Ten minutes. It’s about the length of time between ad breaks on the average commercial TV show. Does this explain the explosion of short film and theatre competitions in recent years – that these brief blasts of entertainment are the perfect dose for the short attention span generation?

Nicholas Dubberley, Artistic Director of this year’s Short + Sweet theatre competition, has a more generous and – dare I say – sweeter theory.

“There’s something eminently satisfying about eating a block of Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate – a big block with the same flavour – and that’s something like going to see a seven hour long Melbourne Festival piece. But then there’s also something eminently enjoyable about getting a box of Roses and then eating them, and if you happen to really hate Turkish Delight, you swallow it, forget about it, and then get into the Mint Cream.”

It might sound like Dubberley is angling for a Cadbury sponsorship deal in 2009, but in truth he’s a realist about the reasons for the popularity of short works.

“Sure, people have short attention spans, but it’s more that if I don’t like something, I don’t have to suffer it for four hours. I know it’s only going to last for ten minutes and it will move along,” he explains.

The Melbourne Short + Sweet theatre competition has already presented three seasons since the concept was originally introduced from Sydney in 2005. This year, however, Dubberley and the team have made significant changes to the competition’s structure, not only restricting submissions to Australian writers, but adding an entirely new element to what had been primarily a script assessment process for individual playwrights.

“This year we thought – let’s mix it up a bit and in the middle week actually engage some of Melbourne’s independent theatre ensembles by asking them to submit theatrical concepts which they can develop through the rehearsal process and give us something interesting that’s not necessarily text-based.

“So the thing that’s changed is that it’s not so highly emphasised on the scriptwriting process: we decided to push it more into theatre making.”

Another impetus for the change was the desire to better integrate Short + Sweet with its stablemate in the Arts Centre’s creative development stream, Full Tilt!

“In order for a Full Tilt! development prize to be of any worth in Short + Sweet, it’s better to have an idea or concept that was actually presented as a concept, not a finished script, so it can be developed into a 30 minute piece or an hour piece,” Dubberley says. “There was a Full Tilt! development prize back in 2006, and the project that got it was so well constructed as a ten minute piece that it didn’t really have anywhere to go.”

One fan of the changes is Adam McKenzie, writer and performer with independent theatre troupe The Hounds. Their grimly comic look at a writer with Alzheimer’s disease, Finding Your Place, was selected for the new ensembles category.

“I really wanted to do Short + Sweet, but I wanted to be able to write the script and be in the script and at least be a part of the directing process, so when this came up it was great,” McKenzie tells CANVAS.

He is particularly impressed by the way his group has been encouraged to let their imaginations run wild.

“They were saying the best thing for us to do is to come in with all our ideas blazing and then we’ll work from there. There’s nothing that’s impossible, there’s just different degrees of difficulty. And it’s really great to hear them say that because it means it’s like, alright, well I will strive for my best and we’ll get the best thing we can in ten minutes.”

Ten minutes of unbridled - and unexpected - creativity is just what Dubberley would love to see.

“There are no restrictions on content, on form, on style, anything like that. Obviously there’s sort of a convention that’s been created over the history of ten minute theatre of nice little duologue pieces about relationship breakdowns, the relationships between estranged fathers and sons and all that sort of relationship-based dialogue-driven type of stuff.

“One of the other reasons we’ve decided to mix it up a bit this year with this new middle week is to get away from the concreted form of the ten minute play and actually see what other things you can do with ten minutes rather than writing a dialogue-driven piece,” Dubberley concludes.

McKenzie aims to make the most of the freedom he’s been given.

“You can do whatever you like. Just as long as you can bring it on and take it off in thirty seconds, you’re sweet.”

Short + Sweet 2008 is now showing at The Arts Centre until December 20

www.theartscentre.com.au