Benefit Performance for Sosina Wogayehu

Benefit Performance for Sosina Wogayehu 
Sunday 16 October
7.30pm Circus Oz
Melba Spiegeltent, Docklands

Featuring: Moira Finucane, Ruby Rowat, Sharon Grunert, Mozes and Sosina Wogayehu, traditional Ethiopian dance and coffee making ceremony, private hula hoops lessons and surprises!

Tickets @ www.trybooking.com
Donation @ www.mycause.com.au
Facebook page and details

Sosina Wogayehu, a generous, treasured and long term Circus Oz person, is raising money for her dad who fell very ill recently in Ethiopia.

So far, Sosi has raised the money and support to fly him from Ethiopia for major surgery in Melbourne. Half of the flight costs were raised by the cast and crew of The Burlesque Hour. Now he is in intensive care and extended hospital recovery. Because he is Ethiopian, not Australian, they must pay full price for his hospital stay.

It's Last Tuesday Tuesday

Hooray!

Whatever you're doing tonight, know that the most fun will really be had at the Fringe Club as The Last Tuesday Society take over.

It's free and the theme of the night is "first times".

If you haven't popped your First Tuesday cherry, tonight is the night.

FRINGE review: Me Pregnant!

MELBOURNE FRINGE 2011

Me Pregnant!

Nick Coyle

24 September 2011

Lithuanian Club, The Loft

to 30 September 2011

Love Emeline, love the monster, love the villagers and love Nick Coyle.

Me Pregnant! is a fucked-up fairy tail of a mediaeval village that followed nerdy Emeline into the forest to take revenge on a monster, but one of the monster's babies survived and really hates Emeline.

Modelling a peasant sack with bright tights, Nick is our tour guide and everyone else in the village, the forest and the dark undersea cave. His story telling is immaculate, if you like your stories snarky, bitter and whimsical. And I don't mean fluffy my-little-pony whimsy, this is whimsy that's mixing speed and acid and never wants to come down.

And I now so want an octopus to give me a makeover and a tiny wind-up Nick Coyle doll to tell me bedtime stories.

"Tell me a story." Shows that let their stories lead have audiences who love them. Me Pregnant!  lets Nick show his terrific writing and prove that he's a performer who deserves to be cast in anything he wants, but the joy of the show is that he tells a brilliant story.

Nick's only on until Friday, so don't wait for the weekend to see him.


This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com

Review: Grammar Don't Matter on a First Date

MELBOURNE FRINGE 2011

Grammar Don't Matter on a First Date

Mark Butler

24 September 2011

Portland Hotel

to 1 October 2011

Mark Butlers broked up with gfs; cos there gramma iz sheet.

In Grammar Don't Matter on a First Date, he asks his audience if they think he made the best choices.

Turns out that Saturday night's audiences were more pedantic than Mark is and are lucky that many couples there have found a mate who agrees that it's impossible to eat in a restaurant that lists possessive nouns on the menu and that friends with RAS syndrome* have to be removed from their Christmas card list.

The rest of us, who may have used an its/it's argument as a contribution to a break up (yes, I have), were able to feel justified.

For the single grammar slobs, who were dragged along by their friends, Mark offers grammatically-correct dating hints. Singles, if you are on RSVP, this could help: There is a happy couple. They're holding hands and sipping their merlot. From experience, Mark (and his enthusiastically agreeing audience) assures you that your lack of basic spelling and grammar knowledge is stopping the smart hot folk from dating you.

Yes, we (the hot smart folk) judge you by your grammar. And (it IS acceptable to start a sentence with a conjunction) we judge you by your spelling, punctuation and syntax. I'm more accepting than Mark is about LOL, but I have serious En dash and hyphen issues. THEY ARE NOT INTERCHANGEABLE!

As a writer, an editor and a hot smart person, I think Mark's show should be compulsory. The Style manual and the Macquarie Dictionary Fifth Edition aren't in every family bookshelf (hell, they aren't even in every writer's bookshelf), so we need people like Mark to spread the word(s) by making us laugh.

And grammar slob or snob, Mark has everyone laughing. His audience–performer bond is instant, but he's talking about grammar, sex and puns – what's not to bond over!

So, of course, grammar matters as much as Grandpa does. And to all the glorious pedants at Mark’s show: I'd date youse all.

*RASS: Redundant acronym syndrome syndrome. "I'll grab some cash from the ATM machine."

This review first appeared on AussieTheatre.com.

FRINGE review: 4's KIN

MELBOURNE FRINGE 2011

4's KIN

Dil Ruk, Morven Smith, Jay E Manne and Tim Clark (with guest Ben Lawrence)

24 September 2011

Portland Hotel

to 8 October 2011

Most new stand ups don't have a show's worth of material, but they do have a few minutes of terrific stuff, and what better way to get your Fringe legs than to share the stage with friends.

4's KIN give us their best 12 minutes and there's enough laughs and likeability to know that we'll soon be seeing much more of Dil Ruk, Morven Smith, Jay E Manne, Tim Clark and (guest) Ben Lawrence.

Each are developing a stage character and working with observational jokes, and all brought an original twist to the worlds around them and showed us just how twisted their brains really are.

I think being a stand up comic has to be one of the bravest performance choices. Great stand up is about sharing your most personal and embarrassing secrets with strangers and friends. The best (the ones we go back to see as much as possible) are the ones who dig deep, show us their hearts and help us realise that being a bit fucked up is perfectly normal.

This first appeared on AussieTheatre.com

MIAF review previews

Grand final and the start of the crossover Fringe/MIAF week. And we lose an hour of sleep for daylight savings! #whitewhine.

Head to AussieTheatre.com for the full reviews, and they'll be up here a few days later.

MIAF 2011

Ganesh Versus the Third Reich

Malthouse There and Melbourne Festival and Back to Back Theatre

29 September 2011

Merlyn Theatre

to 9 October

Should we only tell our stories? Is it possible to balance the line between respect and offence? With a hullaballoo playing out in the media about how this show is offending some "Melbourne taxpayers", it's probably best to see Ganesh Versus the Third Reich to make up your own mind.

When the Back to Back ensemble conceived the "great conceit" of Ganesh travelling to nazi Germany to reclaim the swastika,  they knew it was "morally fraught ... and too dangerous for a little theatre company from Geelong to appropriate Hindu gods and create a fairytale within the Holocaust."

Thankfully, they re-thought and created a story within a story that blurs reality and fiction as it confronts itself and manipulates its audience's assumptions.

...

Photo by Jeff Busby

Go Cats!

I'm trying to write about the astonishing Ganesh Versus the Third Reich and its confronting exploration of perceptions and story appropriation...

But the TV is on and leather-clad bikies are riding onto the MCG and Meatloaf has opened with "Hot Patootie" from The RH Picture Show.

Grand Final jewellery by ali alexander "Anyone But Collingwood"," Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining" and the Mighty Roos

As Fringe and MIAF artists try to hold that critical mirror up to our society, there is no better reflection than Melbourne's AFL Grand Final. (I don't care about the rugby.)

It's sold out in minutes and watched by millions. The result will divide families and friends. Strangers will fight or kiss on the streets. Virginities will be lost as teenagers discover the thrill of being on the winning side, or the consolation of being runner up. Children will be conceived and a child will have to grow up with the name Malthouse (which has nothing to do with the theatre company or venue).

Meanwhile, no one is writing offended letters to the council questioning why an old American is chosen as the cultural representative of the day or why he opens with a song from a musical about a transvestite.

And now the MSO (Melbourne Symphony Orchestra) Chorus are singing the team anthems.

Today, the poshest and artiest of us leap off our lofty towers to freely appropriate the stories of one of these once working-class teams and become punters instead of audience.

Love or loathe sport, the Grand Final evokes mass passion in ways that theatre can only dream of.

The characters are flawed, the stakes couldn't be higher, the ending is unknown and there's nothing gay about good-looking men hugging each other.

They're about to toss the coin...

We can care about art again tonight.

2010 Saints V Pies

and more FRINGE profiles

There are still more Melbourne Fringe artists profiles on AussieThearte.com this week including:

Anna Lumb, who I first saw hoop twirling at a Last Tuesday Society gig in Fitzroy, and who brings so much more than mere skill to her performances. See I HEART Jack with World Around Us II  for a pretty brilliant Fringe double feature.

Dan Kilby, whose first ever Fringe show opens on Tuesday and who gave my favourite answer on all the profiles: If you had access to the TARDIS, what performance would you see first? Carrie on Broadway, because I am a gay. I'm now adding Carrie to my TARDIS wish list, because I'm a hag.

Spencer Bignall, whom I'm going to see perform for the first time tonight at Spring Awakening.

and wonderfully wrong and simply wonderful  Wau Wau Sisters

Fringe artist profiles part 2

Gremlins stole these profiles off AussieTheatre.com, so here's Miles O'Neil, Miranda Hill, Jennifer Williams and Robert Lloyd

Fringe artist profiles part 1

Web gremlins stole these off AussieTheatre.

So here's Stephen House, Johannes Scherpenhuizen and Sarah Hamilton.

Fringe artist profiles part 3

These disappeared from AT, so here's Anna Lumb, Dan Kilby, Spencer Gignall and the Wau Wau Sisters.

Fringe artist profiles part 5

I found more! Here's Jonno Katz and Mel Dodge.

Fringe artist profiles part 4

Internet gremlins stole their original links, so here's Timothy Clark, Bron Battern, Ash Flanders and Kate McLennan.