news" on Facebook a couple weeks ago or so. This is it. After three years of having three of my short plays (THE BED, BILLY BALFOOR WANTS AN APOLOGY, PASS THE SALT, PLEASE) selected to various semi-finals of Short & Sweet, the largest short play festival in the world (with festivals in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Auckland, Brisbane, Delhi, Malaysia and Singapore), BILLY BALFOOR, which was a previous semi-finalist in Sydney and Brisbane, has been selected from over 720 entries around the world to be performed at the 10th anniversary festival in Sydney (the largest of the festivals) in January/February 2011.
I am beyond thrilled. Here's the synopsis for BILLY.
It's gotten to be a game with me...trying to write (or resubmit a play) in order to crack that nut and make it to an actual production. Of the 720+ scripts submitted for the Sydney festival, 168 made the semi's and only 26 of those were US playwrights. Then, 80 or 90 plays are chosen from the 168 and are performed 5 or 6 times in a week over a month and a half stretch. The best plays each week then move on to the Gala, which is held in February, where about 12 shorts are performed and voted on for cash prizes (best actor, actress, director, script, audience favorite, etc.).
BILLY BALFOOR WANTS AN APOLOGY will be directed by Grant Wilson. Grant and I have emailed back and forth - I feel BILLY is in good hands. You can't imagine what goes into writing a play and then sit there - hoping it bodes well in a competition. Unless you write.
Here are my blog links for BILLY'S inclusion in the semi's for Sydney - and for Brisbane. BILLY is actually the third act of the full-length dark dramedy, HOW TO KILL A BOY.
I've had some good luck at Short & Sweet - Australia, dubbed "the biggest little play festival in the world". "The Bed" - semi's in Sydney 2009, "Pass the Salt, Please." - semi's both in Brisbane and Sydney 2009, and "Billy Balfoor Wants An Apology" - Brisbane 2009.
My latest 10-minute play, "Billy Balfoor Wants An Apology", made the semi-finalist cut for Short & Sweet/Brisbane, the largest ten minute theatre festival in the world, with additional festivals in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Singapore and Malaysia. 550 entries were submitted. 103 made the semis...only 7 of which were from the U.S. 40 make the final cut (a process I have issues with).
Two previous shorts - "Pass the Salt, Please." and "The Bed" were also semi-finalists for Short & Sweet/Sydney. This is becoming a habit - being a semi-finalist. I'm on a mission to make the finals this time around. I'll keep you posted.
I really thought she had the wheels to make the final cut.
Course, I said that last year with "Pass the Salt, Please.". Found out last night that my 10-minute play, "The Bed" (read original post), wasn't chosen as one of the plays to be performed at Short & Sweet/Sydney - The biggest little play festival in the world. It did make the semifinals - top 300 out of 1,000. Still - dang it!
Well, it's already been submitted for Short & Sweet/Brisbane and I'll enter it into S&S Malaysia and Singapore. Yeah - there's about 6 or 7 different competitions under the S&S umbrella. The co-coordinator, Alex Broun, one of the most produced playwrights of 10-minute plays in the country, didn't even make the cut and he had 8 plays in the semi's. Strange, those Aussies. And of the 39 U.S. playwrights shortlisted, only 9 made the finals. The rest are all from Australia, mostly. Oh well, she's a 5-star play - she'll get produced elsewhere.
I've already got my next submission for Short & Sweet brewing in my head...
What? I thought that was a fun headline.
Here's the N-Z shortlist for Short & Sweet/Sydney. Yepper. Sombitch better make it to the finals this year.
It's sort of a big deal because Short & Sweet
Seems plausible. I wonder what sort of marks "The Bed" received???
Over the course of two non-successive weekends, I completed two, 10-minute plays for submission into Short & Sweet - The World's Largest 10-Minute Play Festival, in Sydney, Australia.
"The Bed", an old man's introspective look at his life, was written in the span of about 24 hours while I was in Chicago a couple weeks ago. "Jessica, Paris, Britney and Lindsay Meet Brett Favre on Their Train Wreck", a tongue-and-cheek look at celebrity and a Magic 8 Ball, was written while I spent this past weekend in Tujunga with Donovan, Maria and Baby Grace.
I've had both ideas in my head for quite some time - but really just a one-sentence logline. Sometimes it happens that way. Environment has a lot to do with it. Last year, my award-winning short, "Pass the Salt, Please." was a semi-finalist in Sydney. This year I hope one of these plays captures the $5,000 grand prize award.
Wishful thinking for a playwright is a must.
By the way, my award-winning 10-minute play - "Pass the Salt, Please.", was Shortlisted for Short & Sweet/Sydney, the World's Largest 10-Minute Play Festival. That's Sydney, Australia. And shortlisted means it didn't make the final cut. Final cut, as in it won't be performed there in January/February. But it did make the original cut from 1550 to 317, so that's good. It's like being a semi-finalist...only shortlisted.
My award-winning short, "Pass the Salt, Please." has made the shortlist - 317 out of 1550 - for Short + Sweet/Sydney.
How does "shortlist" sound on a resume? Hmmm...let's call it, "semi-finalist", eh? This is a record number of entries for this competition, dubbed as the world's largest 10-minute play festival, with entries from every state and territory in Australia, as well as from Canada, Croatia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, New Zealand, Singapore, the USA and the UK. The largest percentage of the 317 are from Australia - with 45 from the U.S., 13 Singapore, 9 UK, 3 New Zealand and Ireland, Croatia and France rounding out the rest. And me! Its parent competition - Short + Sweet/Melbourne - maybe that one's the largest. Anyway, neither of my plays were selected for Melbourne but the kind folks there forwarded my entries to Sydney, free of any fees (standard for Melbourne entrants). The festival runs over five week-long blocks from Jan 16, 2008 until February 23, 2008.
The Short+Sweet Sydney 2008 adjudication team was comprised of 60 theater professionals - writers, dramaturges, directors, producers, actors, designers and literary managers. All plays were read and assessed anonymously. If the play scored high with the first two judges, two more read it. If the play scored high again, you made the shortlist of 317.
What happens now? From the 317 shortlisted entries, 130 will be chosen to form the production season for the festival in January-February, 2008. There are the “Top 90” plays that will run in a weeklong season of 10 plays at the Seymour Centre and Newtown Theatre venues, plus an extra 40 “Wildcards” that are shown in programs of 10 for an industry-focused one-off matinee performance, also at the Seymour Centre and Newtown Theatre.
A little re-cap. "Pass the Salt, Please." won BEST OF SHOW in the inaugural juried show, UNcover: An Art Exhibition with An Erotic Vibe, which was this past March in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It also had its LA premiere at the grand re-opening of Drake's Erotica Emporium on Melrose in West Hollywood this past August. Big success. For a synopsis on this 'dirty little play' (as my friend, Justyna refers to it), to my play blog at http://playsofjeffreyjamesircink.blogspot.com/2007/07/pass-salt-please_27.html
I normally wouldn't mention even this honor, as the final list will be ready next week. But when you're a writer - well, you have to enjoy the little victories as I may not make the final cut list. Wish me luck!
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