Oedipus Schmoedipus!

So last week was my first time in a theatre performance as the chorus. *link*

I also played Ghost #1, a dying dude and had the last line.

Pretty exciting and awesome as I only found out what I was doing four hours before the performance. The volunteer participation is an initiative from Arts House and there was a new cast of 25 each night the performance ran.

Very well organised and executed. and got to get a glimpse of the life backstage as a performer. There were moments you felt like you were in Birdman hahaha.

Here's there crew I was with :D

Photo credit: James Brown

It was definitely a great study break and the audience had a laugh.

A performance that brought to light the classics and its rendition of "death"  - it's fate, its absurdity, it's lies, it's melodrama, it's whimper, it's grip , it's end.

a must see for sure !

Witness "The Masters"

*source*

Mind your own business, unless it is The Business.  This is the collective genius and theatre company of Glynis Angell, Penny Baron, Clare Bartholomew and Kate Kantor. Formed in 1997 they have sprung from a fun gathering to professional performances both at home and abroad. Starting this week they have yet another adventure to share through their warm, friendly and quirky male characters Paul, Barry, Ray and Pierre. 

This time they are Australia’s finest pole vaulter, sprinter, archer and discus thrower. Through the direction of Merophie Carr they delivery a chaotic comedic  countdown of unfortunate events prior to catching a flight to the World Masters in Budapest. As the set lights up into action, the audience is transported to a hospital emergency room. The non-verbal clowning starts off slow, as if it were a tease to the audience of what is yet to come. If it were not for the intentional clever interjection of whimsical sound effects to break the silence, capture your attention and provide a springboard for action, the first fifteen minutes would be frankly quite dry.

However, The Masters does not leave you pondering or doubting their entertainment value much longer. Through well-orchestrated slapstick, physical comedy, exaggeration and innovative use of props we slowly discover the habits and personalities of the athletes. Like us, they are flawed, only human, extremely likeable. As you are drawn into their personal journeys you sympathize with their delays and share their dilemma. Will they ever reach the airport? However, this deep connection is quickly severed as the innocent, quiet and tame scene snowballs into a diabolical loud messy pivotal turn of events. The Masters are here to succeed, entertain and leave you laughing. No room for somber moments.

What opened with an audio track of what may be just another sporting event ends in triumph of the most unexpected kind. They conquer tension, medical emergencies and sport the Australian way. So sit back and chill mate. Let “The Masters” do their thing. 

                                                
The Masters is on at La Mama Courthouse February 13 – 24
Tue – Sat 8pm | Sun 5pm

Theatre Review: The Well

*posted here* follow up from *link*

Well, where to start? I cannot begin to describe the craft behind Robert Reid’s three-year collaboration The Well with Monash University theatre students. Before walking through La Mama’s doors, you are warned you are stepping into a mobile experience where narrative continuity is overrated. Your concept of causality and purpose having weight in life will be challenged. However if you still choose to remain mainstream, to believe that there is a story, then it is definitely delivered with episodic dream-like logic. Chaos and confusion reigns centre stage, being set in a time where science explains that the earth’s magnetic poles have flipped, rendering time and space being essentially…fiction.

The Well presents interactive semi-interconnected incidents at impact when a man named Gareth sees and lives through a vision of himself hitting a girl with his car in the near future, only to later be buried neck deep in the desert. In the present day he is physically blinded whilst desperately seeking avenues to prevent the tragedy from unfolding. However, he is failing to convince friends and is simply searching for answers that don’t exist. As the Earth is spinning out of orbit anything can happen, and even stumbling into an unlikely companion of a man in a Pink Panther costume suddenly becomes completely reasonable. To orchestrate the collapse of causality on stage whilst physically involving the audience is a complicated task.
It is Reid’s ability to engage the audience, inviting their participation to contribute to the energy of the play that is integral to suspending audiences’ disbelief. You may stand, sit, lean on whatever you like, wherever you like. If you are in the way of actors or a manoeuvre they will gentle guide you to a safer vantage point or simply remind you, “It is not what you think”.

Have your eyes wide open and bodies ready for motion.
Stretch your mind, lose your time!
The Well, daringly invites you to be involved in the end of the world.


The Well is on at La Mama Theatre, Faraday St Carlton from Thursday September 13 – Sunday September 30.
Wed, Fri, Sun 8.30pm | Thu, Sat 6.30pm
Running time: 70 minutes

Almost With You

La Mama presents yet another intricate and intensely personal theatre piece Almost With You, directed by Melbournian Kaarin Fairfax and written by Elizabeth Coleman. It presents a story of individual discovery touching on elements of the human psyche.

Lisa (Fiona Macleod) and twin brother Dan (Luke O’Sullivan) grew up in the 80s listening to rock, punk and the rave of Margaret Thatcher’s reign. Nothing could split the pair apart, until the motorbike accident that killed Dan at aged 20. Although it appears the accident still didn’t split them apart, as a flash-forward to the present reveals mid-40s Lisa, she still seeing, feeling and interacting with Dan, despite his deceased status. The more Lisa wallows in her sorrow and helplessness of her brother’s death the stronger Dan’s presence becomes.

As Lisa is excelling her in her freelance journalism career, her new project is to interview the phenomena of older parents. This sets the scene for the entry of two other character:  Jenny (Helen Hopkins) 40-year old parent/Lisa’s best friend, and Tom (Raj Sidhu) older dad, accountant and Lisa’s growing love interest. As Lisa juggles the pressure of life and relationships, her loyalty is torn between the need of her visualization of Dan begging for attention and the gentle perplexed Tom who patiently waits for Lisa to make her move.

The cast makes great use of the small space with the transition between scenes being quite seamless. As a result audiences are able to focus on the raw energy flowing from the performers as they embody the frustrations of letting go, moving on and that regrettable moment of being ‘almost with you’. It’s Luke O’Sullivan’s first time performing at La Mama and he boldly expresses his character’s new-wave hip rebel attitude making full use of the stage, to the extend of jumping only millimeters from the audience.

Ultimately, Almost With You portrays characters that are essentially “average” like you and I, pondering through life adjusting with change, love and loss. They're easy to relate and you are quick to be drawn into the scene, bec equally entangled in the messy web of professional and intimate relationships delivered dynamically on stage.  This is theatre that makes invites serious thought and reflections on the value of life and friendship. Powerful, raw and moving. Not to be missed.

Wed, Sun 6.30pm | Thu, Fri, Sat 7.30pm
Matinees at 2pm on July 15 & 22
Running time: 90 minutes
La Mama Theatre

I WAS 1.5METER AWAY FROM THE GEOFFREY RUSH!!!!

bwhahaha it was awesome.

drove sister to the train station at a crazy early hour. 8.30am hitting flinders.
derr... half dazed i enquired, "so why are you going into the city again?"

"to try win tickets to see a play where Geoffrey Rush is playing a girl"

SAAAY WHAT!!!

hehe and 30mins later, The Melbourne Theatre Company pulled by name out of the black box, you have scored 2 tickets to see The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

Algernon and Jack are good friends, who each maintain, as a matter of convenience, different identities depending on whether they are in the town or the country. It therefore becomes especially inconvenient, not to say confusing, when Jack proposes to Algernon’s cousin Gwendolyn under the pseudonym of ‘Ernest’, while Algernon proposes to Jack’s ward Cecily also under the pseudonym of ‘Ernest’. In truth, no one is particularly earnest, except the imperious Lady Bracknell, who takes a dim view of everything.

Wildely improbable. Amid a flurry of mistaken identity, witty banter and cucumber sandwiches, Oscar Wilde created the most elegant of comedies of manners.

I admit the first quarter had me bored, but after that it was superbly interesting and enticing (if that is the appropriate word lol)

Mr Rush as Lady Bracknell was INCREDIBLE!! NOT TO BE MISSED!!! stunning and woaaah. WOAH!! no words to describe his skill really ><"

plug_ It's Good to Shut Up Sometimes

For those who don't know, I have been helping out at The Melbourne Fringe Festival lately, in particular Revolt Productions (Kensington)

So i saw a show and Miklos the Mime is AMAZING LIVE!! really!

"It's Good to Shut Up Sometimes" is a colourful bunch of funny, lyric, romantic, clever short stories, carefully spiced with the fantastic.

Miklos, a World Champion mime artist mixes mime, music, sound effects, improvisation, interplay with the audience and conversational hypnosis to boost your imagination and entertain you.

The stories he plays are not only funny and entertaining, but meaningful as well. If you never seen mime before, it's your best chance. If you did, it's different.

The guy's got 27 years experienced, professional dance and movement therapist and its really nice. Won the World Championship of Performance Arts title last year at LA.

i encourage you guys to get off ya sometimes uncreative butts and check out some of the stuff in the Fringe ^_________^ support the artists!!!

p.s. revolt productions is an amazing location - spacious, mysterious, dungeon like, steam-punk like, open bar, chillax, vintage, semi broken, alternative are a few words to describe it.


next stop_

ARCH Productions proudly presents The Contortion and Hand-balancing Spectacular! Featuring over 15 performers from around Australia

Presented as part of the 2011 Australian Contortion and Hand-balancing Festival, the festival aims to promote and grow this unqiue and amazing circus art within Australia.

Who wants to come with?

8th October, 7pm

Red Bennies
Lv 1, 373 Chapel St South Yarra

woah grace lets totally audition =]

CHICAGO - The Musical - Auditions

Williamstown Musical Theatre Company Inc is proud to announce auditions for their November 2011 production of CHICAGO – The Musical, which will be performed at the Williamstown Mechanics Institute from Friday 4th November to Saturday 19th November 2011.

We are searching for a very talented and skilled cast of men and women, roughly 20 in total, who are interested in ‘creating’ theatre and working and collaborating together with our experienced and skilled production team, to make an original production, with original thinking and ideas in mind.

This will be a highly collaborative experience with all cast on-stage for nearly 100% of the entire performance. Rehearsal attendance will be vital. We will not be looking at casting any auditionees, regardless of talent, who cannot make themselves available as required.

Premiering in 1975 and the hit of the 1997 Broadway season in a production that originated at City Center's Encore! series, Chicago won six Tony Awards including Best Revival and later the Academy Award as Best Picture of the Year.

In roaring twenties Chicago, chorine Roxie Hart murders a faithless lover and convinces her hapless husband Amos to take the rap, until he finds out he's been duped and turns on Roxie. Convicted and sent to death row, Roxie and another ‘Merry Murderess’ Velma Kelly, vie for the spotlight and the headlines, ultimately joining forces in search of the ‘American Dream’ - fame, fortune and acquittal. This sharp edged satire features a dazzling score that sparked immortal staging by Bob Fosse.

Further information on audtion dates and character descriptions are avaliable at WMTC's website. http://www.wmtc.org.au/