There is a writer in each one of us. In our daily chores everyone does some writing in some form or the other.  Don’t we write letters or in the present day, emails or SMS.  We deploy our different writing skills. Of course, the needs are different. In schools we write our home work or essays or notes or a story.

Story telling is an age old art of communication.  Then there were play, theatre and finally films. In the present day world, we face new challenges every day.  There were three-hour plays and some had duration of two hours depending on the actors’ and writers’ abilities. Now the new challenge is to tell you story in just 10 minutes. Hence, it is called Short + Sweet.

Alex Broun is a specialist in this form of playwriting and has acted, produced and directed several Short + Sweet plays. Recently, the Abhinay School of performing Arts’ organised a work shop and Alex conducted the training for several budding playwrights at the Hurstville Civic Centre. They all had the talent and Alex helped them discover it.

Alex opened the workshop with his commanding words “My aim is to inspire you to write and inform you about some of the tools how to start”. He progressed maintaining his authority and said “why should you write a ten minute play – this is the fastest growing performance around the world’. He also stated that all of you have the opportunity to have your play performed in theatre. He continued “I write because I want to tell my stories and I want my stories get told” and urged “try to write a 10 minute play-just give it a go. Tell your story”.

 He freely shared the techniques and traits of writing, challenging his mesmerised students “turn off your inner critique, stop this negative voice- create something interesting to watch”

Alex created a stimulating environment for the audience which was in awe and frantically taking notes, taking it all in. It was so exciting to be taught the skills by this passionate world renowned celebrity that the participants could not hold their ideas anymore and shared freely what they would like to see on stage and are unsure how it will work. Alex advised “piece of theatre is a sheer act of imagination-you are telling your story, imagine something and take the audience on a journey. There was so much more in his words of wisdom that for three hours he kept his listeners spell bound.

It was an amazing experience to see that the budding writers hungry for knowledge floated some very exciting ideas and opened up a new world for Alex himself. He was touched to see that this diverse culture has so much to offer, a different perspective and so many life stories to tell. These ideas opened a new field, a new dimension for him and he was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the ideas the novice and potential writers brought to the workshop.

 Alex immediately spotted the potential; so many stories and life experiences bubbling inside these enthused participants, ready to be told on stage, will make a very interesting theatre experience. Sharing these ideas will not only enhance the appreciation of the diverse cultures but also opens a new dimension for the  theatrical world by injecting new viewpoints from the Indian, Asian and other ethnic backgrounds..

 He encouraged the inspired the group to get on with writing and offered that Abhinay school will organise their scripts to be played out on stage with experienced actors. He further emphasised that these script writers can in fact direct these actors and see how their script plays out on stage. They then take it a step further and go back and rewrite and fine tune their script. He then took it to extra mile and said they have a chance that their script may be picked up for the Short & Sweet, the biggest ten minute play festival in the world. What an offer; an offer too good to refuse, dream come true for any script writer.

 Abhinay School of Performing Arts President Aishveryaa Nidhi, a well known theatre personality and the only Indian actor to have won the nomination for Best Actress in 2009 Short + Sweet drama festival, has done a great job in connecting Indian and other ethnic playwrights and drama lovers to main stream theatre.

Ms. Nidhi has revealed that the workshop participant’s work would be staged live in August at a venue to be decided later. To those who missed the workshop, August shows would be a great opportunity and inspiration to explore their hidden talent.

For more information log on to www.abhinay.com.au or contact Aishverya Nidhi on 0488 200 222 for future workshops and to watch the plays.

By Ashok Kumar

Today we see several events related to Bollywood or mainly Bollywood based. Time has come now to look beyond Bollywood. In Sydney there is heaps of talent in the form of actors, directors and writers. And, we have an opportunity coming up on 6th June 2010 whereby an ordinary or hobby writer can emerge a prolific script witer or may even be writing a script for a Bollywood film.

Abhnay School of Performing Arts is conducting a Play-writing workshop for the aspiring Indian writers with world renowned Playwright, Producer, Director and Actor Alex Broun at Hurstville Entertainment Centre from 09.00 hrs to 1300 hrs.

Abhinay School of Performing Arts enables students to explore their creativity and learn essential acting skills. We will help you nurture and refine your creativity. Under the tutorship of accomplished theatre personality Aishveryaa Nidhi, you’ll learn the different nuances of acting, from analysing the script to improvisation and dialogue delivery. You’ll also get training in diction and body language.

Abhinay School of Performing Arts also invites experts (veteran actors and directors) from Australia and abroad to share their experiences and industry skills with the students, and sometimes develop ambitious theatre from scratch. As part of Abhinay Theatre, we’ve had workshops with eminent theatre director Arvind Gaur (of Asmita Theatre, New Delhi) and Dinesh Khanna (professor of acting at National School of Drama, New Delhi

Aishveryaa Nidhi is a Sydney-based actor and filmmaker. In 2009, she was nominated for the Best Actress Award in Short+Sweet Sydney (the biggest festival of 10-minute plays in the world), for her powerful performance in Mandragora, written by David Sharpe and directed by Lisa Eismen.

She is the Associate Producer of the 2006 Hollywood mystery- drama Beyond Life. More recently, she has co-directed the Aussie-Bollywood flick Flight to Bollywood.

Aish is also actively involved in popularising Indian theatre in Australia and New Zealand. As the Artistic Director of Sydney-based group, Abhinay Theatre, Aish has produced and acted in immensely popular theatre productions, such as Gandhari (solo performance), Kuntiputra Karna and Hamare Padosi.

 The Indian Sub-continent Times talked to Alex Broun about why the aspiring Indian writers should join the workshop and how the workshop could be beneficial for them.

The IST: The Ethinic Indian writers are wary of what subject to write on— since Short + Sweet audience is mainly Aussie. In other words how would the cultural gap fill in
 
AB: Australia is a very multi-cultural society and that is reflected in the audience of Short+Sweet – as anybody who comes along to Short+Sweet would discover. The Short+Sweet audience is by no means “anglo-celtic”. It is made up of Indian Australians, Chinese Australians, Japanese Australians, Lebanese Australians. Whatever ethnic origins you can think of they will be represented both on stage at Short+Sweet and in the audience. So Ethnic Indian writers shouldn’t worry about the audience. Just write a play on whatever subject you want to write it on and if it’s a good play the audience will enjoy it.
 
The IST: What subject would you suggest that would be appropriate for the Short+Sweet audience
 
AB: Write a play on any subject you like in any style you like. That’s the great thing about Short+Sweet. We present over 150 plays each year in Sydney so we’re looking for plays of all styles and subjects. The only restriction is the play must be ten minutes or less. Apart from that write whatever you like. For example if anyone wanted to approach us at Short+Sweet with a work drawing on the rich cultural heritage of India we would be delighted to have it. Someone just needs to come up with the script.
 
The IST :  How many Indians writers, actors and directors are active in Short & Sweet?
 
 AB: Some of our most talented artists in Short+Sweet are of Indian heritage. There is Uma Kali-Shakti, who is wonderfully talented Fijian-Indian actor, writer and director and we also have an Indian director – Sadashivam Rao, whose brilliant production of Rain and Ruin was one of our gala finalists in Sydney this year. There was also the very talented young writer and director Rajiv Rajendra who travelled over from Singapore to direct a play at Short+Sweet in Sydney this year, also the actress Karina Bracken and of course Aishveryaa Nidhi, one of our most talented actors, who was nominated for Best Actress for the entire festival last year. These are just a few of the wonderful artists of Indian origin who contribute to the Short+Sweet community.
 
The Artistic Director of Short+Sweet International, Mark Cleary, also travelled to India recently to explore the possibilities of launching Short+Sweet India – so look out for more news of that.
 
The IST : What makes a gripping and captivating script 
 
AB: The five criteria that we feel make up a good script at Short+Sweet are Character, Story, Dialogue, Dramatic Tension/Humour and Theatricality. But the secret to a really good ten minute play is a great middle. Something needs to happen around the four to six minute mark that both raises the stakes and accelerates the action. It’s like the car’s been cruising along at sixty and suddenly it accelerates to one hundred. The play speeds towards a thrilling but inevitable conclusion. If you get that right the audience will get so caught up in the characters and story they will forget they are even watching a play.”
 
The IST : What is expected of the workshop and where the participants will go from here
 
AB: The main aim of the workshop is to Inspire people to write a ten minute play and then Inform them with the tools to do it. At the course writers will learn about how to write a ten minute play and we hope that then they will go away and write a play that can then go on to be produced at Short+Sweet and other theatre festivals around the globe. Local Ethnic Communities can also form their own theatre companies and present work but again it all start with someone writing the play first. You can enter a play to Short+Sweet now as well. Just go to – http://www.shortandsweet.org/shortsweet-theatre/submit-script 
 
The IST: Also, would appreciate if you would like to give any message for the Indian budding writers
 
AB: The message I would give to budding Indian writers is write. Just write. You’ll never know what you can come up with unless you try. Begin now. Join a theatre group, write a play, take an acting class – get involved. Do my playwrighting course! If you want to be involved in the industry then get involved at whatever level you can. There’s very little chance you’re going to be discovered sitting in your lounge room. Get out and do something and who knows what might happen. Also read the plays available on my website – www.alexbroun.com – where you can read, download and even perform my work for free. If you are interested in reading some ten minute plays – that’s a good place to start.

For details of the workshop interested writers may contact Aishveryaa Nidhi, President of Abhinay Theatre on 0488200222 or visit www.abhinay.com.au email abhinay.schoolofperformingarts@gmail.com