Couch Soup was a mini-

festival A festival is an event celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, Melā, mela, or Muslim holidays, eid. A ...

of one page plays which started in 1997 and ran annually in

Hamilton, New Zealand Hamilton (, ) is an inland city in the North Island of New Zealand. Located on the banks of the Waikato River, it is the seat and most populous city of the Waikato, Waikato region. With a territorial population of , it is the country's List of c ...

, and in 2007 in

Wellington Wellington is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the third-largest city in New Zealand (second largest in the North Island ...

as part of the New Zealand

Fringe Festival Fringe theatre is theatre that is produced outside of the main theatre institutions, and that is often small-scale and non-traditional in style or subject matter. The term comes from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.Kemp, Robert, ''More that is Fr ...

. Plays were selected via an open call for scripts, and performed with minimal props, costumes and set (the

couch A couch, also known as a sofa, settee, chesterfield, or davenport, is a cushioned piece of furniture that can seat multiple people. It is commonly found in the form of a bench with upholstered armrests and is often fitted with springs a ...

). The format followed in the festivals was around 30 one page plays, performed by four actors (two male, two female), with a run time of approximately an hour. Couch Soup-Ninjas

Though the plays are limited to one side of an A4 page, no restrictions are placed on the

format Format may refer to: Printing and visual media * Text formatting, the typesetting of text elements * Paper formats, or paper size standards * Newspaper format, the size of the paper page Computing * File format, particular way that informatio ...

used, and plays may vary from under thirty seconds to over two minutes in length, with the average being around a minute per play. The festival is thus characterized by the demands it places on an actor as much as for its accessibility and vigo

Because it is difficult to tackle a serious theme completely in the course of a page the plays are commonly absurd, satirical or (rarely) dramas of the wikt:kitchen sink, kitchen sink variety. Comedic and dramatic monologues as well as homages in the style of a particular writer are also common.

Playwrights

Over a hundred playwrights have participated since 1997, including: *Mark Prebble - Creator o
makemarksmovie.com
through which he sold the Executive Producer credits on his feature debu
Futile Attraction
to successfully fund its post-production. *

Albert Belz Albert Alexander Amahou Belz (born 1973) is a New Zealand actor, writer, and lecturer. Belz was born in Whakatāne. He is Māori, of Ngāti Porou, Ngāpuhi, and Ngāti Pokai descent. He lived in Auckland from the age of 12, later moving to Ham ...

- Acclaimed writer of ''Awhi Tapu'' and ''Te Maunga'' *Sarah Peters - Former assistant producer of

Auckland Auckland ( ; ) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. It has an urban population of about It is located in the greater Auckland Region, the area governed by Auckland Council, which includes outlying rural areas and ...

Theatre Company's 2nd Unit, now working in the UK.

References

Annual events in New Zealand Wellington City Fringe festivals in New Zealand Festivals in Wellington Festivals in Hamilton, New Zealand {{Fringe festivals in Australasia