If you subscribe to theatre-related blogs, then your feed-reader during the past week or so will be overflowing with posts where the words ‘Outrageous Fortune’ will almost certainly appear. It’s the title of a new book on the state of American playwrighting, and it’s getting the best kind of publicity on the web – the
Continue reading ...When you spend as much time on Twitter and Facebook, and subscribe to as many theatre focussed blogs as I do, then you take notice of themes that won’t lie down. There’s been a bit of a stir in the social networking streams over the past couple of weeks, and it’s been about the current
Continue reading ...The theatre and I have had a love affair for many years now; my Actors Equity membership card notes 13 March 1973 as my joining date, but that is just the marker of when it became a day job for real; the affair began long before then. During this – my first, official year of
Continue reading ...Image by Dramagirl via Flickr 1. My first theatre memory – I believe it was a play, probably a vaudeville show which they used to produce at the old Cremorne Theatre in Brisbane. I must have been about 2 or 3. I recall little but the sound, the lights, laughter and general atmosphere. Apparently I
Continue reading ...Earlier this year I wrote in praise of (Much) Older Women Artists. Yesterday afternoon I saw Robyn Nevin‘s performance in The Year of Magical Thinking, directed by Cate Blanchett for Queensland Theatre Company. Her performance in this play, a monodrama adapted from Joan Didion‘s novel, is as truthful, vulnerable, and as moving as its subject matter.
Continue reading ...Yesterday’s post about the monetary side of working in the theatre got a lot of hits but no comment. I’ve put together a poll today (great free service complete with plug-in from PollDaddy) to see if it gets more of a response. How were you last remunerated for your work as a theatre artist? (polls)
Continue reading ...I’m often involved in conversations with actors and other artists and creatives about the issue of remuneration for theatre work. I’m not talking here about ‘doing it for the love,’ but for what a good friend of mine calls ‘the foldies’, real money … what you need to pay the rent, to eat, and generally
Continue reading ...It’s a cold, windy night in Hickson Street as the capacity audience spills out from a performance of A Streetcar Named Desire directed by Liv Ullman for Sydney Theatre Company. My friend and I want to find a café and a drink, somewhere to escape the wind, and to debrief the past 3 + hours.
Continue reading ...Image by Dramagirl via Flickr Einstein reckoned it was more important than knowledge. Now here’s Declan Donnellan (Cheek by Jowl) talking about the importance of imagination for the actor. You bet!
Continue reading ...It’s in its ninth year according to Short+Sweet’s website, but I hadn’t heard of this competitive festival of 10 minute plays until relatively recently. Short+Sweet arrived in Brisbane this year, and played at Brisbane’s Powerhouse just prior to the start of the Brisbane Festival – a kind of outlier or ‘fringe up front’ to the
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