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

There is something about theatre, and art for that matter, that brings out the very extremes of humanity. Art can reveal great hideous cruelty and also the most tender-hearted altruism. The act of theatre production, is largely an act of faith and hope (I’m making this as my gift to you, it’s a story I need to share with you) … which can often manifest in arrogance (I MADE THIS, YOU NEED TO SEE THIS! OR ELSE!) – and it is in the former, that Ian Zammit started Emu Height Productions late in 2010. Read more

Urban Theatre Projects latest theatrical offering is a saucy and irreverent departure from their usual fare, created by two utterly unique and charismatic performers – Effie Nkrumah and Alan Lao. As the inaugural show for the new Bankstown Arts Centre theatre, this is an bright and fun start to the theatre. Billed as “Part stand-up, part-theatre, part live-to-internet cooking show,” there is more medicine to this sugary pill, than first meets the eye. Read more

The Comedy Festival has once again descended upon Sydney. Posters of quirky/surprised/defiant/quizzical comedians urging us to take a holiday from the un-hilarious, wallpaper the cafes and bookstores of the inner west, amongst them, Greg Fleet. Read more

I’ve been typing. I have been sitting here typing. There are four sentences half-formed and mangled below this sentence. It’s been five days or so since seeing The Business and I have been sitting on it. Read more

They walk amongst you. They may be next to you on the train, or ordering a coffee in front of you. Perhaps they are the person you see around all the time, but you don’t know their name – but you recognize their hair or their clothes. They are Sydney’s artists and this spring they will be leaping forth once again with the weird and the wonderful as a part of the Sydney Fringe.

For those out there with a show, or an idea for a show, the Sydney Fringe has opened up applications http://thesydneyfringe.com.au/… this is your chance. Dream big, risk everything, make something that matters. There is no point in living a life half lived, or shrugging your shoulders and letting another month/year/opportunity slip by. If you have some thing to show or tell or say, say it.

I can’t wait to see what you come up with.

As a long time fan and follower of Lachlan Philpott’s writing – yes let me list them for you – Catapult, Colder, Bison, Bustown this is perhaps one of the most anticipated productions noted in my diary. Directed by Lee Lewis Associate Director/Literary Advisor of the Griffin Theatre, Silent Disco is the 2009 Griffin Award-winning play and makes it’s debut at the Stables. It’s exciting to see a company dedicate not only an award, but the truly rewarding exciting prize of production to Australian playwrights. I’ve always said, if its worth an award it’s worth a production.

A chain link fence. The city skyline traced in plastic cups. Shall we begin? Read more

As You Like It. Really! Shakespeare telling me what I like from beyond the grave? I’m offended! How could he assume what I like? How I like my plays? I like my plays fresh and intense and unique. So generally, I don’t selected Shakespeare lightly (as mentioned in my response to Anthony Skuse’s recent Julius Caesar and you can read about that here)… and this is my third production of As You like It. The first was as a teenager sitting amongst the trees of the Coffs Harbour Botanic Gardens (I was 16 I think?) and the one after that was a SUDS production at the Seymour Centre in the late 90s… and now Kate Gaul’s production at Carriageworks. Read more

New Theatre in Newtown is no stranger to revolution. With a communist heart and a 70-odd-year history, New Theatre has been at the fore front of making theatre that matters. It has also been a theatre which has been run by a very part-time staff and has been a place where theatre folk have cut their teeth in a Pro-Am/Pro bono fashion. But in 2011, thanks to a government grant, New Theatre have offered 4 independent companies the opportunity to come into the theatre under a co-production (predominantly a co-op structure) to make work. Not just any work – new work. Most of which is new Australian work. How could I let this momentus occasion pass? How could I not acknowledge the shift in identity this has for the work at the New? This is big. BIG. And this program has my full support, as does the artists housed within the program – and the artists who are still under the pro-bono old structure of the New Theatre productions. Always.

Now, to talk about Dirtyland by Elise Hearst. Read more