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

OK. Upfront I am going to declare that I am a pretty terrible note taker. Always have been. Uni? Terrible. Look at those notes and you’ll find pictures and coffee smudges and lines of dialogue for potential new plays. And I think it’s because I am often distracted by new ideas that crowd like excited seagulls as soon as someone says anything. And also because I start thinking about more questions and answers… and unfortunately – due to the clumsy virtue of having my computer on my lap at most times, the default position of scribe fell on my fingers… and all I can say is sorry… I wish I was a stenographer. Read more

Shouldn’t work for a young audience which is their first theatre experience, be better resourced – at the scale of Opera?
What if in 10 years children’s theatre was given the level of support that mainstage/commercial musicals are? Would that be a wonderful investment in the future of theatre? It would surely entice the younger audiences to attend.

Or would it? Read more

The second morning took me by surprise. A 9 o’clock scheduled start surprised me at about 8:34 as I was mid-breakfast and lazily checking the ATF schedule for Thursday. The plan was supposed to be – breakfast, then write up the official ATF 2011 welcome I missed writing electronically (it’s in the form of pen and paper in my bag) …then coffee and then a casual walk to the Powerhouse.

It wasn’t to be. 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

Salon 2 Women in Theatre Research: Conversation started by Gail Cork (Australian Script Centre), Elaine Lally (University of Technology Sydney) & Sarah Miller (University of Wollongong).

(Here we are in a small theatre… a ring of women and two men… where are the artistic directors? Busy at one of the other Salons? Or perhaps they think they’ll read the paper later?) 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