What are BCT Shorts?

BCT Shorts 2020 is the annual BCT Fringe Festival in the time of Covid-19. We have put together a series of one-act plays that are approximately ten minutes long; however, rather than performing them in a theatre as we have done in the past, this year we will film them and stream them online. The staging is minimal, the creativity is maximum and we aim to create a supportive environment for everyone involved. Timing will vary play by play but for the most part, rehearsals will take place in September and the filming and screening will happen in October.

Pity The Fool

Art is timeless and beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Artists can be seen as either pitying fools or majestic visionaries worthy of praise. So what happens when two ladies with vastly different tastes view the same piece of art in very different ways?

Blacktop Jungle

Blacktop Jungle, written by Jared Goudsmit, follows the adventures of three elementary school students on a playground. Linda Sharpe, a cynical, hard-boiled kindergartener meets bubbly classmate Becky Buchanan and the playground bully Kurt Marino on her first day at a new school. Will she make friends or scare them away with her love of Machiavelli and Film Noir….

Music: “Bass Walker” by Kevin MacLeod: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3423-bass-walker

Return to the Site of Her Success

A dancer returns to the theatre where she had her greatest audience success. Remembering the joy of her past, she expresses her emotions through her body.

Music: “La vie en Rose” by Edith Piaf “Bitter Sweet Symphony” by The Verve

FUGUE – by Laura Elizabeth Miller (Mature Audiences Only)

Trigger Warning: The following video contains re-enactments of violence and imagery which some viewers may find disturbing. Caution and discretionary viewership is advised. Mature audiences only. Three dead little girls discuss the psychopath who tortured, murdered and dismembered them. Now that the girls are in heaven, their killer can’t hurt them anymore… can he?

Bad Sad Mad

Bad Sad Mad is the re-imagining of a spoken word poem (traditionally a solo, monologue style performance), re-interpreted through a first-meeting-of-friends-after-lockdown Sunday BBQ setting.

Drawing on their personal lockdown experiences, all 8 actors bring their individual emotional journeys to the performance, channeling their highs and lows through the script written & directed by Rory Breaker-Morant.

Though written from & about a single individual perspective, the collaborative process of rehearsals has revealed that although we all went through our own version of lockdown, there was a consistency in our human experience – isolation, detachment, self-reflection & self assessment, re-evaluation, a sense of helplessness, frustration & stagnation – all manifested in different ways.

The aim of the performance is to express to everyone that although you had your own unique version of the lockdown experience, you were not alone in feeling Bad, Sad & Mad. And that’s ok.

The Birds are Feeding Me

The Birds Are Feeding Me is a wonderful piece of theatre written in the time of Covid by New Zealand playwright Rex McGregor. This play was specifically developed to be performed online while social distancing. The story takes place on a ZOOM call between three residents in the same condominium during lockdown.

Music: “Comedy Theme” by Hagfilms: https://freesound.org/people/hagfilms/sounds/328178/

The DMV One

A passionate love affair evolves from a mundane encounter at the DMV.

Fred and Bob

When an old-timer inmate is rudely awoken by a younger man, a power struggle ensues over who should be top dog. Fred and Bob is a comical short with a surprise ending.