What Melbourne Loved in 2017, part 5

Part 5 is brought to us by Sam and Matilda from Lab Kelpie because they have the best headshots.

Lyall Brooks
Actor
Artistic Director, Lab Kelpie 

Lyall Brooks

Favourite moments in 2017
The short answer is “new Australian writing”. Whether it was a production, a development or reading, or just a script – the breadth and quality and incisiveness and timeliness of the local voices I experienced this year blew me away.

The production of Kim Ho’s Mirror’s Edge, directed by Petra Kalive and performed with buckets of talent and passion by a bunch of Melbourne Uni students, was phenomenal. A brave expanse of ideas that crossed eras and skimmed its perfectly formed text across both a figurative pond of magical realism – and a literal onstage lake. It warmed my heart and poked my brain and made me cheer.

I also loved the silliness and charm of the only Melbourne Fringe show I was in town for, The Lounge Room Confabulator’s Survival Party. With my favourite dog on my right and my favourite cat lady on my left*, I laughed myself a damn headache for over an hour of what was basically a microcosm of Fringe: raw, sometimes-miss-but-mostly-hit, form-pushing and joyous theatre.

I got to glimpse a lot of unproduced work this year, too. Scripts by Emilie Collyer, Emina Ashman, Dianne Stubbings and Katy Warner (among others) all excited me – and Lonely Company’s brilliant Beta Fest: Theatre in Various States of Undress was an inspiring exhibition of new works currently under construction, and Lonely Company deserve a HUGE huzzah for making it happen.

[Self Promotion #1…] Personally, being a part of Patricia Cornelius’s Big Heart this year, as Theatre Works Associate Artist and the luckiest assistant director alive to work and learn under Susie Dee, was also one of my favourite moments (if a moment can still be spread over the months-long process). It was a big, brave work with both a beautiful team and relentless challenges, and I learned so much being on the other side of the table for once.

I could bang on for pages about what I loved this year, but I’ll stop.

No, sorry, one more thing.

Even though they weren’t in Melbourne, some of the theatre Adam and I saw overseas in 2017 (Small Town Boy by Maxim Gorki and Situation Rooms by Rimini Protokoll in Berlin, Cheese by Java Dance Theatre in New Zealand) and interstate (Bitch: The Origin of the Female Species by Edith Podesta at Brisbane Festival) made us stupidly excited about the potential of the form back home.

Looking forward to in 2018
The general answer is the same: New Australian stuff. Patricia’s long overdue mainstage debut, The House of Bernada Alba, finally catching Picnic at Hanging Rock at Malthouse, Jean Tong’s Hungry Ghosts, and all the vibrant indie stuff Melbourne does so freeking well.

[Self Promotion #2…] Lab Kelpie has a massive 2018 ahead with two new major works: Petra Kalive’s Oil Babies and the Victorian premiere of Mary Anne Butler’s Broken, on top of three or four shows in development and a national tour of A Prudent Man. This is only partly a plug! I genuinely am so looking forward to a MAD year presenting and developing new projects and working on building new avenues of support for our local theatre writers.

SM: There were Lyall's undies and his snot – and the rest of Spencer. But I'm going for his Frank in Merrily We Roll Along. And Sam.  I haven't met Matilda.

* I know who it is.

Keith Gow
Playwright, reviewer

Keith Gow

Favourite moments in 2017
Wild Bore was an absolute marvel of satire and craft and pure theatrical madness. I laughed so much it hurt, and then it gave me so much to think about in regard to theatre criticism and the conversation between critic and artist. Whenever I’ve written a review since, I’ve interrogated my point of view more and tried even harder to dig in to what the artist was striving for, whether it worked for me or not. I’m so thrilled this show has travelled far and wide this year.

Nanette was so simple and so powerful and would have always been so, but in the year of the marriage equality survey, it had so much resonance throughout the community. Stand-up comedy can be so immediate and respond to politics and society in a way traditional forms of theatre cannot because of its lengthy development process. This, though, is the culmination of Hannah Gadsby’s stand-up career; a show she has been writing and not writing for her whole career. Astonishing and brave and remarkable. And, as with Wild Bore, I’m glad this show has toured all over the place.

Looking forward to in 2018
I’m looking forward to Stephen Nicolazzo and Eugyeene Teh and Katie Sfetkidis being let loose at MTC for Abigail’s Party. I’m excited for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, also at MTC. The Malthouse line-up looks thrilling from beginning to end, but I am hanging out for Melancholia, Blackie Blackie Brown and the shows from Belarus Free Theatre.

Outside the main stages, I want to see Strangers in Between at Midsumma, directed by Daniel Lammin. And whatever is happening at Theatre Works, which had a really great 2017.

SM: Keith is a writer who sees and supports a LOT of independent theatre. I read his reviews and they often influence my choice to see a work, especially if it's new writing.

Tom Middleditch
Playwright, director

Tom Middleditch

Favourite moments in 2017
Awakening, remounting  MUST's season last year. It's rare to find a work that speaks for teenagers across the ages, corrects the faults of the original text while making the heart of said original stand strong. Vibrant, unapologetic, necessary, it's the sort of work that reminds you what we were really in danger of in the teen years, and fondly remembers those who didn't get to tell the tale themselves.

Germinal, as part of the Melbourne Festival. As a lover of Absurdism and anything involving the universe, I was sold from the blurb alone. What I wasn't expecting was the most joyful experience in theatre I've had in years. It collects its silly moments like the grandest and most adorably astute Absurdist on the open mic and climaxes, making not so much a point but a celebration of the stuff that just happened. Also, the joy of seeing a group of actors take to the Malthouse stage with pickaxes and ramming trees through the stage had me giggling for a good long time.

Looking forward to in 2018
Top of the list is The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime (which is here years before I expected), telling a neurodiverse story that will be the genre and pop culture reference point for those on the spectrum for years to come, and on which all evolution towards acceptance and empathy will sprout from.

I'm also pumped for Jean Tong's Hungry Ghosts at the MTC. Seeing our generation of theatre makers and playwrights get the main stage attention they deserve is vindicating, and after catching their work in the Poppy Seed festival, Jean is one of the voices I want front and centre of this new wave.

SM: Tom's Alexithymia recently premiered at the Poppy Seed Festival. Full of heart and understanding, and I really hope it gets the chance for some development and another season. So much of power of theatre is seeing the world through different eyes;  writes neurodiverse characters and stories that remind us that we all see and understand the world differently.

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2016
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What Melbourne Loved in 2017, part 4

Part 4 is artists to keep a keep eye on.


Jean Tong
Writer/director

Jean Tong selfie.
(Send me pet pics and I will always use them.)

Favourite moments in 2017
So many people are going to say this (as they should, too), but Hannah Gadsby's Nanette tops any performance experience I've had this year. I sat by myself in a packed room and wept for an hour at MICF. Never before and not since have I felt myself so thoroughly torn apart, seen and loved at the same time in a work. I was a wreck for the next week; it's an astonishing work for its truths and the skill with which it presents those truths. It was incredible to see comedy opened up in that way and sweep the floor of... basically any work ever made.

The only other show that came close to being as intelligent, as well-made, and as heart-crushing was Joel Bray's Biladurang at Melbourne Fringe. The performance was gorgeous, and the gentleness with which it opened up the space between audience, performer, city and story was just so absolutely stunning. The extremely limited capacity meant not many people managed to get to it, but fingers crossed it returns because I want everyone to see it.

Looking forward to in 2018
post's Ich Nibber Dibber at Malthouse. They're so funny and irreverent and clever and I love everything they do solo/together.

Not a specific show, but I'm very excited to see what MTC Next Stage program will bring. Benjamin Law, Leah Purcell and Patricia Cornelius all on commission at the same time? Local fave Natesha Somasundaram a resident? It's all too much good at the same time, the industry might break.

SM: Every moment of Jean's Romeo is Not the Only Fruit. This new work has just finished it's Poppyseed Festival run at The Butterfly Club. Can someone please make sure that Jean and this show get some serious development money and another huge season (with the same cast). It's the subversive satirical lesbian musical we need. So many new works disappear; this one has to be helped only bigger stages. And I'm really looking forward to seeing her Hungry Ghosts at MTC next year.

Bradley Storer
Cabaret performer/future DILF

Bradley Storer

Favourite moments in 2017
In terms of sheer shock, one of my favourite moments from theatre this year was the now infamous opening night of Cabaret where during the title number Chelsea Gibb’s microphone cut out and she was forced to leave and re-enter the stage – chaos with the director of the show Gale Edwards yelling instructions from the audience and Paul Capsis forced to vamp until microphone adjustments could be made. Only for Gibb to re-enter and have the microphone start cutting out again! The audience was on its feet roaring and cheering in full support, and it was one of those rare moments where the entire audience was deeply, viscerally connected to a performer valiantly struggling onstage. Gibb not only rose above but knocked it out of the park, and I don’t think I’ll ever hear that song the same way ever again.

I’m sure so many will mention the incredible 24-Decade History of Popular Music with Taylor Mac, and there were too many mind-blowing moments to recount here. Although bursting into unexpected tears after 40 minutes of being forced to wear a blindfold was a highlight, the moment I cling to came in the very last chapter at the edge of the seventies. After we’d survived an orgasmic Cold War between two gigantic phalluses, and celebrated with a joyful and rapturous backroom orgy to Prince’s "Purple Rain", we were called to imagine us all collapsed in post-coital bliss on the floor of the backroom, our exhausted breaths climbing into the air to create the opening strains of Laurie Anderson’s classic "O Superman" – a post-modern jumble of images and confusion, strange voices calling out prophecies in the darkness of planes coming, tender and pained cries to be held by a mechanized and distant mother with "petrochemical arms". A giant spot light seared through the audience as though it was piercing directly into our souls. And I started crying so uncontrollably hard I had the poor unfortunate people around me asking if I was alright.

Looking forward to in 2018
All I’m hoping to see in theatre next year is things that surprise me!

SM: I saw Bradley every night at Taylor Mac and we've talk about it every time we've seen each other since.  One day, we may be able to explain all the tears; if we ever really undersatnd them ourselves.

John Collopy
Lighting designer 

John Collopy. Photo by Stephen Amos

Favourite moments in 2017
This is hard as a lot of them have been shows I have been lucky enough to be working and learning on. I loved The Rabble's Joan even more for being privy to such a fulfilling and exciting creative process, and Little Ones Theatre's Merciless Gods consistently broke me, even though I would have seen it dozens of times. Learning from designers and creatives at the top of their game was a personal highlight and a great privilege.

That said, the standout moment for me was watching Away at Malthouse. When the massive transition began, the Year 12 Drama students around me gasped, turned to each other, and collectively went “faaarrrkkkkk”, and then giggled with pure excitement as the stage was completely transformed (which was, I think, a ‘faaarrrkkkkk-worthy’ moment). I think it’s such a key moment in a creative’s life, to be awed by something; and it was wonderful to know that they had just had that moment.

Looking forward to in 2018
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, at MTC, for its telling of neurodiverse stories (even if the author won’t admit or label it). Melancholia, at Malthouse, because the film is so beautifully cinematic and seeing how that will happen on stage fills me with many feelings, but mostly those events that will happen which haven’t been announced yet, that are urgent responses to other events which haven’t happened yet.

SM: My favourite moment was getting a favourite from someone I didn't know, but it took me a moment realise that I do know John and have seen his lighting at MUST shows and his beautiful and sharp light for The Nose at this year's Fringe.

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What Melbourne loved in 2016, part 10

Remember that you don't have to write a lot – a sentence can say as much as an essay – and that your reflections, memories and wishes don't have to be about a specific show or performance. It could be an overheard comment in an interval, a thought the next day or anything that gave you that jolt that says "this is why we do this".

Maxim Boon
arts writer, reviewer

Maxim Boon

MB's favourite moments in Melbourne theatre in 2016: Doing a (not so) little audit of all the bloody wonderful things I've had the good fortune to see this year has been a real tonic. 2016 is a year many people will be happy to see the back of, myself included, but this exercise has definitely added a silver lining to the big, black, intolerant, fact-free clouds that the past 12 months have stirred up.

Witling down a list of favourites has been hard, so forgive the indulgence of citing so many top moments.

As I’ve scanned my memory for the shows that touched me the most this year, one stands head and shoulders above the rest: Wit at fortyfivedownstairs. Margaret Edson's Pulitzer-worthy text about an academic dying of cancer is, of course, an excellent springboard, but the triumph of the Artisan Collective’s production is predominantly thanks to the utterly transcendent performance of Jane Montgomery Griffiths. Words feel inadequate to properly summarise the power of that extraordinary night of theatre, but suffice to say, I have rarely felt as profoundly altered as I did walking out after this show. I was with my husband Toby and as we stepped out onto Flinders Street, neither one of us could talk,because we knew if either of us uttered a single syllable we would both have broken and unravelled. We hugged for a minute or two and summoned an Uber. Even thinking about it now is pushing me dangerously close to sobbing onto my keyboard. Jane, if you ever happen to read this, I cannot thank you enough.

I’m a passionate believer that Indigenous narratives must be a vital presence in our theatres, as it brings First Nation stories into an environment that is largely skewed white and socioeconomically privileged. Three shows this year were particularly striking for the way in which they galvanised the duality of the contemporary Indigenous experience, which simultaneously reacts to the zeitgeist while anchored to historical injustice. Ilbijerri Theatre's presentation of Jacob Boehme’s frank yet affirming exploration of being black, gay and HIV-positive in Australia, Blood On The Dance Floor, offered a view of Aboriginal life that is rarely seen, articulated in a way that was powerfully and beautifully realised. Nakkiah Lui’s Blaque Showgirls and hip-hop cabaret Hot Brown Honey both told defiant and gloriously shameless stories of what it means to be a woman of colour in a society that still clings to colonial ideals.

On the smallest scale, some great solo shows graced Melbourne's stages this year. Lab Kelpie's production of Douglas Rintoul's Elegy, based on interviews of gay men living in insurgency held Iraq, was not only a slick and resourceful staging (especially the excellent sound design by Russell Goldsmith), but also a potently affecting performance by Nick Simpson-Deeks; I left feeling shaken and ashamed and enlightened. The always masterful Susie Dee’s production of Harry Melling's Peddling, featuring an astonishingly committed performance by Darcy Brown, was a gut-punch of a show; superb storytelling executed fearlessly. Brilliant Brit playwright Duncan Macmillan’s Every Brilliant Thing, co-written and performed by Jonny Donahoe, made me laugh all the way through and sob all the way home, the kind of production that busts you open with that bittersweet joyful sorrow that only theatre can tap.

Feminist theatre, another area of the art form I feel passionately protective of, also enjoyed some excellent turns this year. Nic Green and Laura Bradshaw's Trilogy, offered probing, eccentric, gloriously irascible and occasionally naked perspectives on feminist philosophies in a show that is as potent and relevant today as it was when the pair first staged it ten years ago. Patricia Cornelius’s Shit, revived at fortyfivedownstairs following its sold-out debut season, was a brutal, bold, touching, confronting and thought provoking instigation. That Cornelius's work is so rarely recognised by Australia's major state theatre companies is, for lack of better words, fucking maddening.

Finally, this year’s Poppy Seed Theatre Festival showed why emerging theatre-makers must be championed in a space where they can flex their creative muscles, make mistakes, try things out and hone their craft. From this year’s excellent quartet of works, Three Birds Theatre's LadyCake and Riot Stage's F. were impressively accomplished in their thinking and execution, despite being fledgling works made on shoestring budgets.

Honourable Mentions

Paul Capsis in Resident Alien: a superbly observed study of Quentin while retaining the ineffable fabulousness of Capsis.
Belarus Free Theatre, Burning Doors: a model for any and all political theatre-makers.
Dance North, If____Was____ :  a nifty concept with genuinely breathtaking results.
Malthouse Theatre, Picnic At Hanging Rock: Matt Lutton may not always be the theatre-maker we want, but he is definitely the theatre-maker we need.
Vic Theatre Company, 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee: face-aching grins guaranteed.
NTS/Melbourne Festival, Our Ladies Of Perpetual Succour: Cum-filled submarine; need I say more?

PS: Maxim forgot this one.
On the smallest scale, some great solo shows graced Melbourne’s stages this year. Leading the pack was the world premiere season of Katy Warner’s incisively observed A Prudent Man, at the Melbourne Fringe Festival. Featuring a faultless Lyall Brooks as a right-wing politician negotiating a public scandal, both the writing and the performance were nothing short of forensic in capturing this political archetype with such pin-sharp accuracy.

What MB is looking forward to in 2017: Malthouse Theatre's 2017 season makes me feel physically giddy. It's innovative, it's unapologetic in its motives, it's bolshy and it's proudly nonconformist. While MTC cements its reputation as the most cynically pandering presenter in Victoria, Malthouse continues to ensure Melbourne's more discerning theatre lovers are sated. I am especially excited about Lutton's new adaptation of The Elephant Man, as I am, to be blunt, a big ol' Matt Lutton fan boy and have adored both adaptations from this year’' season.

Fortyfivedownstairs will also present plenty to get excited about next season, especially Trainspotting Live and Ben Gerrard in I Am My Own Wife, both early on in the year.

SM: Reviewers often deal with restricted word counts, so it's nice to write as much has you want. And Maxim generally writes longer reviewers that are detailed discussion rather than a pull quote and star rating. This great discussion reminded me of a few brilliant shows that I saw but didn't review and made me regret missing a couple more.

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What Melbourne loved in 2016, part 7

Today we here from Penny Harpham from She Said Theatre, Morgan Rose – whose show F.  runs until 11 December – and Kerith Manderson-Galvin – whose show 186,000 runs until 17 December.

Morgan Rose
playwright

Morgan Rose

MR's favourite moments in Melbourne theatre in 2016: This is easy. Conviction (Zoey Dawson and Declan Greene and, holy shit, Ruby Hughes). All the way. Made me feel every feeling there is: fear, joy, disgust, anger, jealousy, confusion, awe ... and more. It made some people uncomfortable because she writes about herself (which we all do, but she doesn't try to keep it a secret); isn't that just a really hilarious thing for people to be upset about? I say keep doing it until their heads bust open.

Incomparably different, but equally as moving was Nic Green's Trilogy at Artshouse. I wept, and I'm not a weeper. I don't know what I was feeling, I'd never felt it before, it doesn't have a name, but it was uncontainable. Seeing a bunch of women, naked, beautiful, unphotoshopped, dancing, and proud in their skin was like seeing the truth for the first time ever. Hmmmm...maybe that new unnamable feeling was just the absence of shame.

Oh! I also say Mammalian Diving Reflex's All the Sex I Ever Had at the Sydney Festival last January; it was probably in my top-three shows ever. A group of seniors sat at a table on stage and told us their entire sex lives, year by year starting at birth. It made me want to never write a play again because people talking unscripted about real things is so much better than anything any playwright could dream up.

What MR is looking forward to in Melbourne theatre in 2017: Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again. at Malthouse. Stephen Nicolazzo's direction of The Moors at Red Stitch.  She Said's Fallen (although we will all have to travel to NSW see it).

SM: I saw F. on Wednesday night (the last show of the Poppyseed Festival). Morgan wrote it in conjunction with a cast of amazing young people. It's a chance to get into teenagers heads and see the world from their points of view. Some parts of being a young adult today still scare me, but overall this work made me remember that young adults are pretty good at navigating and negotiating the world they live in and it left me feeing positive about a future that's going to be shaped by these people. It finishes on December 11.

Kerith Mandseron-Galvin
playwright

Kerith Manderson-Glavin. Photo by Cam Matheson "who captures me in photos the way I see myself"

KMG's favourite moments in Melbourne theatre in 2016: Church at Melbourne Fringe. All of it, but, particularly, crying with absolute joy and for one small moment freedom while singing “Natural Woman” with the Divine Femme Choir. That night I felt community and hope.

Luke Devine’s Work Bitch at Hot Hot Hot. It should be put on again and everything Luke has written should be published and put in your letter boxes. It’s nice to get mail from time to time.

DJ Donna Quixote, aka me, djing at Blue Room’s Silent Disco at Perth Fringe. Watching everyone change their silent discos away from my channel and the few that remained dance in a frenzy.

James Chance, oh my goodness, James Chance. I mean he was really, very good. Feeling like I understood music or it understood me.

The time Loretta Miller of Jazz Party removed an item of clothing at a gig and it was pure theatre. Also her costume change at the Rock and Roll Graveyard single launch.

Casey Jenkin's Programmed to Reproduce at FOLA was hard and necessary and sad and so smart and meticulous and beautiful.

Titanic was a great movie when it came out and I saw it twice but Dopplegangster's Titanic was better. Wow. World class. First class. I hope so much it happens again and again.

Gob Squad’s War and Peace or being on stage in it and so supported in a position that would usually have me running off stage, or more likely sitting quietly and disappearing. I felt safe and happy.

And finally.

Your Ever Illusory Hosts *Jimay Falcon & Sh'Gazey A Game Show Extravaganza. I smiled all night long and the corners of my mouth are turning up again when I think about how much I loved that night.

What KMG is looking forward to in Melbourne theatre in 2017: I actually haven’t thought about it one bit. So that’s something.

SM: I so wish I'd been at War and Peace the night Kerith was on stage (Chris was). She's just finished her Masters at VCA and her new show 186,000 opens this week and runs until 17 December. I haven't seen it yet and am trying to find a free night.

And another terrific photo that captures the person how she really looks; it's lovely to know that Kerith sees herself how the world sees her.

15 December

I saw 186,000 last night. It's gentle and loving and shares young queer voices that are too often ignored on our stages and in our lives. The verbatim text is on screen and recorded, and the four people on the stage share their own stories. The structure comes from the staging and the movement; it's almost hypnotic. And the queer western femme dream design is gorgeous.

Penny Harpham
co-founder and co-Artistic Director, She Said Theatre

Penny Harpham. Photo by Lachlan Woods

PH's favourite moment in Melbourne theatre in 2016: For me it would be in Influx's new work, Animal, presented at Theatre Works, created and performed by Kate Sherman and Nicci Wilks and directed by Susie Dee. There is a moment towards the end of Animal where he two female performers climb and crawl all over the set, which is made entirely of stacks and stacks of solid industrial containers, and it seems to transform in front of you as the containers at the very back of the stage reveal themselves to be not solid, but full of water. One of the performers drags the other into the container and violently drowns her. The lights shift so that as her body goes limp the lights blur and darken and though we know we are watching a performance, the performer is now floating lifelessly in anonymity at the back of the stage.

It is both a masterstroke of stage craft, but also a visceral attack on the senses. It made me think of all the women who had been killed by their partners this year. It made me think of Eddie Maguire saying on national radio that AFL journalist Caroline Wilson should "drown herself".  It made me realise how powerful and strong and vulnerable and brave women are and how we are forced to shrink in this world in order to survive under this suffocating, relentless, Trump-filled patriarchy. It made me realise how a moment of live performance can leave me reeling and angry and charged and aware of the macro and micro and it made me want to make work that did for other people.

What PH is looking forward to in Melbourne theatre in 2017: 
I'm very excited about the Yirramboi First Nations Arts Festival, 5-14 May. Jacob Boehme is one of the country's most exciting and versatile performance makers and I'm so excited to see the program he has curated take over the city in May. Also, Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again at Malthouse sees an almost all female team explore (or perhaps attack?) language and violence against women with a cultural diverse cast and some of my favourite creatives including Emma Valente and Marg Horwell.

SM: I love that She Said Theatre is getting lots of mentions this year. My favourite moment was seeing how HART had developed and changed since its first season. What a show!

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Reminder: What Melbourne Loved 2016

It's time to send your favourite to me. Really. I don't have enough for a series yet.

10 November 2016

So, yesterday happened and the lump in the world's heart is palpable.

Blessed, Matt Hickey, Olivia Monticcicolo. Phtoto by Sarah Walker

I went to the theatre and saw Blessed, a gorgeously dark and loving play by Attic Erratic (written by Fleur Kilpatrick, directed by Danny Delahunty). It's about finding the holy in unexpected places and people, which is where god always knew it was hidden. For an hour, a room full of people could be in a world that wasn't yesterday's world. It felt good.

At the party after, which was celebrating the launch of the second Poppy Seed Festival, I watched Ross Wilson (Daddy Cool, Mondo Rock) sing a song I remember pashing to as teenager and then he danced to a Madonna song with a group of 40-something women. And the world felt right for a while.

There's been a loud call to bring "What Melbourne Loved" back and today is an excellent day to remind ourselves of the power and anger and the hope and healing of theatre and art.

To take part, email me your answers to:

What was your favourite moment in Melbourne theatre in 2016?
It could be a show, a performance, an overheard comment in an interval, a thought the next day or anything that gave you that jolt that says "this is why we do this".

I know some of you like to write a lot, but try to keep it succinct, because there's a second questions this year.

What are you looking forward to in Melbourne theatre in 2017?
It could be something that is programmed to happen or something that you wish for.

Also send me your favourite photo of you and credit the photographer if you can.

I've just read though the past years and, dammit, we've got so many amazing people working, living and passing through this city. I can't wait to start reading and sharing. They'll start in December.

If you haven't contributed before, please do.

And please get a lot to me by the end of November. I'll keep going in December until we run out, but I need a lot to get us started. If you see something amazing after you've done yours, we can update.

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