Development session #2

We had another fantastic development session with the LifeIsSwifties.

This session we worked on identifying themes in the lives of teenagers, and mapping them to see “what was core, what was core core, and what was core core core.”

Some of the answers were surprising to me. I particularly was surprised by the fact the participants did not centre friendships, but fandom was ESSENTIAL. We dug deeper, though, and discovered what fandom meant - community, culture, belonging, artistry etc. The interconnectivity of a lot of these themes and issues was very interesting.

I recorded the most amazing conversation as we discussed these ideas. Only to discover it didn’t work and was totally silent! I am devastated. But I know we will have so many more juicy chats to unpack our themes.

We also did a cold read of the first ten or so pages of script, and I was THRILLED that the teens like id! They laughed a lot, said it was relatable (and didn’t seem like an old person was poorly imitating them) and had lots of great questions afterwards. Feeling very excited to keep going!

It begins!

We had our first session with the incredible group of young collaborators in the school holidays. It was EXCELLENT.

Alyson Evans, the super-facilitator/collaborator/magicmaker (we will think of an appropriate title at some point), developed a lesson plan with me that got everyone grounded in the project, working collaboratively, and sharing generously.

And naturally, everything was Taylor themed.

I do think that this actually led to a number of the exercises working a lot quicker than usual. The shared Taylor Swift fandom allowed for a level of connection and vulnerability that can usually take a lot longer to build. Because Taylor is so vulnerable, we can be so vulnerable.

I learnt so much from Alyson - even simple things like starting the session sitting in chairs allows everyone to feel comfortable and grounded. You can then slowly introduce activities that get them moving and even out of their chairs.

There were so many amazing moments during the day, and so much excellent content to wrangle, but here are a few highlights.

The first few Eras of a person’s life, just so you know, are:

Innocence Era - ages 0-8

• Fun

• Nothing is that deep or serious

• Opinionated without fear

• Yellow

• Idolisation of parents

• Digging holes

• Nothing ever hurts you

So Cool Era - ages 9-12

• Not brushing your hair because boys don’t brush their hair

• Cringey

• Teacher’s Pet

• Awful music taste

• Doing gymnastics

• Pick me

• Superior

Middle School Era - ages 12-15

• Self-loathing

• I hate everyone

• When will this end???

• Annoying, cringe, awkward phase, bitchy

• One Direction Harry Styles

• Making a bucket list

• Backstabbing

First Heartbreak Era - ages 15-16

• Dying your hair red

• Glow ups

• The pain won’t be for evermore

• Want to be asleep

• Red

• Melodrama

• Turning to music

• Slamming doors

Queer gods, a rugby player, a deceptive widow and some very average blokes.

The Bacchae by Riverland Youth Theatre

From my first look at the program, I was so keen to get to this show. It seemed like this company was making theatre with young people that really honoured who they are and what they care about. And how awesome that they were reimaging a 2000 year old text for queer and neurodivergent teens today! (Also, Holden Street Theatres are the best!)

Like: I actually got very emotional in the retelling of this work by young people. I haven’t read the original, but knowing that is so ancient, and that people of marginalised genders are STILL so maligned, so misunderstood, so denied celebration and joy, was very upsetting. In the story, the Bacchae just want to dance, to nap, to commune with each other, but are seen as dangerous and evil, and the result is that they are filled with a “scream” - a rage that ultimately lead to terrible pain and violence.

I loved the young people’s energy in this work, - they were cute, they were candid, they were spunky, they brought their language and movement and SELVES to the piece.

Learning: I think I shy away from the idea of doing classics with young people, thinking it was naff or unimaginative. But seeing how much these young people connected with and built upon this classic text, I have totally changed my mind.

Grav by Owen Thomas

Like: On paper, a one-man biographical play about a rugby player is definitely not something that interests me. But from the start, the playwright made this story deeply personal - a tale of a boy and his dad. It was such an exceptional performance in such an intimate space, and even though I didn’t have the faintest clue about rugby, I was so invested in the successes and losses of this gentle giant.

Learning: This is how you write a one-actor play! I really want to learn how to do this (because, you know, tourable) and this was a bit of a masterclass. The structure jumped around in time, but kept us anchored with the core story of a boy trying to impress his dad, and the eeked out information about the night his dad didn’t come home.

The foyer in one of the Holden Street Theatres.

I Hide In Bathrooms by Astrid Pill

What a delight to finally get to go to Vitalstatistix! The theatre was every bit as magical and historic as I had imagined. When we came in, there was tea and coffee and iced-vovos, and the pale bouquets of a wake. It was a lovely way to begin the experience before the show-proper.

Like: I loved how this work was a true exploration of a topic - the death of a partner (or loved one more generally). Astrid tried on three perspectives throughout the work, always surprising us with her “deception” so you never quite knew how to feel as an audience member. It was funny and silly and self-referential, and I don’t think I have ever liked projection in a work as much as I did in this - the projection served as a subtitle and sometimes-commentator on the action, often undercutting the character’s grief (“she always does this” “she’ll stop soon” “she’s completely lost it”).

Learning: You can really get to the heart of an issues, even without a clear narrative or characters. The great structure of this work allowed us to put ourselves in the shoes of three different perspectives on love and death, and left us reeling with the truth that “everyone is left, and everyone leaves”. As someone who writes much more traditional texts, I really enjoyed seeing how a script can be so charming and moving while quite segmented and experimental in form.

Cockroach by the Barry, Brian & Bean Company

A very excellent and silly way to finish Fringe - some truly deranged drag king action from the UK.

Like: Excellent character work and truly bonkers skits. And just so awesome to see young women absolutely smashing it in comedy.

Learning: Be silly. Make fun of men.

WOMAD babyyyy

Not strictly theatre, but when in Adelaide during Festival season, one must surely do at least a day of WOMAD.

We went on the last day, in 38 degree heat. As I had my kids with me, I did have my youth theatre and engagement hat on to some degree. We checked out:

• The Nylon zoo: giant inflated Australian animals that look amazing on the outside, and become venues when you crawl inside. We saw a pretty basic story being told, but the space was so magical it became a special event for the kids.

• Elephant Puppets by Handspring Puppet Company: This was gorgeous to watch - such beautiful puppets created with transparent fabric so you can see the mechanics and the puppeteers. I also absolutely loved their interplay with a band of musicians. Captivating for young and old.

• Les Moutons by CORPUS: I was very excited to finally see this. The performance of the sheep was so meticulous and realistic that grownups found it hilarious, kids found it scary, and teenagers ran away screaming when the ram bolted through the crowd. A simple concept done so exceptionally well. I sure felt for them in those costumes in the heatwave…

• Angels by Born in a Taxi: The power of a great costume and some synchronised movement! This was delightful and inspiring. As a roving event they interacted so beautifully with the crowd - it was so clear when we should watch and when we should participate. They made this look so easy but that kind of wordless communication with a crowd surely isn’t!

• Also, of course, the music was incredible.

• A special moment was watching (and remembering what this was like) my kids and their new friends run around in the fading light on a huge patch of grass, soaking up the festival atmosphere but creating their own joy.

Motherhood in the Arts, and a baby with a lawyer

Managing Motherhood Panel

A panel on how to cope as an artist and a mother in this industry - a topic very close to my heart! It was exciting to rock up and see my friend (and super successful comedian and mother) Amy Hetherington on the panel!

It was so lovely to hear stories from share solidarity with other women in the performing arts. The struggle and juggle is real! It is very comforting to know that we are all facing these challenges, and exciting to hear tips and tricks of how others navigate them. I did wish that there was a little more discussion about how the industry needs to step up to accommodate mothers, rather than how we can bend ourselves and manage our guilt within it to survive.

Honeypot Networking

It was a stinking hot day in the ILA garden, but Emma Corrick from Darwin Festival and I stuck it out and met some wonderful artists.

I had a big conversation with the wonderful Natalie from Highwire Entertainment, who came to circus from a writing and theatre background. We decided to make a party-of-zero touring show about what a nightmare grants are.

I also met the very funny Claire Robin of Nun Slut. Her show looked amazing, but it was on past my bedtime… I hope I convinced her to come to the NT!

Emma also introduced me to the legendary Kate Gaul who was touring Plenty of Fish in the Sea and The End of Winter, both of which won Fringe awards. I missed both those shows as well - it is so hard to know from the tiny photos and spiels in the Fringe program what you should be seeing!

Blood of the Lamb by B Street Theatre (USA)

This was a harrowing and tightly written realist play that detailed the bureaucratic chaos and personal nightmare of Post-Roe America.

Like: The bureaucratic trap the poor protagonist found herself in was so horrendous and inescapable I found myself crying almost out of panic - a very effective use of close space and close time structure to create a claustrophobic tension.

Learning: While strict realism is not really my thing (I like my theatre a bit surreal, a bit strange, a bit epic), it was clear how effective the realistic dialogue was at building the sense of confusion, misunderstanding, and bureaucratic nightmare. It allowed the details of the inciting incident to come out slowly, until the full horror of the situation became clear, to us and the protagonist: the lawyer in the room was not there to assist the woman who had miscarried, but there to represent the foetus inside her.

Human intimacy, Alien contact, and unholy marriages

Private View by Restless Dance Theatre

Like: A sumptuous set and costume design and a perfect (for me) balance between dance and theatre. I absolutely loved the Cabaret singer who played the role of the Spirit of Intimacy, tempting, enabling and supporting the performers on their quests for love and touch.

Learning: Cleverly placed audience participation half way through (in the form of an Intimacy Hotline) that was both safe and gently challenging, and the warmth and generosity of the performers, meant that it was easy to invite the audience to stand up and dance at the end and create a shared moment of joy. Hard to do and very successful!

Future Cargo

Like: Hypnotic dancing aliens. What is not to like? Absolutely loved this experience. So enjoyed the look and tone of this weird, beautiful and funny dance-theatre-somethingelse work. A totally original space for a dance piece - an unseen conveyor belt in a semi-trailer shipping container. The sound design, experienced through headphones, was also amazing. Fun, funky, hypnotic, surprising and sometimes sexy.

Learning: Blending of genres is wonderful. As someone who write very “wordy” plays, I would like to try to lean more into imagery, sound, found recordings, movement - I want to start making in a more collaborative way!

The Inflatable Church

A pop-up church, a maybe-drunk preacher, a shipping container full of wonderfully hideous wedding costumes, and a pack of bridesmaids and revellers ready to cheer you on. You can book for a wedding party of up to four people and unlawfully marry whoever you like! My almost-five is obsessed with weddings at the moment, with a very limited understanding of what they are, so what a dream come true that she could marry her mum in a pile of lace and plastic flowers and glitter.

Like: Joy, silliness, dressups and glitter! A simple and fun premise that made it easy for anyone to join into the interactivity of the event. There was even a wedding photographer to capture the magic! I absolutely loved getting to do all the best parts of a wedding in such a fun and silly way.

Learning: This was a very accessible “immersive arts” experience. It was well supported, the premise was easily understood, it was fun, and there wasn’t a big ask of the participants other than to choose a silly costume.

Theatre theft and Back to School

Grand Theft Theatre by Pony Cam and David Williams

Like: So much. The meta-ness, the invitation to share and connect, the joy of sharing memories, and just the reminder that yes, theatre, and all these small moments created are so important, stay with us forever, do change lives. Fun and mess and WORK. Exciting theatre-makers in their physical prime. Also seeing the matinee with hundreds of teenagers was excellent and really shook up the Adelaide Festival vibez.

Learning: I often write closed plays (fourth wall firmly up), but I so enjoyed the generosity of this more open theatrical experience. There are other ways! It’s ok to sign post, to come in and out of the “scene”, to connect directly with the audience and just tell them where they are and what’s happening next, to create an experience rather than a closed world.

Visiting Flinders University and Dr Sarah Peters

Not a show, just an amazing day sitting in on Sarah Peters’ second year theatre class. Sarah is an incredible verbatim theatre maker and human being. It was such a privilege to watch her teach! Some excellent take-aways from her lesson on audiences:

• What is the language of your target audience? What matters to your target audience? What technologies? This got me thinking about young people and phones, and how we can use honour the language and worlds created there.

• Representation - are you aiming to validate or challenge your audience? Maybe both?

• How do you create Realness so that your audience feels seen? How do you expose hidden realities through “deception” (meaning artistic abstraction/metaphor/theatricality)? What is “the lie that tells the truth”?

Hopefully I will come and virtually talk to her students next term about the experience so far of making Life is Swift, as their topic is community informed theatre-making.

Now I kind of want to do my masters at Flinders just to hang out with Sarah…

Child Djs, lonely ghosts and whale bones.

Shows

Slippery by Esther Dougherty

Like: What a delight to see something so completely stylised, camp and brazenly silly: grotesque latex ghost fingers, angry bananas and evil pistachios. This show did so many things that only theatre can do, but people rarely embrace! Self-aware choreography, high poetry, silly jokes, and even some delightful corpsing (by a corpse).

Learning: Cucumber vape juice is poison. Also how important it is to PLAY and have fun making theatre. I have spent a lot of time making or being part of sad and serious theatre, and I really want to lean into more joyful work, or joyful ways of exploring big topics.

Pinky Pie Party

Like: Truly hilarious (for the adults in the audience) to watch a 7 year old Dj change songs whenever she felt like it, without transitions, sometimes 15 times a minute. It was pretty glorious to watch a kid cut through and disrupt (or remix?) adult understandings of how a party, playlist or even song should go.

Learning: This was an extreme example of listening to what young people want in a show. Often grown ups think they know best, but really we are just being disrespectful of the ideas, imaginations and realities of kids. Lean into it more and create more joy for audiences of all ages!

Baleen Moonjan

Like: The spectacle. I was overcome with the beauty of stomping through white, soft sand down to the immense whale bone installation, and watching the sunset paint the sky with dramatic spine-like clouds, orange, pink and blue. Even the pre-show experience was once in a lifetime, and then the performers lit a series of fires and a hush descended on the audience.

Learning: There is something so incredible about watching the care and expertise that goes into the performance of ritual. It made me think about ritual in theatre, and how all groups and subcultures have rituals of some sort, and how I can respect those rituals in making theatre with people.

Fringe begins

Coming to you live from the Airbnb office.

A good friend of mine once told me that you can find something to like in every show. I’m taking that to heart, so the next two weeks of posts won’t be full of critical reviews, they will be Good Vibes Only: a like and a learning from all the art I see.

Show 1: The Tumour Show by Peter Beaglehole.

I’m so stoked to say the first show I saw was wonderful. It was honest, sweet, funny and gently challenging. He took us through his journey of discovering he had a spinal tumour in his early twenties with a PowerPoint, lists, a couple of acoustic songs and exceptional comic timing. For a self proclaimed non-performer he was captivating, charming and generous.

Like: Self awareness and signposting was used to great effect to set the tone and disrupt any one man sob-story tropes. It really set expectations and created an immediate understanding with the audience.

Learning: You can really ride an audiences emotional response with humour - Peter would let us get close to having a cry and then immediately cut it off with another joke. This seemed very deliberate because he is a master of structure and this was very much his approach to sharing news with his friends in real life , but some of the audience were definitely craving a moment of release.

I was also lucky to get to chat to Peter after the show - turns out we were both mentored by the irrepressible Mary Anne Butler!

Show 2: Fool’s Paradise by Britt Plummer.

An autobiographical story by a lovelorn clown, the show (in a very intimate Yurt venue) took us through the highs and downward spiral of the relationship between two performers navigating love and visas from opposite sides of the world through the Pandemic.

Like: I really enjoyed the simplicity and silliness of the puppetry in the show - two takeaway coffee cups getting it on, and a mop-headed stand-in boyfriend that cuddled Britt with her own arm stuck through a hole in a suit jacket.

Learning: I know' it’s basic story structure, but a character’s growth through their journey really is so important. There is real satisfaction in seeing them start in one state of being, shift and develop, and be irrevocably changed by a climatic event. If you don’t nail this the ending feels undeserved. I always think about this quote (which I will now butcher) from Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird: a climax should feel at once surprising and inevitable.

A huge perk of the evening was that I was spent it with the amazing Dr Sarah Peters from Flinders University. Sarah is a lecturer and verbatim theatre maker, and all round lovely person. I am headed to one of her lectures on Tuesday. Can’t wait.

Bonus pic of me about to catch the bus in for my first day of Fringe, listening to a deep-dive into Midnights by Taylor Swift.

2024 at Corro <3

I have been lucky enough to receive an Arts NT residency grant to hang out at Corro this year and write a play with young people! What a DREAM!

The concept for the work came from spending a year with The Playwrights - an incredible group of young writers who are going to change the world, and also showed me what it means to be a Swiftie.

Riffing on the themes of being 14, love, friendship and fandom, I landed on this idea - Life is Swift (working title):

The ticket buying frenzy for the Eras tour rips a hole in the space time continuum. Two teenage friends are sucked through a portal into Taylor’s Version of the Universe. The pair arrive in Taylor’s first era - endless summer and golden ringlets. This Taylor seems glad for the company, but when they try to leave she shows her true colours. They are forced to battle their way through each of Taylor’s Eras in this twisted dimension, confronting their fears and fantasies of growing up in order to escape. Will their friendship survive into their next era?

To create this new work I will be working with a group of amazing young artists, under the guidance of the incredible team at Corro and community and cultural arts practitioner Alyson Evans.

But first - research! I am off to Adelaide Fringe and Festival to see work and meet theatre-makers and youth arts orgs. And learn as much as I can about Tay Tay (I am very much not a Swiftie - this is a steeeeep learning curve).

Watch this space for reviews, thoughts, and updates. Thank you so much to Zoe and the Corro team and Arts NT. I am so excited to get started!