Keeping the theatrical faith

January 31, 2008

Section: News

When Bulli director Shannon Faith was asked to direct a short play for this year’s renowned Short and Sweet Festival she decided to go with a script that literally had her name written all over it.

Short and Sweet is the biggest festival of 10 minute plays in the world.

Hundreds of scripts are judged and the best performed in Sydney, Melbourne and Singapore, with the Sydney part of the festival taking place in January and February.

Ms Faith, who is Studio Director of Theatre Max in Bulli, was asked to be involved by Short and Sweet Festival Director Van Badham who, incidentally, wrote the first play Ms Faith ever directed.

After wading through a pile of scripts given to her for production at the festival Ms Faith decided on Perfidy, by Gemma Sneddon.

The play is about a woman named Di who has a ‘faith-o-gram’ turn up on her doorstep, trying to sell her faith.

The perky faith-o-gram finds Di a hard nut to crack and calls for backup from satisfied customers and American peace activist, the late Reverend William Sloane Coffin.

Di is not easily swayed and calls on her own team of atheists, including authors Richard Dawkins and Douglass Adams (who performs a Man vs. God puppet show from behind a bush) to tip the scales in her favour.

“It’s quite funny,” Ms Faith said.

“It turns out at the end that Faith is just employed by the marketing companies because people who have faith are more likely to spend money on other rubbish.”

Three of the five cast members in Perfidy are locals, and the group have been rehearsing together since just after New Years to be ready for their performance in early February.

Details about the Short and Sweet Festival can be found at www.shortandsweet.org.

TheatreMax teaches theatre skills to young people, and has about 60 students in a range of age groups.

Ms Faith said last year her 8-12-year-old class put on a stage version of Shrek 2.