Six 10-minute plays in one afternoon (The Playhouse, Maleny Showgrounds, Saturday 18 & Sunday 19 February at 2pm both days) make a great show for an audience!
All six plays, mostly comedies, are locally written – providing plenty for locals to identify with and laugh about, or be inspired to reflect.
‘Writers get a special thrill when they hear an audience laugh at lines they have written,’ said Christine Kerridge, co-producer of Page to Stage, Maleny Players’ innovative umbrella series – each show involving six playwrights, six directors and about 30 actors, some writing, directing or acting for the first time.
‘Ten minutes doesn’t sound like much action or dialogue to write – but it took me weeks of restructuring and rewriting,’ said Pat Lovell, whose Life or Death set beside a hospital bed tracks a family trying to deal with Dad’s Hoarded Stuff in a lively romantic romp directed by Ross Hurwood.
Ross’s own play Not Like the Old Days wittily echoes a common 2023 Maple Street conversation about …Maleny change! The audience will relate to every line.
Monica Rogers’ first play The Singles Dinner rounds off the afternoon with some wild characters and punchy comic surprises.
My own play Upsize-Down, a black comedy set in a retirement village, features Maleny community volunteer Greg Williams in his first acting role as a dead husband who has turned into an eager chef. Marianne Osborne, Pat Lovell and Monica Rogers all play Rose, overcome by lonely widowhood. Or is she…?
Sharon Hirt’s Gin, Sex and Chocolate Tarts with an emotionally affecting ambience and the complex logic of Rob Hobson’s A Chance Meeting will spark audience discussion. So much fitted into ten minutes!
Maleny Players president Barbara Thomas loves what Page to Stage has brought to the theatre. ‘ It has appealed to all those people who have always wanted to write, act or direct and never plucked up the courage to do so. It has helped people discover and fulfil their talents,’ she said.
All tickets for the two matinees are $20; cash-only sales at MADD Gallery in Maple Street and online via trybooking.com.
