Advance aaustralia

hello!! Citing the Malthouse in the last post was just that. We still in this country have no theatre company playing "all australian" plays with a focus on new work. Does that matter? Perhaps Black Swan may be the last? The point is yes we have spoken about this with colleagues, peers, friends and artists forever and yes funding is a problem and subsidies and support for new writers etc- however if we are going to be finanically constrained in the arts then how to we move past this to a better cultural future? Does it matter how we chose to express ourselves? - linear or arty plays, any type of visual performance, puppetry, film, radio?. The point is this is our expression for the moment in this country. Thank god for places like La mama who will take a risk and perform a new Oz work regardless of format. So how do all of us together unite and try to support ourselves and advance australia artistically, because obviously we are cultural future.

With doing it yourself. As I am still a VCE student (not long to go now!) I have had limited experience outside of school for theatre. I didn't even really know about amateur theatre- and when I was in school 'drama' was a new concept to me. Since then I've thrived...and this year I'm going to go outside the school and get some experience in the real world... a few ways. Last year I stood up and put on a play at my school (they had recently cancelled the every year musical and replaced it with an every two year policy) I didn't like this and we found a little niche where as long as the play was not called a 'musical' we could put it on. If I wouldn't have stood up to do it, there would have been no play. It was also a big moment in my life where I realised you could put on your own shows! And the story was 'interesting' Chicken Pluckers from a chicken factory being fired and replaced by (dancing) machines is not a normal storyline for our school. Now that I'm about to move out into the real world so is my theatre- and my ideals that anything can be turned into entertainment whether it's a chicken factory, a possessed christmas tree badge or a metaphorical potato! Knowing these ideas would probably be rejected by a bigger company (etc) I am going to have to put a show like this on myself. Here's where my latest show Ultimate Broadway Musical fits in. It's improvising, audience participation, song and dance all rolled into one- a pretty big risk for a group opf students fresh onto the theatre turf. But I believe we can pull it off (belief! Key point) And so it will rely on 'me' to put it on. And then after however many plays it takes to show my 'stuff' works on stage maybe another company will take on my work. I figure you gotta get out there and try it...take new Australian theatre to the people! It is possibly the only way to get it out there. _____________________________________________________________ Currently working on: "The Ultimate Broadway Musical" The Three-Person, Audience Interactive, Little Bit Of Improv, Mini-Musical event of 2007.

I Agree!

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