Jack Douglas

What is it?

Possibly the greatest battle of the Cold War. It’s 1972 and the US and Russia have been on the brink of full scale war for over a decade. Nuclear ramifications, nearly unleashed in the Cuban Missile Crisis, had the two nations on tenterhooks. Not one shot fired but behind the scenes was anarchy, agents and double agents, communism and capitalism and above all the threat of global thermonuclear destruction. But what do you do when you can’t use guns? You play chess. Enter Bobby Fisher the boy wonder possessing a genius of which the world had never seen. His opponent.. Boris Spassky, the epitome of Soviet might. Two time world champion, his tactical nous left challengers trembling in his wake. Exaggerations aside the 1972 World Chess championship was a fierce back and forth contest that captivated the world’s attention and brought chess into the spotlight. That year, Fischer became the first American born in the United States to win the crown and brought to an end 24 years of Soviet domination of the World Chess Championship.

Match Of The Century is history lesson told through rhyme and rhythm that puts this great battle firmly back into the spotlight. Albeit a smaller spotlight, for a shorter time... 10 mintues long to be precise!

MOTC is a ten-minute play which won Sydney's Short+Sweet Play Festival in March - the biggest short play festival in the world. From hundreds of scripts submittted, 160 plays were prodcued and performed over the course of ten weeks for the festival. MOTC swept the finals, winning Best Script, Best Director, People's Choice for Best Production and the most coveted prize of the night: Judges' Choice for Best Production. Our prize? An invitation to present our little show on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles in Spetember as a part of the inaugural Short+Sweet LA.

So from a rehearsal room in the back streets of Surry Hills, Sydney to the Stella Adler Theatre of the walk of fame! But how did it start?

In 2015 Mark Longhurst, Ally O'Brien and Jack Douglas competed in Sydney's Short + Sweet competition for the first time and reached the Gala Final. After that experience, they decided to produce an unconventional play in 2016 that would capture the fierce, competitive spirit of the 1972 Chess Championships in a format which would engage contemporary audiences unfamiliar with chess or the championship event. The final product blends elements of hip hop, spoken word, rhythm and rhyme, and features and live trio of bass, piano and percussion.

Mark Longhurst wrote the script and music over the course of three months, and then for two months after that, the cast of six met for rehearsals. The show presented a number of  challenges. In particularly, Jack and Mark were required to recite fast, rhythmic verses to live music while concurrently hitting a chess clock and playing chess games originally played forty years ago by Fischer and Spassky. Nevertheless, after months of practice, we refined the show and were very happy to walk away with the top prize at Short%20Sweet Sydney and an invitation to LA.

Click play to see a snapshot of our rehearsal process and the cast in action on stage performing Match Of The Century!

The funds rasied from this campaign will go directly towards helping the cast of Match Of The Century get to Los Angeles. 

Obviously the 6 members of Match Of The Century are not going to get to LA with $2000. Wouldn't that be nice! Although if that were the case you would have to question reliablity of the airline..

The funds raised will either be spread out amongst the members of Match Of The Century to help with the costs of flights or will be used to fund accomodation for the performance week. The aim of generating these fund is to alleviate some of the financial strain of not only getting to LA but staying there for a week. 

By far the biggest challenge we face is actually getting the team to L.A. 

We're entirely self-funded and not receiving any income from the time dedicated to producing and peforming this little show. So for the 6 members of MOTC the biggest hurdle is the cost of taking the show overseas. 

Thankfully we have taken the play through a rehearsal/performance season so we know our performance capabilities. That being so the cast will still have to apply an intensive rehearsal schedule with an updated script to make sure the show is as entertaining as it was a few months ago.