It's that time of year already: The Minotaur Shorts Festival!

Every year, Minotaur Theatre Company put on three nights of short twenty minute plays, written, directed and performed by members of the company. This year we have twelve

fantastic plays on offer.

Carys Jones and Margot Terrini directing a rehearsal of 'Blood, Screws and Tears'

Actor Alex McNally gets to grips with 'Rom Com'

I had a chat to one of the directors for this year, Kyle Flynn-Davies on his experience working on 'Whispering Shadows':

Hi Kyle! Can you tell us about your short?

Hello! My short is about a group of elderly people in a residential care home that specialises in the care of people suffering from dementia. It explores the ups and downs of their daily lives and their relationships with one another.

What inspired you to write your short? ​

I wrote my short after visiting my Grandad who suffers from dementia in his care home. I noticed all the different characters around me and thought it might make an interesting play. Upon beginning to write I started to understand the importance of the topic and how elderly people are suffering from terrifying mental health problems but everyone ignores them because they're old.

Some of the cast of Whispering Shadows in rehearsals.

How has directing your short gone so far? Any tips for rehearsals?

I have really enjoyed directing so far! It's been great to be able to put something I care about so much from page into reality. It's been a great experience to work with the actors who take the characters I created and make them their own and bring their own idiosyncrasies to the characters. It has also been amazing having my Assistant Director (Bobbi) to bounce ideas off of and be a supporting hand in my rehearsals.

I would say that with rehearsals it's important to get the actors to understand the characters they're playing and then the rest comes naturally. Once the actors understand who their characters are they can very easily bring them to life. It's great to just get things up on their feet and see what works and what doesn't, play around with things and experiment.

Which Short (apart from your own) are you most excited to watch?

I don't know what to answer for this because I'm genuinely really excited to see all of them and if I picked favourites the list would cover half of the shorts!

Rosa and Rocio embrace in 'The Waiting Room'​

The cast of 'Larksong' in rehearsals

In preparation for the Shorts, each director has also done a short Radio interview for Livewire with Sean Harbottle, all of which can be found here. Give them a listen and get excited for three solid nights of theatre!

Sam and Rob in rehearsals for 'Apnea'

You can buy tickets for every night of the shorts here. At £7 for a ticket (£5 commission), it's a bargain - just £1.75 per short! Keep your eye on the Minotaur Theatre Company facebook page as we release extra information on each short and the trailer. I hope to see all of you at The Shorts Festival 2015.

Catherine McFall