Recently, whilst hosting a conversation with a group of playwrights for The Riverside Theatres the Writers night (as a part of A View From Moving Windows) I outted my long enduring love of/for Nick Parsons (Australia’s much loved tall-as-a-sky-scraper screen/stage writerly mountains dwelling gent) citing the first time we spoke and our consequent developing friendship.

Afterwards I continued along the line up of writers describing my love of them all… Of course it wasn’t long before Parsons noted “you seem to love a lot of people”… and indeed I do. Playwrights are my rock stars, I adore them. I love them as people, drinking buddies, collaborators, friends, philosophers, coffee dates – collectively and individually. Read more

We live in interesting times. Ours is a globalised society, full of information and research, high speed data and digital memory. We live in a highly networked social structure, people are living longer, working longer, retiring later. International travel is commonplace. The primary political discussions that take place in parliament are economic. Science ( a modern replacement for ancient concepts such as faith) is treated with deep and furrow-browed scepticism. Our world is shrinking and the sea levels are rising. Read more

I love riding on trains. Always have. That feeling of motion – moving forward always – the rush and squeal of metal on metal. Hundreds of strangers pushed together, sometimes in silence, sometimes asleep, sometimes overhearing the conversations for other lives, the sound tracks of other people’s minds. For me it was the primary means of transport around Sydney and in my first year of living in Sydney I would remark to myself how often it would be that I would find on one train more commuters than the total population of my home town. Read more

It’s been a huge couple of months – I’m about to write up a whole bunch of adventures in Art since I returned from Melbourne…

Lately I have been hard at work on my upcoming show at The Riverside Theatre “A View From Moving Windows” which features a team of over 35 artists who have been writing and rehearsing a new show which is an ode to commuter culture on the yellow train line in Sydney (more about that later).

I’ve also been talking on panels and delivering keynote speeches all around the place: Read more

The major project at Shopfront is always an adventure – previous years have seen the creative team infiltrate outdoor areas, create whole pop-up villages and go on outback road trips. This year local and closer to home the old dance hall/mechanic shop which has been the home of Shopfront for over 35 years was completely over-run by the work of one hundred artists (young people) who had made a complete arcade out of cardboard – games, installations, interactive moments with people or slingshots, dance machines, wheels of fortune. A craft table where you make your own avatar. Messages of reassurance. Diagnoses and cures. A dance party with strangers. Read more

On prompting from Adelaide’s lady of blogging/twittery sass, Jane Howard, and casual agreement amongst my dear colleagues Alison Croggon and Cameron Woodhead I decided to spend my few unscheduled hours in Melbourne at the Malthouse to catch On the Misconception of Oedipus. Read more

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After being one of the perhaps three people in Sydney to have missed the much acclaimed and awarded “The Dark Room” at Belvoir in 2011, I leaped like a proverbial lizard at the opportunity to see her play Helicopter at Melbourne Theatre Company. Read more

Last Saturday night I was at the opening of Simon Stone/ Andrew Upton’s adaptation of Bergman’s Face to Face. On the other side of the state border, another play known as a film is opening at the Melbourne Theatre Company. This is not a comparison. To compare really would be like comparing a motorbike to a penny farthing – both have their place, purpose and era. Read more

Relatively new to the experience of Opera (courtesy of Mr James Waites), and a very simple understanding derived from years of Sunday afternoons of Arias (courtesy of my father’s music collection) – I have been impatient to understand the cultural clash and economic friction around opera as an art form. So with the promise of a free ticket and accumulated perspective, I refused all invitations in Sydney for 5 days, packed by bags and flew to Melbourne for Victorian Opera’s Double Bill directed by Nancy Black. Read more