UPstageWA Review - An Insiders POV

Firstly, I am part of the team that has vested interest in UPstageWA. I wish you to know that before I go into any dialogue of the evening.

Getting ready for the evening itself, there was always a concern about how much interest we would actually generate, how many people would actually turn up. For a first night I did not raise my expectations too much knowing full-well that first-time endeavours can make or break a dream.

I was therefore quite pleased with the turn out we had. While it was a small crowd, it was certainly big enough and diverse enough. It was acutally a good cross-section of local theatre representatives.

That cross-section was equally represented in the members of the panel. In order of speaker, we had;

The enigmatic Craig Williams as MC who was there to control the flow of proceedings and add his occasional bits of advice throughout.

Mr Benj D'Addario ( Professional Actor, WAAPA graduate and founder of Red Ryder Productions) speaking about his view of Community Theatre in WA. Sadly, I missed the first portion of his speech as I kept an eye out for any late comers.

Mr. Stephen Lee ( Professional Actor/Director. Winner of Best Actor ITA Finley Awards) with a very lively and honest review of the quality and approach of acting in general. Mr Lee loves his theatre and it pains him, as it does me, when it is not taken seriously enough by the very people in it! In short, if we all love doing this stuff called acting, then why don't we give it our best effort?

Mr Stuart Haluszkiewicz ( Professional Actor/ Teacher /Trained with the RSC and recent Adjudicator for DramaFest) whose recent experience of Dramafest gave him the feeling of a "big family". He was in a very unique position and was able to highlight certain short falls in performances, things he hopes to discuss further in his up-coming Master Class in November.

Ms Marcelle Schmitz ( professional actor /director/teacher/lecturer. Winner of Equity awards for Direction and Acting) was our final speaker of the night. While she admits to have only a little experience in Community Theatre, her experiences of the Professional world are just as pertinent and relevant. I particularly enjoyed her comparison of the Actor-Director relationship to Brickies and a Foreman on a building site.

The floor was then open for questions and even though the crowd was a touch on the smallish side (which I find usually has the effect of intimidating questions into silence) the questions asked encouraged some lively chatter.

The evening was really an enjoyable experience and honestly, quite informative. The fact that nearly all (if not all) signed up for one or both of the Master Classes on offer is a good sign that I was not alone in my thoughts.

In the end, we had to ask people to leave as each of the panelists was then "attacked" by eager audience members. All in all, a very successful night was had.