INTERVIEW > Mark Cleary Short & Sweet

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Mark Cleary built a career first as a journalist, then in advertising and as a writer before finding his passion in producing theatre. Mark founded Short+Sweet in Sydney 2002. What began as a small festival of 10-minute plays has grown to other performance mediums; from theatre to dance, cabaret to Bollywood, and musicals to stand-up comedy; always maintaining the single rule of the performance, it must be presented in 10 minutes or less.

Crispy > So where did all the Short + Sweet programs start, can you take us right back in the beginning?

Mark > It all started in Newtown around about 2002 in a theatre I had set up following my career in journalism and advertising. I split from my business partner in Advertising and took over this huge space in Newtown, Sydney and turned that into a theatre, it became the Newtown Theatre. That was 1998 and Newtown these days is an incredibly upmarket suburb, much less back then but still an incredibly vibrant suburb with the influx of new, young minds that come from the university of Sydney that is just up the road, that is the thing that keeps Newtown always buzzing there always new people coming through.

We put on a range of productions at Newtown Theatre and produced some of our own shows including a major dance production called ‘Bodies’ which kept running for six years. I had a major break up in my life and started dating a woman who was an actor and I am a writer so I decided to use the structure we had been using on the dance festival and use it for theatre but aimed at new writing.

Within a few years it became the biggest short play festival in the world, we were running for four weeks and putting on forty plays in a festival. These days we produce over 100 short plays and everything is ten minutes or less. We have grown astoundingly aside from COVID which almost destroyed us and every other theatre company in the country, we are in 14 countries, new countries for this year are Saudi Arabia and Vietnam and we have two programs that are even bigger in the UK and Ireland. These are regional programs one in Yorkshire, another in Essex as well as a another festival in Dublin.

We are now well underway with the planning phase to expand our London operations and expand in Europe. We are searching for a location in London where we can do more than just theatre but also do productions of dance, musical theatre, cabaret, comedy, youth programs and a even a film festival. London is planned to be a major growth opportunity for us going forward.

Because we have been in Hollywood for the last ten years we have a fantastic opportunity to offer film makers from around the world a chance for the winners to get their films showcased in Hollywood.
Anybody can write a ten minute play, and over the years we have put on about 20,000 new original works, that doesn’t mean that it is 20,000 amazing pieces of theatre of course, the quality is variable, but we are the place that is the starting position. Students finishing their degree or diploma the first place they go is Short + Sweet (certainly in Sydney), from that experience they have a chance to build a network.

Short + Sweet helps actors, dancers, musicians, stage production to all build a network. People who met in Short + Sweet productions twenty years ago are still successfully working together, that shows how powerful these connections can be when making your way in the theatre world.

Crispy > Tell us about how the voting process for each show works, because it is an important part isn’t it?

Mark > Yes that is a core part of what makes Short + Sweet, the audience gets a chance to vote, it means that the audience is important and more than just buying a ticket and being there to watch. Giving the audience vote to select which plays go through to the semifinals and the gala finals which are the best quality you will see in a short and sweet festival. Making the audience important, we give them two votes not just one, because many want a vote to go to the friend who is probably in the show they have come to see and the other vote goes to the one that they really like the most.

Crispy > Do they get an award for winning the best production in the each program?

Mark > Yes, they do get an award, different festivals around the world give different things, often it is a prize related to skill building, photographers will do headshots, audition tapes, or in some places its a bottle of wine, a bunch of flowers and a certificate. Winning Short + Sweet in Sydney is now a really big thing, people take notice because we have been going for so long. We have had people who have won Short + Sweet go on to do very successful things Olivia Ansell won and went to be Artistic Director at Sydney Festival. Hailey Lewis who now is running Queensland Theatre Company (also ran Griffin Theatre Company) won best director award.

The poster for a recent Beijing address at the Central School of Drama

Crispy > How do you run community theatre programs in fourteen countries and make sure it is appropriate for the culture of the country?

Mark > Well the key to success is that the show directors in each country know what is appropriate for each country and their social norms, the people involved are local artists and they know how far they can go. In Australia (as long as its legal) you can do pretty much anything on a Short + Sweet stage but you can’t do that in Singapore or Kuala Lumpur. The local directors are the key talent, we get thousands of scripts submitted every year and many actors that are keen to come along and do a ten minute work, the key is that the directors are safe and out of jail, they are committed to their own safety so we rarely need to get involved in that aspect.

The show directors in Saudi Arabia will be very careful and appropriate about what they put on, they will produce local stories that are suitable for their country and their audiences.

Crispy > How did you take the original Short + Sweet program overseas, it seems a big challenge to set up such a big community driven program in another country?
Mark > We started in Singapore. We built a professional touring program called ‘Shorter + Sweeter’ with six actors and eight plays, still ten minutes each play but very high quality production. We toured that production to Singapore and that was where it started and as I said we have now expanded to fourteen countries.

Crispy > Can you explain how you have expanded the Short + Sweet program beyond theatre into Dance, Cabaret, Musical Theatre and Film?

Mark > One idea is never enough, you keep thinking what about this, what about that, answering the question ‘what about’ is one of the most fun things in life. One of the things about me is I am first gear, I am not third and fourth and smooth production rather once it gets to that stage I am onto the next challenge and opportunity.

New opportunities present themselves and we have the guts to try. We have run LGBTQI festivals, indigenous productions, we are always looking for ways to help people tell the local story and that is key to why its been so successful, local stories connect to local communities.

Crispy > Looking back over the last 21 years, do you have a favourite short play or production?

Mark outside TAFE Ultimo site
of a future Short + Sweet theatre

Mark > There are many, many shows that have been absolutely brilliant but I am not going to say one is a favourite. Part of this is actually its not about me, its about everybody.
Crispy > Short + Sweet is celebrating its 21st birthday and it has expanded into different creative arts and travelled around the globe, what will the next twenty years hold for Short + Sweet?

Mark > It will still be going but who knows what will happen! I am very interested in what is happening in AI, the writers strikes in LA had a lot to do with AI destroying jobs but I am thinking about creative ways to leverage AI, I have always enjoyed advanced technology and I am keen to continue to work on this new transformation and see where it goes.

Crispy > What is the next big thing keeping you going right now Mark?
Mark > Well there is the planned expansion in London and Europe that I mentioned before.

But also we have a new partnership with TAFE in Australia, still a skeleton of the outline right now, but the goal is to provide students industry based experience and Short + Sweet can do it directly and in partnership with other theatre productions. TAFE is the biggest training organisation in Australia with 10,500 teachers, 140 campuses. Part of this will be to have a new theatre in Ultimo on the TAFE campus which will be an excellent opportunity.