Blood Wedding by Lorca is one of the classics- written during the Spanish Civil War- inspired by a newspaper article written about a bride who ran off with her former lover on the night of her wedding- explores the perils of repressed passion. It is a steamy, sexy and violent play which exposes the dark undercurrent of desire in the face of duty/obligation. more…
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Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers examines the reasons or causes behind people who are high acheivers- the thesis goes onto explain that for any person to be a leader in their field, they need to accrue 10,000 hours of practice in their given field. Gladwell sites the practise of The Beatles (who played 8 hours straight in Hamburg 5 days a week) and Bill Gates (who used to sneak into his local university at 2am to work on Computers as a teenage boy) … its a fascinating idea- and a hypothesis that rings true in the realm of the theatre. more…
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After I attended the much anticipated Philip Parsons Lecture at Belvoir last year I was invited to write an article for New Matilda about the women in theatre debate… which I have included below. more…
2009 has finished- no Bull! We survived the teething decade of the new millenium- and her we are at the start of a new year! What a relief! As with every end of the year comes certain things- sunburn, family Christmases, NYE revelling, music festivals and retrospection which sometimes justifies some introspection- so here is my intro/retrospection about theatre in the last year… more…
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With the wind up of the calendar year comes a few things- a time for reflection, Mariah Carey’s “All I want for Christmas is you” blaring forth from tinsel festooned supermarkets, the inevitable staff Christmas parties, obligatory consumerism… and for theatre folk- a sense of what their coming year of work looks like… or for some where their year of study will be. more…
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Since 10pm on Monday I night I have received text messages, facebook messages, emails- I’ve read the installments from 7-On: (http://sevenon.blogspot.com/2009/06/what-is-going-on-here.html) and Joanna Erskine (http://www.joannaerskine.com/cluster/), and talked and listened to the frustrations and the disappointment of many of those in the industry. This is a post about the reactions, my thoughts, my feelings and my perspective about the theatre industry as it is right here and now. And what it means to be a practitioner working in that industry. A practitioner who happens to be a woman.
Firstly the issue that has surprised and even shocked and infuriated some is that in the 2010 Belvoir Season that was launched on Monday night, there was a clear lack of female key creatives at the helm of the shows. Belvoir st will be celebrating their 25th year- no mean feat! And within the next 6 weeks there will be the naming of the new artistic director…. its a big turning point.
Belvoir has always had a special place in the hearts of many- practitioners regard it with pride having worked their- they talk of community and family and equality. (Perhaps this has to do with the egalitarian pay structure?) They regard it as the place whcih was started by a syndicate of like minded practitioners who all fronted cash- put money where their hearts were – to start a theatre. This mythology has captured the imaginations of already a highly imaginative group of people. And rightly so.
Belvoir has hosted a range of Australia’s top practitioners- launched the career of many a celebrity… names Australia and the Australian creative industries are proud of- Geoffrey Rush, Cate Blanchette, Wayne Blair, Lee Lewis, – You know the ones I am talking about.
Belvoir has also championed new Indigenous writing and indigenous practitioners- giving space and time to the oldest living culture of storytellers the world has known. Though sometimes seen to be treated as a token pattern of programming- this is still an essential part of theatre practice in this country- it is essential for Indigenous stories to be told by artists who are Indigenous… as this exchange is artistically and culturally vital as a step towards any sort of healing and understanding.
However- there is another side of this- if you look at Belvoir as a place of equality- lets look a little further. Lets look at the Contact Us section of the website…
http://www.belvoir.com.au/800_contact_us.php
The top and most influencial names of the company- the taste makers- the folks chosing and priviledging the practitioners, the plays, the stories that are told- are all men.
The women of the company are in positions of education. Of promotion. Of support.
It seems the age old saying is true- behind every great men are great women. And Belvoir certainly has impressive women working there- Brenna Hobson- a remarkably intelligent and skilled producer and manager whom I first met in 2000 and have ever since held in very high regard for her clarity and strength and her calm and sensible ability to overcome all challenges.
Tahli Corin- one of the most supportive and passionate and brave and change making individuals in the independant sector- she is largely an unsung hero for the opportunities she has provided and projects she has spearheaded.
But the question begs- are women fairly and equally treated in our industry in general? I am not going to discuss the wider world politics of women- that is for another time. Is the Belvoir season indicative of Australian/local theatre talent?
As someone who sees between 1-4 productions a week, I would say, no. And then the question is- does this matter that Belvoir’s Season has not equally represented women, or new australians, or first Australians, or transgender identifying?
My thoughts are-
The gender issue only matters if there is not equal opportunities available for female artists as there are for male artists.
The gender issue only matters if there are not avenues for people to be selected, based on talent and merit.
The gender balance only matters when there isn’t one.
My programming practice-
I program on talent. I program based on potential, not genitals. I program for Brand Spanking New and Off The Shelf, based on the heart of the work- that speaks to me. That reflects stories that confront , puzzle and reassure me- who I am living as a person right now in society. I can not avoid nor deny I am a woman. I am not sure how, but I am sure somehow all the things that make up who I am affects how I see the world- those things ranging from my small country town background, my university education, my partner, my experiences of travel, all theatrical experiences I have experiences (as audience and practitioner) up until this point. I can not escape who I am, how I feel and what I want from theatre. I program accordingly. And the results of gender split if scrutinized are as follows:
Brand Spanking New 2009 has 7 writers out of 15/ and 9 directors out of 14 who are women.
Brand Spanking New 2008 had 9 writers out of 14 /and 9 directors out of 14 who are women.
Off the Shelf # 2 has 10 creatives involved half of which are women.
Off the Shelf #1 had 10 creatives involved, four of which are women.
And the truth is- Belvoir is the same- they are a collection of people programming from their perspective- now if that means that female key creatives don’t figure in that- that is their choice. And I can’t and won’t expect them to be anything but true to what they believe in. I don’t want women programmed due to their genitals but their talent- their story. And if Belvoir is not a place for key female creatives in 2010- well thats fine… because women will continue to create and develop work and be in this industry forever- like it or not.
The main issue for me is, has and always will be- are there opportunities offered to people from all backgrounds, regardless of sexual preference, race, gender? Is there enough of a mix- is what we are seeing on Australian stages a diverse and spectacular array of works- or is it the same old story by the same people? Are we chalenging each other and ourselves and our audiences by opening up the industry?
If not why not and how are we going to fix it?
So we’ve had a wake up call from Belvoir- through the absence of female creatives in their mainstage season they have shown us what we DO want to see. So great now we know what we want- let’s make it happen. Can and should one theatre answer all the problems and questions? No. But 100 theatres might.
If you click on the link on the “What’s On Downstairs” page of Belvoir St Theatre’s website: you’ll be linked through to a grainy, black and white “teaser” of the upcoming show by Vassily Sigarev, “Ladybird.” more…
It was Sandra Stockley’s bright spark, which ignited Wildfire Theatre Company less than a year ago… and there is no shortage of theatrical fodder to fuel the flames. Despite her sophisticated and calm demeanour, Stockley’s passion for theatre is anything but. As an actor, frustrated by working on other people’s projects and tired of waiting for shows to materialize, Stockley took matters into her own hands and began to develop a theatre company which would allow her to call the shots: to choose the projects, to enable her to approach people she is interested in collaborating with to create a unique, imaginative theatrical experience.
Inspired by her performance training and experience in Europe, Stockley hopes to bring Sydney (and eventually Australian) audiences access to performance styles and approaches to theatre that are not necessarily regularly taught in Australian training institutions. “A lot of [theatre] spaces [in Sydney] do not lend themselves to the type of physical based theatre I have experienced in say, France… because the spaces here are so intimate the style of theatre has a closeness, more like television, than theatre.” Stockley, between sips of peppermint tea, speaks about the need to create work which exists “outside of the normal world” and which contains ideas that embrace large scale spectacle and “explode the inside, out.” It is easy to see that her ideas are ambitious and invigorated with an aesthetic embracing adventure and imagination.
Earlier this year Wildfire Theatre Company presented Martin McDonagh’s The Beauty Queen of Leenane directed by Maeliosa Stafford at The Seymour Centre which was greeted with critical acclaim. The review from the Daily Telegraph stated:
“Just when independent theatre was looking jaded along comes this little gem of a production. It’s an auspicious debut for the newly formed Wildfire Theatre, which has opened with the kind of taut theatre we would all love to see more often.” A precedent which has set the bar high for Wildfire Theatre Company’s next production: the scottish play.
Transferring techniques she experienced as a performer in France with École de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq and her training with Philippe Genty and in London with Theatre de Complicite, Stockley has turned her hand to directing Wildfire Theatre Company’s production of Macbeth, opening at The Cell Block Theatre this Friday. Relaying this style and aesthetic to the cast of Macbeth has been a wonderful “artistic challenge” to face and is made easy by her ”hugely talented” cast. Her bravery mounting a show as large as Macbeth in a space not regularly used as a theatre is impressive. When I ask her about the magnitude of this, her Australian directorial debut, she seems genuinely at home, “having previously played Lady Macbeth in 2000 I felt extremely comfortable with the text, with the language and the characters and how to cut it.”
With a dedicated cast and a passionate crew including Set Designer Barry French and costume designer Clare de Mayo, Stockley talks freely about her collaborative process directing Macbeth, and also about “managing the ideas and the experience and keeping the reigns on the play , especially working with a cast who haven’t worked together for a long time trying to get your ideas across to people who have not ever seen a show like the one you are trying to create it is a real challenge… especially when everyone has an idea about what the meaning of the play is or what acting is.” Drawing on her experience on the other side of the footlights, Stockley’s directorial process is composed not necessarily of the process she does have, but rather processes which she refuses to have. Having experience as an actor, she is aware of the particular and unique qualities actors bring to a text and also the fragility and difficulty actors face sometimes in auditions and in rehearsals. Armed with this knowledge, having had the shoe on the other foot, she says she appreciates directors in a different light. “ Directors are always on, they don’t have any breaks, and they are holding the reigns for the whole show, even if there is a break in rehearsal the costume designer might have a question about this, or the designer wants to know about that…” It is clear that Sandra Stockley, is “on” and will continue to be “on” in many capacities as Wildfire grows in her wake.
It’s a week out from opening night when I meet Tahli Corin and its clear she hasn’t been bumming around. Bright-eyed, effervescent with excitement and anticipation, she tells me the story of how she came to be a writer, and how it happened that the first play she has written has landed safely in the Downstairs Theatre at Belvoir St… and it is a sweet tale that stretches over two years which involves a little chance, a need to avoid watching film, a gin and tonic in Hong Kong and a poem by Charles Bukowski called “Bumming with Jane.”
Trained as an actor in Adelaide, Corin spent some time with a touring children’s show (Monkey Baa theatre) before taking matters into her own hands. Admitting that often actors are at the mercy of the tastes and decisions of others Corin admits she is “far too impatient” to let projects she wants to be involved with find her and so made a decision to write a play. Using playwriting as a means to escape the steady film diet her partner was consuming as a part of an AFTRS screenwriting course, Corin was delighted to discover the liberation that comes from being able to call her own shots… “to create without asking permission.”
Corin freely admits that to produce a show you must really love it. That the energy and time and effort it takes to put on a show must be worth it…
For two years Corin worked on her play… confessing that in the long term love affair with the characters and story of “Bumming with Jane”, hasn’t always been easy. As with all relationships there were moments of reckoning. Whilst touring, she locked her self away in her room in Margaret River with a bottle of wine and as she wrestled with the characters who “were not doing as they were told” which turned out to be “a good weekend of not much love but good cheese.” Using her back ground as an actor she set to work on the script making sure that the “action was present and characters were as clear as I could make them.”
And how did the play end up with its premiere at the Downstairs Belvoir Theatre? After submitting the play, Corin was in Hong Kong where she met up with Belvoir St Theatre’s Artistic Associate, Eamon Flack who also happened to be in town and somehow over a gin and tonic they discussed the possibility of having the show as a part of the B Sharp Season.
Corin cites director Kellie Mackereth, recent NIDA graduate as a wonderful person to collaborate with on “Bumming with Jane”. After seeing Kelly’s production of Lunch by Steven Berkoff in the 2007 NIDA Directors showcase, Corin knew that Kelly was the director she wanted working on the project. “The actors seemed to be enjoying themselves” and that was the kind of working environment she envisioned for the actors working on “Bumming with Jane.” Corin attributes the invaluable support of Mackereth who has spent nearly a year with the script, making dramaturgical suggestions strengthening the world of Patrick and Jane. And after such a development process Corin praises the importance of dedicated and focussed actors such as Sophie Cook, Tahki Saul and Gertraud Ingeborg. “In the casting process- it is wonderful to have the actors we cast just as much in love with the characters as Kelly and I.”
Having a dedicated team of collaborators who are equally passionate about the characters and story whilst “taking the play to a whole new level” and liberated Corin from the rehearsal room and has allowed her to fully embrace the role of producer. Racing from a production meeting at Belvoir St to lunch and an interview then off to the Sydney Theatre Company to borrow Gobos … then who knows where. Although Bumming with Jane is a story about “love, poverty and the fleeting joy of choosing to live a free and ragged-arse life” Corin is a highly energetic, deeply thoughtful and perfectly impatient person, who’s impatience has been rewarded.
The Studio at the Sydney Opera House has developed its reputation as a kaleidoscopic venue that hosts international and local artists, embraces a smorgasbord of diverse, provocative, innovative and acclaimed entertainment, all under the all-seeing eye of Executive Producer, Virginia Hyam.
Technicolour postcards advertising Studio shows scream out from Avant Card stands across Sydney promising unique experiences of Internationally acclaimed shows. In the past year she has programmed everything from the controversial yet ever- charming Tim Minchin, a rock-star ukulele player from Hawaii, burlesque comedians and adults-only puppets from Canada…. And her brave, bold, diverse choices light up the studio at the Opera House week after week and soon the next six month season will be revealed…
Hyam’s signature authenticates the blurb inside each Studio brochure brimming with the boldest, bravest fringe shows, musical and magic acts from festivals across the globe. Sporting a distinct contempo haircut, Hyam is often encircled by a fizzing ring of opening- night bubbly, chatting with artists from a variety of performing arts backgrounds. She is busy… I was lucky enough to catch a slice of her time for a lunch-time interview: just after her meeting with an agent and just before she disappeared to pick up airline tickets to Korea.
Sitting across from me in a cramped, yet cheerful, Japanese restaurant, with a flyer for Hamlet in one hand and chopsticks in the other Hyam candidly spoke about the Sydney Opera House Studio, her life long passion for the performing arts and her unique career path.
Where does she come from? How did she get here? What inspires her? How does she choose the programme?
How did she become the Executive Producer of the Sydney Opera House? Did her career start, like so many in the arts, with an arts management degree? She smiles and her eyes twinkle… “It used to be something I would think about “oh my god! I don’t have any arts management training!” but now I think I’ve been doing it for so long now that it doesn’t matter. So I guess you could say that was completely self taught in learning how to engage with the industry.” And it seems that learning on the job has worked in her favour, with a string of impressive job titles and a strong vibrant season about to be launched in mid-June.
Starting her career as a school teacher, Hyam brachiated from arts organization to arts organization; from the Come Out Arts Festival in Adelaide, to Director of the Melbourne Fringe Festival in 1996, then to become the Executive Producer of the Sydney Opera House Studio in 2001. From brave new beginnings, Hyam has developed the Studio’s reputation for providing audiences with access to fascinating shows and unique artists at one of Australia’s internationally recognizable venues at a reasonable ticket price. Nearly eight years on, Hyam continues to engage with independent performing artists with her unique blend of natural generosity, open-minded adventurousness and a thirst for entertainment in all its incantations.
Hyam attributes landing her position at the Studio to a modest “right time, right place” on the back of her work at the Melbourne Fringe Festival. And although she has worked across several states, and with artists from all over the world she views her role as an arts ambassador in very clear light… “I guess in many ways I feel like my career has followed a really simple trajectory of it always being about supporting emerging artists and independent artists, new contemporary work new ideas and cross platform.” There’s nothing pretentious about her, nothing that appears to be posturing or insincere: just very genuine, generous and highly energetic.
Prior to Hyam’s appointment, The Studio was an occasionally programmed space- which was beyond the financial reach of many struggling and emerging artists. “I went in there with my fringe head on going “you can do all these things!!!” and they loved it and loved the idea that the opera house was putting on bold work which would not otherwise be put on there.. it’s about bringing in audiences, it is about giving artists a platform that wouldn’t otherwise have one in that environment and that’s what has fitted in there. And it’s really fitted in with what my philosophy was and it still is very much for and about independent artists…” Amid the teriyaki and miso soup, I began to understand how much Hyam sees herself as a facilitator of artists and audiences: a person who encourages and celebrates collaboration and who is always looking for interesting and challenging new work and who is aware the big difference a small space can make in the landscape of Sydney’s performance venues.
There is nothing stale or safe about her choices: she’s not there to find performances that merely adhere to a “SOH studio style-manual” (which doesn’t exist) nor to program shows which are automatic sell out seasons of critical (or popular) acclaim. She is there to nurture artists, entertain audiences…
What is it then that she looks for in a production? With Sydney AND the rest of Australia AND the rest of the worlds artists competing for a spot at this well resourced, iconic venue, how are artists/shows chosen? And the answer lies with the audience. It seems that she is trying to shake the cobwebs from dusty regular theatre-goers and ask them to take a risk something she is constantly seeking: to “try something new.” Virginia programs not by style, nor by art form but based on one simple criteria: “entertainment.” And keeping the audience’s need for entertainment in mind, she sees performances, programs shows and facilitates artists regardless of their genre. How does she know a good show? “If I have been challenged, if I have laughed or had a cry … its not about the art form it’s about the engagement with what ever it is, if all you understand is the beauty of it that’s ok. I think you have to program on your own tastes to some degree, you sort of have to.” It is this faith in her own taste and instincts: developed over years of trial and error and an insatiable hunger for new ideas and innovative practice that drives Virginia’s quest for programming brave and bold new works. It is not a detached, impersonal filling of a quota which fuels diversity in her programming tastes is a very simple down to earth message: “I love going to cabaret, I love going to music, I love going to dance, I love a lot of different things actually and I think, ‘why wouldn’t other members of the population be like that too’?”
After years dedicated to the unearthing of emerging artists, Virginia Hyam continues to encourage artists and audiences to push the boundaries of their own experiences. There is a generosity and warmth which backs her choices and that inexorable goal of “constantly trying to be at the beginning of popular trend” keeps her interested in her work. But what if others aren’t happy with her choice? And how do you handle that… again something that has been learnt on the job: “the minute you don’t trust your gut, something goes wrong” that’s what I have learnt really.” That and learning to “face that sometimes you were wrong, and sometimes it wasn’t worth fighting for, but you did fight for it.” Sometimes audiences walk out, sometimes they complain about the content, and that doesn’t bother her at all. “Perhaps they should have read the promotional material: it gives a clear indication on what they might expect, people should research the shows they are about to see.”
Hyam’s willingness to take risks and her passion for entertainment can be seen in the upcoming program. Somehow amid the pressure of reviews and box office income and shows that compete for her attention, Virginia Hyam is completely at home. She finds inspiration and buoyancy amongst the community of artists, the buzz of creation and hectic schedules and continues her crusade into a bright bold season of surprising and vibrant work.