The Long And Short Of Play

Illawarra Mercury

Thursday March 27, 2008

KILMENY ADIE

GRAVE AFFAIR

April 3-5: Illawarra Performing Arts Centre

Tickets $22-$28

Bookings: 4226 3699

An award-winning short play that was expanded into a full-length production will open at the Illawarra Performing Arts Centre next week.

A Grave Affair was written by Danny Condon for the 2006 Unhinged Short Play Festival where it scooped the prize pool. The 10-minute musical collected awards for best writer, best director, audience choice and the overall winner.

The comedy was a classic whodunit-style performance which featured all of the characters and plot development an audience would expect from that genre.

Condon says the re-worked piece, which has been extended to an hour-long performance, features the same plot and characters as the original work.

"There's much more spoken word and there's much more music," he says.

The show opens after the death of Lord Cornelius Cleveland and the discovery by his widow that his body is missing.

The only witnesses are a gravedigger and a minister, and the two detectives called upon to investigate the case do not take long to realise there are number of people with potential motives for murder.

Condon says rehearsals of the show are coming together. He says the audience is in for an exciting night when the So Popera production opens at IPAC on April 3.

"They are going really well. We are right on par," he says of rehearsals.

"It's exciting because it's getting to the critical time when things just snowball from here."

Condon says the concept for the show was an idea he had many years ago while at the University of Wollongong where he studied performance.

Interestingly, while Condon says he studied music and composition in high school - and applied to study it at university - it wasn't until later he realised he could combine his two talents.

"It didn't occur to me to write music for theatre. So it came about by chance," he says.

"It could have gone either way and this was the way it turned out. And I'm quite happy with it."

His chance has been an enjoyable and rewarding one. Condon, a founding member of the new So Popera theatre group, which he runs with Peter Copeland and Michaal Monk, says this will not be the company's last production.

© 2008 Illawarra Mercury

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