MICF: Nerds are Sexy – PickUp

MICF
Nerds are Sexy
PickUp
The Butterfly Club
14 April 2019
The Butterfly Club
to 21 April
comedyfestival.com.au

PickUp

Nerds are Sexy. Derr!

What's not hot about someone who enthusiastically shares their passion and is prepared to really know – really know – how to do something really well.

Rock's also sexy.

And the combination of both can be too much!

Alia Vryens and Colin Craig have no shame in being nerds. Nor in being positive and enthusiastic about sexuality and about having sex. Last year, their first full-length show was about their polyamorous relationship and welcomed questions from the audience. They've since toured to festivals and host and curate the semi-regular Funny Music Mondays at The Butterfly Club, where Melbourne's best cabaret artists try out new work or simply let loose and be funny.

There's no wrong way to nerd. If you play games on tables or online with many stranger, love cosplay, can explain D&D or have watched every episode of Dr Who (and read all the books, listed to the audio series and judge your friends based on their opinion of Russell T Davies), you'll be with your tribe – and maybe get the chance to talk about your own glorious obsessions.

They also rock with songs about the likes of pinball, getting dumped by your Dragon Age boyfriend, and why women's armour doesn't cover their boobs.  And if you think it's all about Colin and his guitar, you haven't seen Alia with her ukulele.

But don't worry if you're not a nerd. Come on, who are you kidding? You're reading a nerdy theatre blog. You're one of us.

PickUp are creating a wonderful on-stage relationship as they decide which one of them is really sexier and smarter. I'm looking forward to seeing how their stage story develops and grows, especially as they are beginning to find a loyal audience who are going to obsessively love them a bit too much.

What Melbourne Loved in 2018, part 10

Three amazing women today who all work (mostly) in independent theatre.

Emilie Collyer
Playwright, dramaturg and curious human

Emilie Collyer. Photo by Ross Daniels

Favourite moments in 2018
My favourite moment was watching Sheree Stewart's show Pilepileta at Theatre Works as part of Melbourne Fringe. A gut punching and also uplifting piece that was everything Fringe is about for me. New voices. New words. New ways of telling stories.

Other moments that have stayed with me are: Kai Bradley's incredible monologue about violence in Rachel Perks and Bridget Balodis's (double water sign) Moral Panic, Peta Murray's intimate and affecting work vigil/wake at Arts House, the power and devastation of Bighouse Dreaming by Declan Furber Gillick (directed by Mark Wilson), and Janelle Da Silva's unclassifiable and ground breaking show Frankghanistan at the Melbourne comedy festival.

Looking forward to in 2019
The real gems will pop during the year of course. But of things I know about, I am excited to see Queer Lady Magician by Creatrix Tiara. I missed it at Fringe so am thrilled it's having another life at Midsumma. Also looking forward to The Butch Monologues at Theatre Works for Midsumma, Jenny Kemp directing Caryl Churchill's Escaped Alone at Red Stitch and the collaboration between Alison Croggon and The Rabble,  My Dearworthy Darling, at Malthouse.

SM: Emilie's play Contest really needs a second season, but what I love this year about Emilie is that she sees lots of shows. She knows so much about indie theatre in Melbourne because she's out there seeing it and supporting it.


Alia Vryens
One half of comedy duo PickUp

Alia Vyrens. Photo by Jamie Breen, Very Serious Photography

Favourite moments in 2018
Jude Perl's I Have a Face really got me in the guts. The show was light and incredibly skilled. Jude's composition is so unusual and delightful... but really it all boiled down to the last song, which really hit me when she sang about being in a group of your friends and still feeling alone.

I don't often cry in theatre, let alone comedy cabaret, but Telia Nevile's Untitled No. 7 was the show I saw right after Jude's, on the same night. It was a fairy tale about the dangers of being cursed with a knowledge that you are special and deserve to be gifted the golden key to success. This also suckered me in the guts... so many of us independent artists are striving, pushing, working, running, climbing to reach this level of 'success' that I'm not sure everyone really understands. Both of these shows, back to back, made me reassess myself a little, and made me desperate for a wine.

 Zoë Coombs Marr's Bossy Bottom. As an aspiring comedian, I'm in awe of what Zoe did with this show. It was clever and funny and crafty and stupid and intelligent and personal and witty and genius. It was everything that I hope to one day make.

Looking forward to in 2019
My favourite types of performance are when genres are smashed together, when comedy is staged and crafted as intelligently as "real" theatre, and moves and impacts you just as much as something serious. I love it when music can play an integral part of the storytelling, and when the laughs make you think about something new. So, I'm mostly looking forward to the fringe stuff in 2019. I don't get excited by a lot of big shows (honestly, I can't afford to see any of it...),  I'm excited by the independent artists working in festivals or doing it on their own, smashing ideas around and making beautiful things inside incredibly limited budgets.

 But if I have to answer in one sentence? I have to be self-serving and say PickUp's, new show –Nerds are Sexy (for MICF at The Butterfly Club) – and the evolution of our long-running music variety night Funny Music Mondays.

SM: This week's Christmas Funny Music Monday was the just fabulous – seeing Sammy J and Randy back at the B Club was special – and my birthday was on a Monday this year. Being a significant age, there was an assumption that I'd do something and I was never going to get to it. So, a free show with awesomely funny people at a club that serves great cocktails was perfect! Funny Music Mondays is back next year.

Jean Tong
Writer, dramaturg

Jean Tong

Favourite moments in 2018
The Fall at Arts Centre Melbourne. Brilliant, heart-wrenching, relevant. It comes with my favourite Q&A moment that saw the audience being told that white people should hang tight and give POC space to ask their questions first... followed by three white ladies taking up the full Q&A time with zero hesitation. SPACE. Who gets to take it up?

Highlights: seeing Prize Fighter multiple times while audio describing the show; getting drunk and watching the baby onstage disrupt/become the performance in Baby Cake; watching an audience full of Potter fans absolutely losing it for Puffs silliest/funniest gags.

Looking forward to in 2019
Watching Anchuli Felicia King take over Melbourne and Sydney theatre, and inevitably the rest of Australia, too.

Truly Madly Britney by Stage Moms; Mama Alto and Maude Davey's Gender Euphoria; Third Nature by Raina Peterson and Govind Pillai; Beast by Krishna Istha – Midsumma 2019 delivering the goods.

Hopefully seeing the sector take responsibility for its abusive power structures. Not just the big names getting (finally) outed, but the directors who condoned that behaviour, the ADs who prioritise box office over the safety of their employees, a hierarchy which disempowers people from being honest out of fear of reprisal, etc.

SM: Watching Jean develop as one of our most exciting new playwrights has been a highlight for me this year. I saw Romeo is not the only fruit, Hungry Ghosts and After Hero (co-writer). An indie, a main stage and a university show. Each one exploring stories and that are missing from our stages.

But listen to what she says about making space for voices. And do it. Making space means that sometimes some of us have to shut up, even if it's about something we want to scream about. Often,  best way to support is to stand aside and let other people speak.

MICF: #PickUp

#PickUp
Enter Closer & Crowded
1 April 2018
Tasma Terrace
to 8 April
comedyfestival.com.au

Colin and Alia are in a polyamorous relationship and are happy to answer any questions about being poly or about sex; they've done "all the fun things", and maybe a few of the dumb things.

Rock parody, with electric ukulele and guitar, and stories about sex, from the amazing to the serious,  awkward and wonderfully hilarious. Sex IS funny; they have a song about that. And they are as damn sexy as they are funny.

They have all of my enthusiastic consent, and I learnt some new words.

As the content changes based the audience – you can text them a live question and they promise to personally answer any they miss – each night has a different vibe. Last night, they couldn't answer what type of lube is safe for heritage wallpaper, but there was a terrific conversation about being asexual.

And it's made all the better by being in Tasma Terrace in a heritage parlour that feels like we should be reading Pride and Prejudice and drinking tea; I know I'm not alone in thinking that's sexy. 

Give: Andi's Lyme Light

Andi Snelling is a Melbourne actor. She's great. She's also dealing with chronic illness and needs some help.

If every SM reader gave $1 (or $10), it would help get her closer to her goal. Here's the link to her MyCause page.





Here are some pics (by Sarah Walker) from her not-a-spare-seat-in-the-house fundraiser at the Wesley Ann.

Andi Snelling with Tash York. Photo by Sarah Walker

Astrid & Otto. Photo by Sarah Walker

Alia Vryens & Colin Craig. Photo by Sarah Walker

Dolly Diamond. Photo by Sarah Walker

Andi Snelling with Charlotte Strantzen & raffle prizes. Photo by Sarah Walker

Mini review: May and Alia do Pirates

May and Alia do Pirates (of Penzance)
La Mama
18 June 2014
La Mama Courthouse
to 29 June
lamama.com.au

It's taken me three seasons to finally see May and Alia do Pirates (of Penzance). And now that the La Mama Courthouse is in cabaret setting with tables and drinks, it's a perfect time for G&S fans to take heart and tarantara along.

The premise is simple: the only people who turn up to perform Gilbert and Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance are best friends May Jasper (from Not a very good story) and Alia Vryens. They decide to do the show anyway.

Well, most of it. The bits they can sing anyway (Mabel has to be played by a ladle because they can't reach those high notes). And they have to do the fun songs that involve moustaches, pirate hats and boaters. And the songs that can be played by sock puppets. And, naturally, some of those songs are begging to be sung in a very non-Sullivan way.

Mabel the ladle and sock puppets; what could possibly go wrong?

Nothing really. Apart from Alia busting the best boom box ever seen on a stage.

With Eva Johansen (Caravan of Love) directing, the comedy is tight and the clowning is allowed to reveal some heart.

It's assumed that the audience known their Pirates – which is a pretty safe assumption – but there's room to share more of the story, and maybe make their own stage story run parallel to a ridiculous Gilbert plot or tell us more about why they love G&S. And they don't need to be scared about filling the room with sound; those Courtroom rafters can suck away a lot of voice.

It's a hoot for G&S fans (yes, there's a sing-along bit), but fun enough for those who don't get the paradox joke. (Although, "pair of Docs" was pretty funny.)