Short+Sweet, the biggest little festival in the world, will return to the Marylin Monroe Theatre at the Lee Strasberg Institute in West Hollywood from Sept. 26-Oct. 30.

Celebrating 20 years, Short+Sweet has created a global community of established and emerging artists, developing new, original work and providing a platform to showcase their talents in 35 cities internationally – all 10 minutes at a time. This year’s categories are Open (English Language) Theatre and Latinx, with additional special evenings to be announced.

The hugely successful 2019 program saw sold out programming five nights a week for 4,500 audience members, 500 participants and entries received from across the United States, Mexico, Australia, Dubai, Venezuela, Argentina, Spain, Colombia and Canada. After a two-year COVID induced hiatus, festival director Nick Hardcastle said this this return is more of a “gentle comeback” than a “bigger and better” affair.

“We have had so much disruption in live theatre and events over the last two years,” Hardcastle said. “In Sydney, we had to reprogram our 2021 festival five times due to COVID. So here in Hollywood, we are running a slightly smaller program with less categories and events to just start to bring our community back together again. The most important thing is to be safe and inclusive and to offer our artists and audiences a chance to share their stories again on the stage.” Hardcastle is thrilled to be running both an open English language program and a Latinx program headed up by renowned acting coach and theatre producer Jackie Diamond.

“The diversity in the L.A. community is so exciting and makes for an incredible night at the theatre. Where else can you watch 10 fully formed stories with such great talent on stage all in one night?” said Harcastle.

Short+Sweet continues to place diversity and inclusion at the heart of its mission and has an established D&I programming team to ensure that anyone regardless of their diverse abilities, age, gender or gender identity, religion, race or sexuality is welcome.

The Marilyn Monroe Theatre is located at 7936 Santa Monica Blvd. For information, visit shortandsweet.org.