After my first day in Brisbane at the Australian Theatre Forum I was keen to kick back and soak up the Brisbane Festival offerings. I had very casually glanced over the program for The Brisbane Festival and Under the Radar – and had really no idea what I should see. Read more

“Responding to audience demand for more connection, for the more experiential – artists and companies are experimenting with new modes of engagement that have the capacity to deepen and re-imagine relationships between artists and audiences.”
Facilitator – Annette Downs (Tasmania Performs), Kristine Landon-Smith (Tamasha, UK), Steve Mayhew (Country Arts SA) Kyle Morrison (Yirra Yaakin), Sam Strong (Griffin)

Sam Strong gives us a Social media strategy of Griffin – especially around his Between the Lines program – a program of one off theatrical events and audience engagement activities Read more

SPEAKERS: Paschal Berry (Independent), Sam Haren (The Border Project), Yaron Lifschitz (Circa) & Rosemary Myers (Windmill) FACILITATOR: Jo Porter (Malthouse)

“Over the last decade, there’s been a welcome increase in partnering and collaboration among the sector – between small and major companies, independent artists and venues, across cultural and national borders. Artists and companies collaborate to share resources, practices and audiences, to create work that neither partner could produce alone. A panel of practitioners will share their experiences of partnering and the impact it has had on their work – negotiating different ways of making, working in culturally and economically unfamiliar conditions, optimising both successes and failures.”

By the time this panel rolled around at 2pm I was more than fried. 4160 words today. (I know they’re not GREAT words…in fact I don’t even think I’ve spelt most of them properly or know what they mean any more…) I was sitting in the theatre whimpering and wishing for chocolate treats, hugs and flattery. All I can say is thank god (or ROBYN ARCHER) for Jane Howard AKA “No Plain Jane” – despite hopping around the Forum on a bung foot (8 hours of adventuring around Brisbane can do that to a girl…) she is like a machine – a smart, pretty, hopping machine… and she has written this panel up beautifully. Check it out here – Read more

Let’s talk about production NOT Just development of New plays. We are living in an age of Australian playwriting where development is the major concern of playwrights.

I say. No.

Time to stop being behind the door. Stop developing… Stop being academic about this. Time to just put the thing on. Where’s the money for new play production – I dunno – tied up in the production of old plays or paying overseas royalties? Time to just do it. Let’s get the work on.

Nothing makes a playwright work like a deadline. Especially a deadline of an audience. It’s gotta be ready.

For me the major thing is – playwrights need to be empowered.

I reckon this: playwrights know what’s wrong with their plays 80% of the time. I reckon Playwrights know what they are doing. I reckon more comes out of having faith in playwrights then being suspicious of their plays. I reckon audiences are a great judge of quality.

What if playwrights were granted more opportunity, more prodcution (shorter runs).. what if companies regarded their playwrights as their rock stars? Read more

New plays are my passion. No surprise I needed to go to this.

Instigated by Katrina Douglas from Q Theatre in Penrith… here is a wish of eradicating the playwriting zombies on Australian stages… you know what I’m talking about – the old work that gets dragged out to be tampered with by ambitious young directors or designers… Shakespeare, classics, errrrgh. Do we really love old work that much? Do we really love the canon THAT much? I want old plays to make up 10% or less of my theatre going because really it just makes me feel like I’ve had my brain eaten. Read more

Social media is a wonderful (and horrid) thing. It can publicly open wounds, share declarations of love, be a source of information. It can be a means of crowdsourcing solutions – and sometimes be a means of processing thinking – I thought I would share this recent discussion on my facebook about the support and definition of artists in Australia. I think this is really interesting… and I thought I’d share it, to see what you think… and to demonstrate the delight of a FB conversation. Read more

Australian Theatre Network meet-and-greet: 14 Sept

(I gulped my sandwich and sat on the floor…) Read more

The Australian Theatre Forum 2011: Convictions and Connections finds itself in an interesting place. And I’m not necessarily talking about Brisbane which is currently overwhelmed by production and festival and artistic activity. For three days theatre makers, arts administrators, artists of independent and dependent status’ are mixing, talking listening, scheming, planning, reading, sharing. Read more

The Sydney Fringe is here – a time of wild experimentation – of DIY enthusiasm – of bizarre artistic occurrences and disoriented punters muttering “what did I just see?” It’s an opportunity for the grass roots, emerging and established alternative arts, independent arts and hybrid arts to throw themselves into venues, coax audiences to relinquish their cash and take a chance. Read more

After a sophisticated large scale, main stage dose of Lally Katz in the form of Neighbourhood Watch at Belvoir, Sydney audiences have an opportunity to view some of her earlier work, small-scale, intimate and full of possibility programmed as a part of the Griffin Independent season. Read more