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.
