What Melbourne Loved in 2021 (and 2020), part 2

Today we see hear from long-time Sometimes Melbourne regulars Fluer Kilpatrick and Stephen Nicolazzo.

Stephen Nicolazzo
Little Ones Theatre
Director, teacher, high camp, high stakes

Stephen Nicolazzo riding to work

What theatre/art/creative experience did you love the most 2021 (or 2020)?
I had two incredibly satisfying creative experiences in 2020 and 2021 in spite of Corona (the pandemic, not the 1990s techno singer). The first being our pivot from a live stage adaptation of Christos Tsiolkas’s Loaded into an audio experience. Working so deeply and closely with Dan Giovannoni and Christos on the script over the course of two years, it felt vital to bring the show to life in what ever way we could. Originally we were going to be in the Beckett theatre, then the Malthouse Outdoor Stage and when things took a turn for the worse, I knew we couldn’t let our baby fade into oblivion. So, we decided to explore a new form, focusing on text, audio design and composition; creating the world of Loaded through the audience’s ears. It was an incredible experience. Rehearsing, recording, editing, mixing, composing over the course of 8 weeks of lockdown. Luckily during this time we had the privilege of bubble buddies, so I basically moved in with sound designer Daniel Nixon and we worked into the night developing the sonic experience of this one person show. It was truly liberating. It was like creating a film without pictures. It was a godsend in a time where producing work felt uncertain and more unstable than usual. I learned a lot and felt incredibly proud of the result. It was a true test of creative limits and that felt like a lesson worth learning in a time of darkness.

The second was my first live outing after 6 months locked away – Considerable Sexual License, Joel Bray’s immersive dance theatre work. Getting to be in a space again and not only putting on a show but making one designed to have the entire audience dancing and participating was truly inspiring and emotional. Getting to watch audience after audience dancing around Northcote Town Hall to Donna Summer over the course of May was a true highlight and one I will cherish for as long as I live.

What surprised you about finding new ways to make art in locked-down worlds?
The surprising thing was that it meant you could delve deeper into the world of the work – develop and question from the comfort of your home. I was in development for Looking for Alibrandi, Loaded, Considerable Sexual License and The Monkey’s Mask over the course of these two hellish years and what I found so humbling was that instead of rushing works to the stage they were given space to grow and develop and shine with time and rigorous focus. The thing that was most surprising during this period was the clarity – not being muddied by self doubt or reviews or box office – there was something really special about just being able to make the art again and not listen to the noise around you.

What did you do to stay connected to your arts community?
I kept working. I made work. I taught at Monash and VCA and Collarts and was constantly engaging with young artists and watching them make INCREDIBLE online art. For me, it was my connection to young people that really kept me engaged with the art; their perspectives and experiences of the pandemic gave me a real insight into the pain this pandemic caused emerging dreamers. All I wanted to do as a result was continue to try and inspire them – every day – even if I didn’t want to get out of bed in the morning, or had drank myself to sleep the night before.

What are you looking forward to in 2022?
I am looking forward to unleashing the projects I have been working on over the last two years. I am looking forward to being in live spaces again and making things that elate audiences post-the-never-ending dampening of our spirits. I am looking forward to watching people dance again on stage – and sharing Looking for Alibrandi (Malthouse and Belvoir) with audiences (if Omicron permits…).

SM: In Stephen's first WML in 2012, he talked about creating without "censorship or fear" and he's still exploring that idea.

Listening to Loaded in my flat in lockdown was a highlight of 2020 for me. I think I enjoyed it more as an audio experience than I might have on the stage because it felt like I was there. I also love that it's now around for ever and not forgotten once its season was over. Considerable Sexual License was another absolute joy, even if I didn't dance. The works Joel and Stephen are creating continue to create glittery and so-pretty words that are supported by darkness and honestly. They address identity, belonging and sexuality in ways that let audiences question everything about themselves by being in someone else's story. 

And I can't forget  Body Horror, an online 1970s horror weirdness created with Monash students for Melbourne Fringe. So much blood.

 

Fleur Kilpatrick
Gardner, grower, spoon maker, teacher, dog whisperer, writer
Creative Producer, Riverland Youth Theatre
https://www.facebook.com/riverlandyouththeatre

 

Fleur Kilpatrick at work in early December

What theatre/art/creative experience did you love the most 2021 (or 2020)?
Sensorium Theatre’s Woosh! At the Chaffey Theatre in Renmark, with a class from Riverland Special School. I went to space for an hour, ate space food, touched squish things, made things beep, smelt things and sung songs. Especially special was seeing the teachers relax as they came to understand that this was an experience made for their class and that the performers were ready for anything and everything.  
 
 What surprised you about finding new ways to make art in locked-down worlds?
Everything about this year surprised me. I am still shocked when I look around and see where I am and how I came to be here. I started the year traumatised and depressed after losing my beloved job and community at Monash Centre for Theatre and Performance (and the Centre itself) to Covid cuts. I lived in a caravan without power. I had nightmares about bumping into colleagues I couldn’t deal with seeing again. I dug holes, pulled weeds and planted trees and grasses and little native ground covers, perhaps 1000 of them, on my little block of land. Then suddenly I had a job, a new community, a new part of the country and a Chaos Monster (dog) and everything changed. I now run Riverland Youth Theatre in beautiful Renmark, South Australia, and I work hard every day to serve my community through art, creativity and play.  

I think the big surprise has been just discovering have valuable artistic skills are to communities. Things that seem so simple and obvious to me (‘Oh you want something else for your Halloween Spooktacular events but don’t know what? Give me a few hundred dollars and I’ll get up some great actors – they have clown training! – to be witches and tell fortunes! Easy!’) are so big and strange to others. (‘So what do I say to the actors? Do we have to write a script or rehearse or something?’ ‘No, this is what they do: they create worlds and interact with people in those worlds. It will be really simple and beautiful.’) Some of the best moments and conversations have come about from community members saying ‘we have this problem’ (for instance, struggling families have nothing to look forward to) ‘can you see a way to help?’ And the answer is always ‘yes’ because art does these things so well.

I think for me, it has been about discovering how special and valuable the tools in any artist’s tool belt are in a community context.  
 
What did you do to stay connected to your arts community?
It was hard. It was hard to stay connected, particularly when my friends were all too ‘zoomed out’. And at the start of the year I was so depressed and then things improved for me and they went back into lockdown. But voice recordings helped. It was like having a phone conversation in slow motion and just when friends wanted to engage. A little message – ‘I’m out walking along Bookmark Creek, oh and that jingle is Betty’s collar. I was thinking of you today when I…’ – a few words of love or a summary of a podcast listened to. For my friend Kat, I found ponds or creeks filled with the sound of frogs and bush birds and sent her little bushland soundscape from the Riverland to Melbourne.  
 
What are you looking forward to in 2022?
I have a passion project I am creating with local children and their guardians called Everything I Know About You And Me, in which they attempt to document their entire relationship through stories, drawings, dancers, jokes and songs. I think that having a creative way to bond and celebrate their relationship and the wins will be good for our vulnerable families. I am looking forward to knowing more about my job and community and river. And to being less scared of budgets and grant applications.

Most of all, I want to see my friends again. I want to hold the people I have barely held in two years – the people I grew up with over 15 years in Melbourne. I want to attend Danny and Lucy’s wedding and feel so full of love for them and celebrate, not only their relationship but that the wedding, postponed so many times, is finally here. I want to raise my glass with you all and say ‘Wow. We did it. You are here and I am here. We are still standing.’  

 SM: When Fleur started at RYT, all I could say was what a perfect job it is for her. It's like it was just waiting for her to come along. 

I've loved seeing Fleur's dog Betty become a more good dog every day though pictures and videos, especially when she does things like make Fleur strip off and jump in the river to save Betty from a kangaroo – even though Betty and the roo didn't need any help. I also love that she likes every photo I post up of my cat, Imado. But my favourite Fleur animal-memory of the last year or so was being too-awake in the middle of the night and seeing on Facebook that Fleur was struggling with a spider in her caravan. I know how she feels about our 8-legged friends and all I could do was be a witness and hope that she didn't burn the caravan, her block of land, and the town down. If we ever need to look for a 2020-21 metaphor, it's the hunstman spider on the curtains in the caravan.

 

 

What Melbourne Loved in 2019, part 6

Katie, Yvonne and Daniel are today's guests.

Every year, people tell me how they are angry at themselves for doing this in their head and not going any further. Remember that all it has to be in one moment (and everyone has their dodgy grammar edited). All you have to do is fill in this form.

Katie Sfetkidis
Artist, lighting designer

Katie Sfetkidis. Photo by Marcel Feillafe

 
Favourite moments in 2019.
2019 has been amazing , even though I was away for a large chunk of the year, I have still see some amazing work!

Raina Peterson and Govind Pillai's Third Nature. One of the most sensual and erotic shows I have ever seen. Just exquisite.

The Rabble's Unwoman. I love this company and I love this show. Visually striking and super political. I found this show incredibly complex and overwhelming. I have such great admiration for these company of incredible women and hope to be able to see this show again.

Sound art at The Substation. This programming at The Substation has been really wonderful this year, highlights wwereas seeing William Basinksi and Merzbow. I also really enjoyed the quirky cabinet of curiosities that was the Violin Generator.

Those who Rock by Joseph O’Farrell (JOF). What a rush! There was something so amazing about seeing hundreds of guitar players from around Melbourne take over the stage at Hammer Hall. Ultimate highlight was the finale; nothing can beat seeing over 300 guitar amps onstage whilst the audience sang along.

Looking forward to in 2020.
I am looking forward to seeing some exciting collaborations for Asia TOPA including post’s Oedipus Schmoedipus and Adena Jacobs's The Seen and Unseen.

Next Wave festival: I just love the theme for this year's festiva' – A Government of Artists and can’t wait to how the artists responds to it.

Also on my list is: K-Box by Ra Champan, Go to Hell with Paul Capsis and iOTA, Torch the Place by Ben Eltham and La Boite’s adaptation of St Joan of The Stockyards directed by Sanja Simic.

For my own work, I can’t wait to work with my best friend and collaborator Stephen Nicolazzo on Orlando and Loaded. Both these works are ultimate favourite texts of mine and it is such a treat to get to reimagine them for the stage.

SM: Katie has been out of Melbourne for most of the year, including with The Director, which was one of my absolute favourite shows from last year. But she was back for Aphids and Mish Grigor's recent Exit Strategies at Arts House. I loved this show for many reasons, including how Katie's lighting defined the distinct spaces on the stage – that corridor of light –, created mood and let us move in time. What we feel when we watch shows is so often created by elements of the design, and so often it's not noticed because it sneaks into our brains unconsciously.

Yvonne Virsik
Director, producer; Artistic Director MUST (Monash Uni Student Theatre)

Yvonne Virsik

Favourite moments in 2019.
Moments, with lots of realisations, in no particular order:

In Slaughterhouse Five, adapted from Vonnegut by Fleur Kilpatrick: when an actor drew a light switch on a blackboard, pressed it and turned all the stage lights off (MUST and Theatre Works).

Realising when watching MTC's Golden Shield that it was a new Australian work of epic scale by a young woman of colour (Anchuli Felicia King), and on The Sumner stage, and one of the best things I felt I had seen all year.

In Gender Euphoria (remounted at MIAF), during Nikki Viveca's monologue: realising that I didn't think I'd ever seen a personal story integrated so beautifully into a cabaret work.

Sharing the pure sheer, generous joy of performance from Jue and Poh in Equation at Signal at Melbourne Fringe.

UnHOWsed (Theatre Works, Tashmadada and Voices of the South Side): realising something on another level about homelessness, particularly during the extended shower sequence.

Those images in Colossus (Stephanie Lake, MIAF /Arts Centre Melbourne remount).

The joyous (seemingly spontaneous) concert in the alley after the final performance of Calamity Jane at Comedy Theatre.

Realising I was experiencing a pure, challenging discomfort in Malthouse's Underground Railroad Game.

Realising just what a brilliant job my table's 'personal banker' was doing, and how reliant we were upon them in the interactive game/performance experience of MUST's Do Not Collect $200 (created by Harley Hefford and team, based on a previous iteration).

Climbers at MUST:written by Elly D'Arcy and co directed by her and Natalie Speechley:  seeing one of the most compelling new texts I've read come to life.

When in the Q & A after A_tistic's Helping Hands at La Mama: man said the show had completely transformed his understanding of his son's neurodiversity and how he would endeavour to communicate with him from now on.

The train scene with the distressed mother and child in Anthem (MIAF): incredibly powerful and disconcerting.

Just some (more) of the shows I loved, in no particular order:

The Bloomshed's Paradise Lost at The Butterfly Club: hilarious, gloriously pointy and brilliantly realised.

Wake in Fright at Malthouse: Pure, electric theatre;the power of text, actor and director powerfully collaborating to crystallize their story.

Cock directed by Beng Oh at fortyfivedownstairs: the power of text, actors and director  collaborating to crystallize their story.

Love and Shit by Dee and Cornelius at fortyfivedownstairs: as above.

Sweet Phoebe directed by Mark Wilson at Red Stitch: as above.

Oil by Ella Hickson, directed by Ella Caldwell at Red Stitch: as above.

I'm a Phoenix, Bitch by Bryony Kimmings at  Arts Centre Melbourne in Melbourne Fringe: devastating story and performance.

Patrick Collins, Mime Consultant: a great, fun, smart, slick show from Patrick and his director, Justin Gardam.

Love + at Melbourne Fringe: a layered, beautifully told story about AI and human interaction

A View from the Bridge at MTC: See MTC, you don't have to have all the bells and whistles, just powerful choices.

Unwoman by The Rabble at The Substation: Those images! And incredible text and performances in act two.

Sublimal Massage by Marcus McKenzie at Melbourne Fringe: a super-sharp provocational unpackign of us and out attitudes to art and pop culture; surreal yet highly accessible.

The Drill by Womens Circus, AD Penelope Bartlau: A stunning, surprising, shared community experience; very special to get the tour of the spaces we didn't see during our particular journey.

Grand Finale by Hofesh Shechter at MIAF:  REQUIRES CAPITALS TO INDICATE ITS PURE THEATRICAL POWER!

Looking forward to in 2020.
You've heard enough from me - all of it!

SM: Yvonne's direction of Dishinbition by Christopher Bryant at MUST. Her direction lets the writer's voice be so clear and she finds ways for her actors (who are often relatively inexperienced) to bring the parts of themselves to the characters that complete the characters.


Daniel Clarke
Executive Producer, Programming at Queensland Performing Arts Centre; on leave from his role as Creative Producer, Theatre and Contemporary Performance at Arts Centre Melbourne

Daniel Clarke

Wake in Fright by Declan Greene and Zahra Newman at Malthouse was an extraordinary work; completely thrilling and so exciting. I literally had jaw-dropping moments throughout the whole piece and I left the theatre shaking. Incredible.

I was completely bowled over by Counting and Cracking by Belvoir at Adelaide Festival. I was moved to tears many times, but also to joy that this story was being told and grateful to Belvoir for investing the resources and care to make it. For me, this was one of the most relevant, contemporary Australian plays in years. A hugely ambitious work; a unique, inspiring, cultural collaboration; a great work that matters now. A work that can speak to so many people; a significant contribution to our culture.

Other highlights include Harry Clayton Wright’s Sex Education, Are we not drawn onward to a new era by Ontroerend Goed and Seasick by Alana Mitchel at Edinburgh Fringe; Noni Hazlehurst and Yael Stone in The Beauty Queen of Leenane at STC;  Battersea Arts Centre’s Frankenstein: How to Make a Monster; Things I know to be True by Andrew Bovell  at Belvoir Street; and Ainsley Melham’s performance in Kiss of the Spider Woman at MTC – what a star!

Oh and how could I not mention Harry Potter and The Cursed Child and Come from Away: both brilliant.

Looking forward to in 2020
Louise Bezzina’s first Brisbane Festival.
Michelle Law’s Miss Peony at Belvoir in Sydney.
Stephen Nicolazzo’s Loaded at Malthouse.
Sisters Grimm’s musical of The Sovereign Wife at Hayes Theatre Company in Sydney..


SM: To say that Dan's had a humongous year is still an understatement. Without him we wouldn't have had Gender Euphoria or Anthem or I'm a Phoenix, Bitch. He finds ways to bring the the best indendepdent artists and theatre to main stages and creates spaces where new work can be developed, never taking "it can't be done" for an answer.

What Melbourne Loved in 2019, part 4

Today we go to indie, funded and opera stages with three SM regulars.

To share your love, all you have to do is fill in this form. The trend this year is long; be free to buck the trend if you want. If you've sent me one and it hasn't been published,  please let me know because there are gremlins in the internet.


Fleur Kilpatrick
Playwright, librettist, director, pot plant parent and person who chats about theatre on the radio

Fleur Kilpatrick. Photo by Sarah Walker

Favourite moments in 2019.
Robot Song’s (Theatre Works) warm tenderness and compassion was theatre at its best. It met its audience where they were, be they children or adults. I think back in particular to the parent characters, who spent most of the play as back up musicians to their child, watching her struggle with the cruelties of the world and unable to make it all right. The gentle ways in which they tried to make magic for and around her as she stood in the centre of the stage will stay with me. I learnt a lot about love watching it.

The beautiful, dreamlike way in which Love/Chamberlain’s (also Theatre Works) script and set spoke to each other still gives me a little shudder. The audience were so still, tipping forward in their seats, leaning into this gentle grief world where two blamed and shamed women – Courtney Love and Lindy Chamberlain – met and shared a moment in a dream desert.

Emma Hall’s World Problems use of past tense, dragging us through time and the gorgeous image of her labouring away to create a trampoline. The sight of her bouncing gently up and down brought back so many memories of childhood hours spent in airborne storytelling. To go straight from this play into a practical response – the night I saw it, a workshop on energy saving in your home – was such a beautiful way to make her imagined world part of our real one.

Looking forward to in 2020.
I don't know. But I hope everyone is nice to each other and we all get some rest.

SM: I recently asked someone "What was the name of Fleur's play about whales that had a whale in it?". "You mean Whale." Yes I did. I loved it. I might not remember names and titles but I remember how I felt during Whale and how I felt after and that Fleur and her team of amazing creators trusted that an audience of strangers would step up every night to make this piece of theatre.


Katie Purvis
Theatregoer, comedy and cabaret lover, sometime critic, radio presenter

Katie Purvis. Photo by Betty Sujecki

Favourite moments in 2019.
In theatres: Barbara and the Camp Dogs at Malthouse broke my heart into tiny pieces; I was thrilled by MTC's A View From A Bridge; Come From Away at the Comedy Theatre made me leap to my feet to applaud and cheer; and I laughed till my face hurt at Nakkiah Lui's Black is the New White at MTC.

At the Melbourne International Comedy Festival: Larry Dean's Bampot was face-achingly funny and unexpectedly poignant; Jude Perl's I Have a Face was seriously great; and I literally laughed till I cried at Lano and Woodley's brilliantly silly Fly.

Musical highlights: It was a privilege to be at Hamer Hall for Deborah Cheetham's Eumeralla : A Requiem for Peace, sung entirely in dialects of the Gunditjmara people and featuring a huge cast of performers (including the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Chorus and the Dhungala Children’s Choir); the prolonged standing ovation was hugely deserved. And it was a joy to see piano man Trevor Jones doing his thing at the 2019 Melbourne Cabaret Festival Closing Party – simply superb, and the best night I had in a performance space all year.

Looking forward to in 2020.
Haus of Hans:Disco Spektaculär at MICF; Grey Arias at Malthouse, featuring Le Gateau Chocolat and Adrienne Truscott; Conchita Wurst and Trevor Ashley in concert at Hamer Hall; and Fun Home at MTC.


SM: Katie is my go-to editor and reader. She understands why I despair because program notes almost never seem to be proofed and are usually filled with grammar mistakes that change the meaning of what the writer is trying to say. Katie also hosts Miss Chatelaine on Joy 94.9 on Sunday mornings; she knows me well enough to know that I am never awake to listen live, but I do listen to some of the on-demand recordings. Yay for on demand.


Paul Selar
Opera critic, the Opera Chaser

Paul Selar. Selfie

Favourite moments in 2019.
Melbourne has generally supported a rather good balance of opera on a variety of scales. The year produced many highlights; however, from the all-important small independent players, it didn’t feel like it was buzzing with the same kind of optimism of recent years. Apart from a sympathetic re-staging of Australian composer Barry Conyngham's 1984 Fly, Lyric Opera of Melbourne have been unaccustomedly quiet and BK Opera seem to epitomise what living hand to mouth from one show to the next is like.

It’s all to do with money. Isn’t it always? Gertrude Opera’s much appreciated hard work behind the scenes is paying off with simple, effective and increasingly impressive production quality. Every opera-loving soul should’ve clogged the roads to get to the company’s Yarra Valley Opera Festival, now in its second year. Two of the year’s best small independent works could have been seen on one day! Jonathan Dove’s, The Enchanted Pig, in its Australian premiere, was a gorgeously slick, infectiously entertaining and superbly sung work. Monteverdi’s almost 370 year-old early baroque opera, Poppea, looked, felt and sounded as fresh as any new theatre. Both were directed with an acute eye for drawing meaningful characters by Gale Edwards.

On a far larger scale, a Rossini rarity got masterpiece treatment, literally, in Opera Australia’s Il Viaggio a Reims from director Damiano Michieletto, whose ingeniously devised production and inventive angle came with a long list of radiant performances. The company also stood out on top in a concert performance of Giordano’s Andrea Chénier, a work often criticised for its thin plot but more than compensated for by splendid musicality. It helped that international star tenor Jonas Kaufmann, who deserves every glowing superlative showered upon him, was there giving layers of magnificently coloured and carved vocals.

Melbourne’s continuing love affair with Wagner resulted in two memorable outings. In Victorian Opera’s Parsifal, director Roger Hodgman brought clarity to every character and subtlety to its strong symbolic and religious overtones and Melbourne Opera, without a penny of taxpayer funding, got the year off to a brilliant start with The Flying Dutchman. Darren Jeffery’s performance as the Dutchman had thunderous heft and stature and the large chorus of sailors and weavers won’t be forgotten. It’ll be hard to forget the company’s production of Bellini’s Norma as well. I saw it three times. Anyone who knows how precious an experience it is to hear soprano Helena Dix sing her proud and glorious high notes would count themselves lucky. And she’s a devilishly good gestural magnet.

Looking forward to in 2020
More Wagner! I feel enormously lucky to live in a city that is up to the challenge of staging Wagner’s sprawling works. We’ll be getting Opera Australia’s Lohengrin, a co-production with Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, with English heldon tenor David Butt Philip making his company debut in the title role. And Melbourne Opera, who have been instrumental in presenting Wagner’s works, have a new production of Das Rheingold up their sleeves. My prediction (it’s already a year old) is that this will be the start of another Ring Cycle for Melbourne. There’s also Victorian Opera’s Salome, Gertrude Opera’s Yarra Valley Festival and news from Lyric  that they haven’t fallen by the wayside.

You can also join me for my 5th Annual OperaChaser Awards on Twitter party to celebrate and honour the exceptional work of opera companies and individuals. It starts at 5 pm on 28 December.

SM: Paul has a job that lets him fly all over the world and see the kind of opera that leaves many of us seething with jealousy. There are so few opera critics in Australia. Without people who know an art form inside out, it's so hard to share why we love it to new audiences and to people who think of opera as stuffy and boring. Some of it IS stuffy and boring, but so much of is isn't. You can read Paul's reviews at operachaser.blogspot.com.

Review & photos: Whale

Whale
Speakeasy
2 May 2019
Northcote Town Hall
to 11 May
darebinarts.com.au

Sonya Suares. Photo by Theresa Harrison

With two works opening within a week of each other in two of Melbourne's significant independent theatre venues, playwright Fleur Kilpatrick might be a bit overwhelmed. Hopefully in a good way. A remount of her remarkable adaption of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five (which she also directed) has just finished at Theatre Works in St Kilda, and Whale – which won the 2018 Max Afford Playwright's Award and was supported by crowd funding – is part of Darebin's Speakeasy program at Northcote.

Whale is participatory theatre.

That's all that a lot of people need to know as they book tickets without a moment's hesitation; the rest are shuddering and deciding to watch TV instead.

But there's no need for fear. Really.

Ok, there's a real need for fear as this work is about climate change, but not about the participatory nature of this night.

Whale is as much about theatre as it is theatre. In Kilpatrick's theatre stories, the audience are, to different degrees, characters and participants as much as observers. Theatre isn't just what happens on the stage, it's how we feel watching it, it's what we talk about afterwards, it's whether we go home and forget it or are still thinking about it days and weeks later. It's what we do.

Whale is all about what we do.

It opens with host Sonya Suares, in a Ted-Talk-suitable vest and matching pants, welcoming everyone as if we know the purpose of our meeting. Meanwhile Sarah Walker takes photos so that this important event is documented. It doesn't take long before we know we've gathered to make a group decision that will end climate change. Pretty good, huh? But there are consequences, and when there's choice, there's disagreement.

But none of this matters if participatory independent theatre saves our world, right? May as well give it a go, because anger and despair aren't working. And we've given up on politics.

Theatre is not a void. And even when knowing  Suares, Walker and Chanella Macri are performing,  the audience are fully engaged and committed to the result.

Director Katrina Cornwell and the design team (composer and sound: Raya Slavin, set and costume: Emily Collett, lighting: Lisa Mibus, AV: Sarah Walker) create a world that is far more than the one envisioned in Kilpatrick's writing. Whale is written to allow other creatives to make a work that belongs to everyone. In the same way that the audiences are trusted to be so vital to the result that everyone puts on their party hats without hesitation.

There are party hats. And chips and drinks. And penguins, projections, rocks, bad congratulations certificates, flooding and a discussion about if a play called "Whale" has to include a whale. It's unexpected theatre that's easy to get lost in and be a part of. And it might even make you do something new when you leave.

Photo by Theresa Harrison

Photo by Theresa Harrison

Photo by Theresa Harrison

Photo by Theresa Harrison

Photo by Theresa Harrison

Photo by Theresa Harrison

Photo by Theresa Harrison

What Melbourne Loved in 2018, part 7

Today, we celebrate more indie shows.

Penelope Bartlau
Artistic Director, Barking Spider Visual Theatre
Creative Projects Director, Women's Circus

Penelope Bartlau. Nicked from FB, possibly taken by Jason Lehane.

Favourite moments in 2018
1. MUST's End Transmission: the most insane, intricate set I have ever experienced (go Jason Lehane!) – a spaceship with crystals growing and secret doors and hidden rooms

2. Women's Circus 2018 Cabaret PLACE  because I laughed so hard, gasped and cried.

3. Daniel Lammin's Sneakyville, at fortyfivedownstairs, for what was not revealed and for fabulous, unexpected directorial choices.

4. In a Heartbeat at La Mama, just before Fringe, because audiences had the best time.

Looking forward to in 2019
More unexpected work in weird-arse places.

SM: Goodness, I adored In a Heartbeart. I really did have the best time.

Fleur Kilpatrick
Playwright, director, enthuser 

Fleur Kilpatick and the company of "Terrestrial", State Theatre Company SA
Photo by Kate Pardy

Favourite moments in 2018
It was in The Bachelor Season 17, Episode 5. It was a very quiet moment. The Bachelor had just approached one of the contestants and had 'can I steal you for a second'ed her. They left the stage. In an episode of The Bachelor, the camera would have followed them but, in that theatre, we did not. They were gone and we were left to stare at the other contestants. The ones who weren't picked. And they sat. In silence. One ate a chip. That crunch of the chip on that silent stage, these candidates at love held in stasis: that was my favourite moment.

Looking forward to in 2019
I'm very excited about the programming from Theatre Works, Darebin and, up in the south-east, MLIVE. But, most importantly, I am looking forward to us as a community confronting some demons in 2019 and, hopefully, making our workplaces safer, more respectful and more generous as a result. I'm really hopeful that 2019 will be the year we do away with the idea that there are different sets of rules for creative work places: everyone has the right to feel safe and respected at work. Bring it on.

SM: It's a bit meta, but I love that Fleur's new work Whale has already been mentioned a lot as something people are looking forward to in 2019.

Tim Byrne
Theatre critic, Performing Arts Editor – Time Out Melbourne

Tim Byrne. Photo by Sophie Reid

Favourite moments in 2018
I can pinpoint the precise moment this year because I had a jolting physical reaction to it, as involuntary as it was thrilling. At one point in Stephanie Lake's Colossus the cast of dancers rushed screaming at the audience and the kinetic energy, that sense of the potential and the danger of the human body en masse, felt like a shock of electricity through my own body. It was a terrifying moment, political and primordial at once, and one I'm unlikely to forget.

Looking forward to in 2019
Given that, I can't wait for Stephanie's follow-up work at Malthouse for Dance Massive, Skeleton Tree. It is about grief and the ritual of grieving, and should prove a highlight of the dance calendar. I was very pleased to see Stephen Nicolazzo tackle and triumph with Tennessee Williams's Suddenly Last Summer this year; I'm hoping to see him turn to Joe Orton next, maybe with (hint, hint) Loot or Entertaining Mr Sloane. They'd make a good match, that pair.

SM: I still read Tim's reviews, especially if I totally disagree – oh, I do – or if it's a show I didn't see. I also love that he notices if I'm not around.

What Melbourne Loved in 2018, part 6

Today, we remember that our theatre community is far more than just the people on stage.

Sarah Walker
Photographer

Sarah Walker. Photo by Jordon Prosser

Favourite moments in 2018
I photographed three productions by Western Edge Youth Arts this year, and they all totally blew me away. Casts of young people, aged between 12 and 25, almost all from migrant communities, tackled Antigone and Romeo and Juliet with such power, passion, humour and wickedness. I was floored.

There were so many moments just in those three performances: Young Samoan performers stepping in and out of character with whiplash speed to comment on their own experiences of tradition, honour and ceremony. Somali girls agonising over exactly what it felt like to be turned into an object, when unpacking the Montague/Capulet conflict in Romeo and Juliet. Polynices reframed as a young black man enraged by the system and reclaiming power the only way he knew how. A young man playing Creon, soliciting press questions from the audience and answering them more deftly than any real politician I’ve seen.

They were the most exciting, innovative and thrilling performances I saw all year, and they reminded me what theatre can and should be. Huge props to the staff and directors there who are giving so much of themselves to make space for new voices. Terrific stuff.

Looking forward to in 2019
I’ve been working with Fleur Kilpatrick for 10 years, and to be in the room with her and a collection of incredible, intelligent women for the development of Whale has been just so exciting. I can’t wait to be part of giving that show a life next year. I think it’s going to be a real good one.

SM: Sarah and I talked about ghosts for a project she was making; I loved that.

Robert Reid
Playwright
Witness

Robert Reid. An old publicity shot

Favourite moments in 2018
Contest, by Emilie Collyer. Incredible text staged by a fiercely intelligent team. My review at Witness Performance.

Prize Fighter by Future D Fidel, Powerful story, powerful writing, powerful performance, great theatre. See My review at Witness Performance.

Pre-Historic, Elbow Room, great story, great writer, great performances, plucky and spunky and smart and fun. My review at Witness Performance.

My Sister Feather by Olivia Satchel, most human show i saw all year, two performers at their best with two great characters by a great writer. My review at Witness Performance.

The Infirmary, Triage Live Art Collective, dark, light, deep, affecting. My review at Witness Performance.

Calamity Jane. One Eyed Man. Pure joy. My review at Witness Performance.

Looking forward to in 2019
Looking forward to? Dunno. The Cloud Street remount at Malthouse ... my production of The Bacchae at the Courthouse ... big shows I guess ... epic five hour long shows.

SM: I was sitting next to Rob during a Melbourne Festival show. He'd lost his voice and was communicating by writing messages on his phone. At the end of the show, I asked him to tell me his thoughts in an emoji. He nailed it. He still wrote a long and complete review, but that emoji was still perfect.

Carla Donnelly
Critic, podcaster
Across the Aisle

Carla Donnelly

Favourite moments in 2018
2018 saw so many incredible works. My stand outs include Blackie Blackie Brown  – which is essentially the play I never knew I always wanted and could have. Blackie Blackie Brown was an outstanding feat of stage craft; so many things I have never seen on the stage coming together in one riot of unapologetic blackness, super hera-ness and feminism (and death).
The BBB episode.

Sandy Greenwood's performance in Matriarch is one I couldn't stop thinking about for days. In a inter-generational story about exploring cultural identity and trauma, she truly channelled the four women in her family and brought them all into the room with her. Her performance was absolutely mesmerising.

Bighouse Dreaming (Melbourne Fringe killed it this year) was another that stayed on my mind for a long time. An extremely well written and directed play clearly articulating the dehumanisation of Indigenous people in all facets of this colonial world – especially when coming into touch with power. This show (and many others at Fringe) gave me that total wonder of alchemy; how artists can create something from nothing and put it on with very little but deliver works that are so powerful.

Other favourite shows of the year: The Nose by The Bloomshed, Love Song Dedications by Ten Tonne Sparrow, Lone by The Rabble, The Nightingale and the Rose by Little Ones Theatre and The Infirmary by Triage Live Art Collective.

Looking forward to in 2019
Barbara and the Camp Dogs!! The Legend of Queen Kong.

SM: My favourite moment is happening right now as I listen to Across the Aisle. There are so many great discussions about Melbourne theatre. We need to do more to get them all heard far more!

What Melbourne Loved in 2018, part 4

It's more trickle than flood this year. Here's the form; tell us about those theatre and art moments in 2018 that made you happy.

Today, we keep celebrating independent makers and companies, and celebrate all those challenges to boring assumptions made about art, makers and audiences.

Sonya Suares
Artistic Director, Watch This

Sonya Suares in Contest. 
(I was a GS in my primary school church team; I wasn't good.)

Favourite moments in 2018
Both of mine were sitting in the Beckett Theatre this year: tears running down my face as Dalara Williams performed the inciting monologue in Blackie Blackie Brown and nearly wetting myself moments later, just as I did during Michelle Lee’s Going Down.

If I am permitted a moment that is not simply as an disinterested audient, then I must say truthfully watching Nadine Garner nail "Send in the Clowns" at every performance of A Little Night Music during the run was one of the highlights of my year. I mean, Every. Single. Time.

Looking forward to in 2019
I'm looking forward to sending everyone I know to the return season Blackie Blackie Brown and, because I'm a big boffin/child-of-the-90s, to seeing Shakespeare in Love. Or you know, being in it if Simon Phillips decides to give me a spin!

And personally, I'm looking forward to performing Fleur Kilpatrick's Max Afford award-winning play Whale with a group of incredible womens. It's gonna be a ripper.

SM: Sonya is the driving force behind Watch This. Putting on musicals is expensive and difficult. Putting on Sondheim musicals multiplies the difficulty considerably. Watch This do it, anyway.  Without Watch This, we would see far less Sondheim in Melbourne. Without them we wouldn't see some some of out best performers in Sondheim musicals. If I had a magic funding wand, Watch This would get the money they need to become an ongoing professional company. As for my favourite moment with Sonya this year, it's her moving and powerful performance in Contest by Emilie Collyer.

Vidya Makan & Nick Simpson-Deeks in next year's Watch This show.
Co-directed by Sonya with Dean Drieberg.
Sondheim fans don’t need a title.

Mama Alto
Jazz singer, cabaret artiste and gender transcendent diva

Mama Also. Photo by Alexis Desaulniers-Lea

Favourite moments in 2018
Mojo Juju's "Native Tongue". One of the most important new Australian works right now and, I suspect, for many years to come. Revelatory, extraordinary, damning, tender, groundbreaking, truth telling and part of a highly necessary reckoning of the national identity.

Honourable mentions. Willow Sizer's theatrical cabaret Death of a Demi Diva was a revelation. She gave a tour-de-force performance that set the hairs on the back of my neck on edge. Paul Capsis as Quentin Crisp in Resident Alien (return season). Magnificent, eccentric, and in many ways so close to home for all of our inner anxieties, foibles and paranoias.

Honourable mentions for things I saw interstate (naughty, I know). The View Upstairs (Hayes Theatre, Sydney) and An Evening with Constantina Bush (Spirit Festival, Adelaide).

Looking forward to in 2019
I'm eagerly keeping my eye on new works and projects from leading thinkers, powerful performers and those who speak back to imbalance. Anything and everything from Candy Bowers, Jean Tong, and Yana Alana. Midsumma 2019's theatre, cabaret and burlesque offerings look extraordinary. And, as always, I anticipate with relish the as yet unannounced surprises that will pop up underground in salons, dens, cabarets and dives across Melbourne. What delights await us at Hares & Hyenas, The Butterfly Club, The Melba Spiegeltent, and where else?

SM: Every moment with Mama Also is the best. She's exquisite. I think my favourite moment was sending interstate friends along to a show she was performing at. When they got back, all they could do was tell about this amazing performer called Mama Alto.

Booking my ticket for The Seventh Annual Mama Alto Holiday Special now. Join us.

Chris Wenn
Noise maker and overthinker

Chris Wenn. Photo by Ezekiel Rodofili

Favourite moments in 2018
There's no single moment that excited me quite as much as the feeling that we've reached a tipping point of invention and fertility within the independent sector . There was such an incredible amount and range of work presented by independent artists and companies in 2019. There was tremendous work to see from new, emerging,and established creators, and from sectors of our community that have gone unrecognised for too long. In the world outside of the major performing arts companies, we have had to build a level of resilience and self-sufficiency that can stand against the inconstancy of grant schemes. The Brandis 'reforms' and Fifield 'restoration' have only proved that we are, and always will be, a target for cuts and culture war. I am immensely proud of the way our community supports each other: through fundraising, crowdfunding, donations of time and material and effort, and a myriad other ways. Can't stop, won't stop.

Looking forward to in 2019
I'm looking forward to more work! More work by and for children and young people, more work by and for Indigenous people, more work by and for queer and non-binary people, more work by and for migrants and non-English speaking audiences. I want to see more work that challenges conventions and assumptions and what it means to make and witness art. I want to see work that reflects the strength and diversity of this global city, that engages audiences in new ways, that deploys technology and creativity in new spaces and old.

SM: Sound designers are such an important part of a design team and we don't talk about them any where near enough. Next year, I will listen to shows more. Chris was part of an amazing design team for Colder at Red Stitch. I mentioned the stage and the lighting designer and not Chris – but as I think back on the show, I can still hear it.

What Melbourne Loved in 2018, part 3

It's time to hear from regulars Ash and Daniel L. And a first time visit from Jane Miller, who's been written about on SM from the very early days.

Ash Flanders
a festival of dangerous ideas dressed in stained pyjamas

Ash Flanders/Norman Bates. Selfie. 

Favourite moments in 2018
Getting to see Abigail's Party on the mainstage – the biggest stage MTC has – was my favourite night at the theatre this year. Stephen Nicolazzo took an older (although to me, it's canon) play now largely associated with community theatre and reminded me why it was still relevant. There's nothing more timeless than people trying to impress each other in order to feel more than what they are (but enough about the arts scene, LOLZ). Getting to hear lines I know off by heart was one kind of thrill, but hearing something new in them – as well as crafting detailed relationships between these seemingly broad characters – left me gobsmacked. That lady is anything but Nicolazy.

Other non-lazy ladies who blew my mind were POST with Ich Nibber Dibber. I don't envy the task of studying and transcribing your younger self, but the result was captivating. On a structural level the piece was a damn impressive feat of storytelling, but while it made me laugh (probably the most of any show this year), it also made me feel a lot of feeeeelings, none of which I'll share because I don't know you. I think like a lot of work I really dig it took something seemingly disposable – the offcuts of unstructured chats over ten years – and made something incredibly HIGH ART BUT ALSO CLOWNY from it.

I also got to witness an unforgettable moment at the end of the Malthouse season of Blackie Blackie Brown. Seconds before the show concluded, an audience member took a turn and was sick in the seating bank forcing the whole show to stop, because those are the sort of happy accidents that tended to happen with this show. I also cut my hand open with a machete in Sydney. We were determined to say goodbye to this beast properly, so Dalara Williams delivered her final monologue from the foyer. But the timing worked out so that midway through her monologue audiences began coming out of Melancholia... because. of course. Dalara's voice managed to silence the entire Malthouse foyer, and both audiences stood silently to witness it. The words Nakkiah had written – about a brighter Aboriginal future and the struggles still ahead – never felt more powerful than in that moment. I had the distinct feeling of being in a 'star-making' moment and I'm sure everyone else felt the same about me seeing as I'd set Dalara up for her monologue by playing a seven-year-old boy – a role I'd been gunning for since day one of rehearsal.

Looking forward to in 2019
Naturally I'm looking forward to working with a bunch of talented folks in The Temple at Malthouse (join usssssss....). I'm also a little thrilled we have Ellen Burstyn to gawk at when she acts her pants off in 33 Variations – which I assume is about the many TIGHT POLITE SMILES she has for homosexuals bothering her incessantly about The Exorcist. I'm also crossing my fingers for more plays from the GONE WRONG universe.

SM: Sure Blackie Blackie Brown was just the best, but then came PELICANette: the link should take you to the Google doc.


Daniel Lammin
Director

Engaged means presents!

Favourite moments in 2018
For me, it has to be The Bachelor S17 E5. I think I may have gotten the last ticket because I kept putting it off. The idea of staging an episode of a reality TV show sounded trite to me, and I had no desire to watch a bunch of self-satisfied artists put an episode on stage just for us to laugh knowingly at it and feel superior to it. But when I realised it was the work of Morgan Rose and Katrina Cornwell, I leapt at my computer and frantically booked. Morgan and Kat are maybe my favourite theatre makers in Melbourne. Their work is always so stirring and thrilling and presented with such generosity (especially their Riot Stage work), but The Bachelor surpassed my suddenly high expectations. It was beyond a clever concept, beyond parody. It was profound, hilarious, disturbing, moving, infuriating and epic. It treated its subject with such respect as it pulled its gender and racial politics apart, and in the process the gender and racial politics of our own world. This was theatre immediate and vital, insanely imaginative and rigorous in a way so little work is anymore. Morgan, Kat and their team presented a series of questions, provocations and conundrums, but you didn’t hear the questions, you felt them deeply, and Kat’s direction is some of the best I’ve seen in Melbourne in a long time. I left afterwards giddy at its audacity and generosity. Anyone else would have made it a joke, but they made it something bigger, deeper and grander than anyone on that show would ever have imagined their pursuit of Love could be.

Looking forward to in 2019
Obviously anything that Kat and Morgan do, which is also linked to the work of another artist I love. We finally get to see a staging of Fleur Kilpatrick’s Whale thanks to MAPA with Kat directing, and it just sounds so incredibly audacious! I’m also very excited for Fleur’s production of Slaughterhouse Five coming back, a co-pro with Monash Uni Student Theatre (MUST) and Theatre Works. The original production was incredible, and the work Fleur created with the students was often extraordinary. I can’t wait to see it again!

SM: I love Daniel's ongoing exploration of men and violence and where we go so wrong to create societies where violence develops: Sneakyville at fortyfivedownstairs (written by Christopher Bryant) started with Charles Manson, but was so much more.

But my favourite show of his this year was After Hero by the Monash Centre for Theatre and Performance at Malthouse. He works with emerging actors (students makes it sound like they aren't ready; they are) to create performances that come from places that mean something to the performers. This creates a passion on the stage that is so easy to connect to.

And it's very exciting that he's going to be continuing to work with students in his new position as producer at Monash Centre for Theatre and Performance.

I also use a film review he wrote when I teach film criticism. It's an example of personal subjective writing and it ALWAYS gets students talking and thinking about how to be more personal in their own writing.

Jane Miller
Playwright
15 Minutes from Anywhere

Jane Miller

Favourite moments in 2018
I didn’t see as much theatre in 2018 as I would like to have. Highlights for me were Blasted at Malthouse. It’s obviously not an easy text but Sarah Kane’s writing is stunning, confronting and visceral. Everything about Anne-Louise Sarks’s production was pitched perfectly. Blasted forced me to appreciate the privilege inherent in my own discomfort.

Something completely different was Puffs at The Alexander Theatre. I’ve only read three Harry Potter novels  – SM: What!? – so I probably didn’t get as much from the humour as true aficionados, but it was fun, clever and the performances were excellent.

The evocative and intelligent Fallen by She Said Theatre at fortyfivedownstairs made me acutely aware of the powder keg of frustration underneath an incredibly repressed façade. I love She Said Theatre’s work.

Perhaps my favourite show of the year was Morgan Rose and Katrina Cornwell’s The Bachelor S17 E5. By using the transcript of an episode of The Bachelor, they made a show that was both hilarious and disturbing. Their production choices and beautiful cast revealed the darker subtext at the underbelly of reality television. It was brilliant and I’d love to see it have another run.

Looking forward to in 2019
Solaris at he Malthouse and Arbus and West at the MTC. I will be keeping my eyes open for the exciting things coming up a Red Stitch, Darebin, fortyfivedownstairs, Theatre Works and from my favourite independent artists.

My creative partner-in-crime Beng Oh has a return of his excellent production of Mike Bartlett’s play Cock coming to fortyfivedownstairs for Midsumma, which is very exciting.

Perhaps the thing I’m most looking forward to is seeing the amazing team at La Mama continue to thrive and renew despite the heartbreak they experienced during 2018. Their determination and support of artists is a wonderful thing to experience any year.

SM: Jane has been one of my favourite local writers since she stood out in Short and Sweets many years ago. Her plays grasp how characters have to make choices and that those choices should be impossible. Her characters are us; we know these people and she always ensures that we remember them because we're making those impossible choices with them. Her Just A Boy Standing in Front of a Girl  at La Mama in October surprised me at every turn. It began by ensuring that the audience had to think about gender and perspective from the moment we sat in our gender-specific seats, and continued to question what decisions in the story were based on gender. Great stuff.

What Melbourne Loved in 2017, part 3

Another two amazing artists who went through MUST and Monash (Fleur and Sarah), more Taylor Mac tears, a controversial show, and a lot of excitement about new writing and emerging artists who are showing us how it's done.

Sarah Walker
Photographer

Sarah Walker. Photo by Sarah Walker

Favourite moments in 2017
I mean, it's kind of unfair that Taylor Mac's A 24-Decade History of Popular Music happened this year because that show was such a seismic event. And because it was so long, there were moments that would otherwise have defined a whole year that I've completely forgotten because so much happened. So much!

Here's a few that spring to mind: the audience in the "isolation chambers" up the back of the Forum getting overexcited and pelting me with pingpong balls during one of the war sequences. Walking through the aisles during the blindfolded hour in Chapter I and seeing all the tiny moments that nobody else would have seen – the hands creeping into other hands, and the heads on shoulders, and the sly little blind kisses. Taylor's imagined deathbed speech from Walt Whitman to Stephen Foster (I want a transcription of that speech so badly). But really, I think my favourite thing of all was the way Taylor smiled at people. When they came up onstage and did a good job. When judy stepped back and watched another performer belt out a solo or a dance piece. When the audience sighed or laughed or cried. I've never seen so much love in a smile. It's the sort of smile you look for your whole life, and Taylor gave it to everyone. It was like the opposite of the hidden kiss in the corner of Mrs Darling's mouth in Peter Pan that Mr Darling could never get. Taylor's love was for everybody.

My other favourite moment was during The Adam Simmons Creative Music Ensemble's The Usefulness of Art concert at fortyfivedownstairs. The whole concert was so suffused with joy and excitement. At the crescendo of the work, Adam was standing in front of the orchestra, furiously conducting, not so much leading the music as wrenching it from the performers – punching the air to bring the sound along with him and as the piece peaked, he let out this yell that was the most cathartic release of energy, and the band crashed around him, and, holy shit, I had goosebumps coursing up and down my whole body and everything was shining.

Looking forward to in 2018
Oh, golly, so much. I can't wait for Blackie Blackie Brown – my boyfriend is working on it and I was in the room for some of the development, and it was just madness. I think it's going to be hysterical and brutal and schlocky and full of life.

I'm also super excited that Stephen Nicolazzo and Patricia Cornelius are going to be erupting onto the mainstage at the MTC. It's about bloody time. Also, Patricia and Julie Forsyth in the same room? Somebody has been raiding my daydreams again. Fuck yeah.

SM: Sarah's name appears the most on this site because she takes the photos that capture what a show is about and she capture how a person looks in that split second that they aren't self conscious of being in front of a camera. Every time.

Fleur Kilpatrick
Playwright, teacher, RRR Smart Arts theatre commentator 

Fleur's birthday. Photo by Sarah Walker

Favourite moments in 2017
One of my favourite things this year was seeing wonderful shows get a remount. This is so rare in Australia and it was so wonderful to see Hello, Goodbye, Happy Birthday head out on tour, Two Jews Walk into a Theatre get a Melbourne Festival season and Zoe Coombs Marr's Trigger Warning make a return to MIFF.

I had never seen Trigger Warning and it was without a doubt one of my highlights. It was extremely clever terms of content but also form, something that so many comedians take as prescribed. Plus it was perhaps the funniest thing I had ever seen.

Another firm favourite was All the Sex I've Ever Had by Mammalian Diving Reflex. This show was so joyful and celebratory. It was a celebration not only of sex but of living and surviving. As the senior participants shared their lives and exploits, a  community quickly formed in the theatre, a community dedicated to celebrating these men and women through their joys and griefs. I left feeling immensely grateful for their generosity, bravery and perseverance.

Looking forward to in 2018
A total delight in 2017 was seeing space created for new works. With that in mind I'm writing my "looking forward to" as a wish list: these were wonderful works that deserve a season or a remount.

Fleur's 2018 wishlist:
1. A season for Natesha Somasundaram's Jeremy and Lucas Buy A Fucking House. It's three-day La Mama exploration sold out. It was so smart, funny and delightful. Programmers, please fight for this one.
2. A return season for Jean Tong's Romeo is not the Only Fruit. This satirical Lesbian pop musical  sold out its Poppy Seed Festival season and racked up critical praise. I want to see this come back to Melbourne but also tour please!
3. A season for Emina Ashman's Make Me A Houri. This was one of the best readings I saw this year. Emina's writing is so beautiful, poetic, dark and all her own. Her writing asks questions of what it means to be a Muslim today, a feminist today, a woman today. Again, programmers, chase her.

SM: I was at Fleur's surprise birthday at All My Friends Were There; that was awesome. I love listening to Fleur and Richard Watts on Smart Arts on Thursday mornings. I also love that she loves teaching undergrads as much as I do.

Scott Gooding
Actor, director 

Scott Gooding

Favourite moments in 2017
Ohhh, saw so much good stuff when I went through my diary. Stand out performance I saw was You're Not Alone by Kim Noble, at Malthouse. Brave, provocative, unflinching and funny as fuck. Whether it was "real" or not, I didn't care. It was great also to see so many people get up in arms about it.

Looking forward to in 2018
Next Wave Festival. Watching this bunch of cutting edge artists get to strut their stuff and show us oldies how it's done. Can't wait.

SM: I got to see Scott on stage again this year  in Jane Miller's Cuckoo; he's an actor who finds the heart of his characters and lets the emotions they try to hide drive them.

part 2
part 1
2016
2014
2013
2012