Concrete Playground

Of all the things you're encouraged to do throughout the month of November (grow a moustache, write a novel, help those stuck in purgatory get into heaven, etc), getting out and experiencing some new playwriting is by far the least painful. For which we have NovemberISM to thank.

NovemberISM, quite apart from being the theory that November exists, is a month-long festival being put on by Sydney writing collective ISM and run out of the Old 505 Theatre. It gives playwrights a chance to tweak their work through production and audiences a chance to see the latest accolade-scooping plays at their freshest. Two new studio productions settle into the space for half the month each, while extra forums, workshops, readings and gatherings happen alongside them.

First up is One for the Ugly Girls, the new work from Tahli Corin (The Arcade at Money Shots and 2009 winner of the Philip Parsons Young Playwright's Award). It's one also for the artists and the grievers, as it follows the plights of a painter who tries to commit his dead wife's memory to canvas and the model who comes to pose for him but is not all he expected.

From mid-month you can catch Kit Brookman's Heaven, a bittersweet comedy in which a boy dealing with his first experiences of death dabbles with the occult, trying to get answers from those already in the great beyond. Both of these plays were once recipients of Playwriting Australia's Kicking Down the Doors initiative.

There's also I'm Not Sure I'm an Adult Yet, the result of locking seven writers in a room under the eye of Craig Ilott (Smoke and Mirrors) and getting them to think about contemporary adulthood; Applespiel's Awful Literature Is Still Literature I Guess; and plenty more.