Australian playwright and screenwriter Alex Broun will launch the first edition of the Alex Broun Play Festival on November 16-19 at The Junction, a community theatre space in Al Quoz.
Alex Broun, who is known for his ten-minute plays, will showcase 40 of his plays during the festival, ranging from 5 to 15 minutes and featuring more than 100 UAE-based actors, directors and independent theatre companies.
“It was something I’d dreamt about for a long time but I’d put it on the back burner to launch Short+Sweet Dubai [a global, 10-minute play competition],” said Broun, who is the festival director.
Short+Sweet Dubai, after five years, is now being headed by Liz Hadaway.
An open call for participation in the Alex Broun Play Festival was held in July. Broun called the response “extraordinary”. He’d first planned to do 20 plays, but wound up with double that number.
“It’s really amazing how the community has really embraced the event. We have young and old performers involved, ages range from eight to 60, and all different cultural backgrounds. One group, DramaDonne is even translating a few of my plays into Italian. That’s really exciting,” said Broun.
The plays have been categorised into colours to represent different emotions and themes: crimson corresponding with love and passion, blue corresponding with joy and hope, green corresponding with intelligence, orange corresponding with youth and fun and magenta corresponding with edginess and a sense of surprise.
Six to eight plays, lasting between 70 to 80 minutes, will be performed in each category.
The plays will include The Gift, War/Kiss, I miss you the most when I catch sight of the moon, Together we are Anna, Somewhere between the sky and the sea, and Broun’s second most-produced play, The First Fireworks .
Tickets to the Alex Broun Play Festival are Dh80 per session (each colour category per day constitutes a separate session), or Dh250 for all four days. Book online at thejunctiondubai.com or email info@thejunctiondubai.com. For more information, contact 04-3388525.
SCHEDULE:
Wednesday, November 16:
7pm: Green
9pm: Magenta
Thursday, November 17:
7pm: Green
9pm: Magenta
Friday, November 18:
7pm: Crimson
9pm: Blue
Saturday, November 19:
2pm: Orange
4pm: Orange
7pm: Crimson
9pm: Blue
