There’s that feeling just before a meeting or a launch – where I feel different. My skin feels thin, sounds seem louder, my eyes are keener and dart around examining everything. I am ultra aware, ultra wired, ultra ready. Read more

Friday was a stunning Sydney day. Three things- The Writer’s Festival, a series of absurdly ill-timed computer crashes and one of my best ever/long-time friends lured me down to the Wharf on Hickson Bay to sit among the readers and writers and listen to some talks. Read more

Like the assassination of JFK, the collapse of the Twin Towers, it can be argued that one’s first kiss is equally a transforming experience. Read more

It’s time to tell me what you want…what you really, really want. Read more

It’s a bright mid-May Saturday, when I coerce a playwright to head to NIDA to see a matinee performance of a new(ish) Swedish play. Read more

Since the dissolving of Belvoir’s B-Sharp Season, there has been a flurry of activity in Independent venues in Sydney as theatre’s try to catch quality artists before they disappear. Read more

A forest of well dressed, well spoken women gather around a hunched hooded figure as sound throbs and squeals from an electric guitar. Read more

In the post-traumatic haze of Trapture – an hour or so later – I ventured into the land of new works in development at the Old Fitz. I am without a program – I don’t know how I missed out but I did – and so this is not really a review or a response more of an FYI for the new work hunters who couldn’t make it along… Read more

On the way to the theatre on a Sunday, the streets of Kings Cross are slightly stained with the night before’s rambunctious pursuits. The train station feels like a haunted bathroom, and in doorways are bottles in brown paper bags and hollowed out beggars loiter near the pizza shop. Read more

Last week, I had the great fortune to venture beyond the usual triumvirate of Stables, Belvoir and Wharf to visit areas of Sydney’s theatre landscape that I do not often frequent – Bankstown Arts Centre (Bankstown), Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre (Penrith) and Riverside theatres (Parramatta). This is not due to snobbery, or ignorance or lack of interest. It is largely to do with logistics of being a long term public transport devotee and being based in the inner west of Sydney. However, I thought it was really very interesting that three shows – each which represent and reveal important aspects of our identity, our past and our present by local artists – were so different in style and tone and story. Read more