I just need to get this out of my system right now. And I do have a system. A system of thinking, of speaking, writing, digesting – a system of being in the world and seeing the world, interpreting the world and oftentimes shaking my tiny fists at the world. I am in many ways, a squirming audience member – often shifting in my seat because of opportunities missed or larger symbolic cultural gestures squandered in favour of “fashion” or perhaps a desire to ingratiate oneself to the all seeing all knowing “other” (that is whomever the artist thinks is seeing their work.) Read more

Many of Australia’s key arts buildings are converted spaces: Sydney Theatre Company’s home is at the Wharf… the Griffin Theatre Company’s home is in an old horse stables… The Pram Factory Theatre… Belvoir… (the list goes on an on…) and one of the key buidlings in South West Sydney is Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre. Read more

There are moments in my theatre going which feel like shooting stars. Those very quick and wonderful moments where we feel like swiveling your head around and saying “Wow! Did anyone else just see that?” And sometimes the answer is a “resounding YES!” (as in the case of Sam Strong’s Speaking in Tongues) and sometimes the answer is “What? No. I must have missed it.” But the fact remains that when you experience that moment of catching a shooting star – or a piece of work – you feel happy for the fact that your faith is restored in shooting stars.

Half World was one such occurance. Read more

There are stories from my childhood that sit in the back of my mind and the front of my heart, that I carry with me on my day to day choices. These stories, on the whole came from cross-legged aloneness, my neck curled down staring at a page… or else from the even and often animated voice of my parents thoughtfully reading to me in my bed. Most of the titles are perhaps not recognisable in the wider world of popular culture:
Honey the Sugar Glider Rich Richardson, illustrations by Diana Petersen (1975), Barnaby and the Rocket story by Lydia Pender, illustrations by Judy Cowell (1972) – stories about nature and conservation and valuing animals and forests. (It was after all the early 80s…) Read more

“There’s the girl who’s new. There’s the quiet girl. There’s the girl with no boyfriend. And the one with too many. There’s the girl who looks different, the girl who’s asking for it. And there’s the girl who’s just… just looking at me wrong. She doesn’t even know she is – but she is. And then there’s me. The girl who’s scared of nothing. The girl they say rumours about.”

The world is a brutal place. Always has been. The fight to survive has been competitive, relentless and has lead us to the here and now. Technically, if we are as Darwin suggest the fittest who have managed to survive – the survivors are fighters. The survivors are brutal. Survivors of society – us who are walking around – are charged with genes honed to fight, programmed with the need to survive at all costs. We are all, in some way, fighters – who and what and when we fight varies – but all of us have that instinct driving the human race forward. Read more

The show may have closed, the milkcrate set may have been dismantled and re-distributed, the actors return to their own voices and thoughts and their daily clothes – but I’ve still been digesting the recent Bell Shakespeare production of Henry 4.

Catching up so late on my writing and thinking about productions, is a curse and a blessing – and a priviledge. In 2007 (when I began writing reviews for Australianstage) I would write and launch a review within 3 hours of seeing the show. This has its benefits and its drawbacks: the memory is fresh, the impression still present, but like trying to understand a landscape painting by pressing one’s nose up against the paint, you may not often see the whole vista. Perhaps I’m just trying to console myself for an egregious lapse of time. Or perhaps I am justified.

Personally, I don’t favour reviews that cherry pick actors to be elevated and spotlit. I also don’t really find that style of engagement with a work particularly revealing nor revolutionary: after all why would we need to be told that as an audience, we can spot that ourselves. Read more

Australians love horses judging by the influx of horse themed shows on in Sydney at the moment – War Horse (currently at the Sydney Lyric theatre) advertisements splashed over the backs of taxis and Cavalia on nearly every billboard and flagpole in the city – and of course, every November there is a “race that stops the nation.” Yes. We love horses. Read more

It’s been ten days since I struggled into a car with coat and scarf and bag and laptop and heart and flustered hair and buzzing ears and lots to say and nothing to say and fingertips fizzing from live-tweeting the Australian Theatre Forum 2013.

It’s taken me sometime to digest the forum as a whole: to find out what actually happened at the forum- what worked, what was valuable and to find out what is the value of going to an event like that.

So, to back track somewhat, some months ago when it was announced that the ATF was open for registrations it was revealed that there was limited spaces for independent artists and they needed to apply to attend (as everyone does). There are limited spaces. The forum happens in one place at one time. As one disgruntled tweeter pointed out that the ATF was not following it’s pledge from 2011 which was to ensure that the ATF was webcast live – and it wasn’t. (Not sure if we perhaps were being a little over zealous in 2011 about the state of the NBN…) Read more

COMING TO A CLOSE: NICOLE BEYER
A few short thank yous from the organiser of the Australian Theatre Forum, Nicole Beyer (Of the Theatre Network Victoria) – including speakers, sponsors, bloggers, caterers… and the HUGE amount of resource that saw hundreds of Australian Theatre practitioners in the same room – and many also online and interacting with blogs and tweets (near and far.) Read more

And the last day of the ATF and Jane and I were at it again: first up a Keynote from a former-performer now entrepreneurial restauranteur: MissChu… that’s right… this one you can find HERE

KEYNOTE: NAHJI CHU
MissChu, Queen of Rice Paper Rolls, speaks about her own approach to what’s not possible and breaking the rules.
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