It was impossible to get a ticket for Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour at the 2015 Edinburgh Fringe, but it’s running for all of the Melbourne Festival so as many people as possible can sing their praises and toast them with creaming soda mixed with vodka, Cointreau and a bit of advocaat. Six Catholic school… Read more.
The Money is every meeting I’ve ever been to. Created by UK-based company Kaleider, it’s part game, immersive theatre and live art. And almost fly-on-the-wall live documentary. A group of ticket buyers known as the “benefactors” have an hour to unanimously decide how to spend a small pile of money – different amounts each session… Read more.
I wonder if we go to theatre to re-create, or discover, the childhood experience of sitting in a loving lap and being read a story. Hobart’s Terrapin Puppet Theatre have been creating and touring children’s theatre since 1981. You and me and the space in between only has four days at the Melbourne Festival and… Read more.
Director Meng Jinghui is a cult theatre superstar in China and the National Theatre of China is one of the most influential companies in Asia. I can’t think of an equivalent Australian company, but maybe his works are seen with the kind of obsession that Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More is seen in New York. Since its… Read more.
It’s been 48 hours since my last Melbourne Festival show… Although Melbourne’s festival lovers are looking forward to being in bed by midnight, food made at home and a couple of days that don’t include arguing about The Bacchae on social media, it’s hard to believe that festival season is really over. With the Melbourne… Read more.
Kate Mulvany’s gorgeous adaption of Kit Williams’s picture book Masquerade celebrates why picture books and stories are so important to children and why whenever a child asks you to read them a book, you stop what you are doing and read them a book. You’ll never regret that choice. At today’s post-show Q and A,… Read more.
I didn’t take my eyes off the stage and am still trying to fully understand the astonishingly beautiful, often disturbing and totally unapologetic adaption of The Bacchae created by Adena Jacobs, Aaron Orzech and a cast of teenage women from St Martin’s youth theatre. Euripides’s The Bacchae is about the god Dionysus coming to Thebes disguised as a human and… Read more.
“If you liked that show, I’m going to push you under a tram.” It could only be said in Melbourne, at an arts festival. It was said to me at the end of When the mountain changed its clothing. I liked it. Others didn’t. My favourite bit was the cutting open of teddy bears to make… Read more.
Written by Australian playwright Lachlan Philpott, The Trouble with Harry is a story about Harry Crawford, who was made famous after it was discovered that he was born female. It’s set within Crawford’s historical milieu, the suburbs of Sydney during the First World War, as he and his wife Anne work to raise their child…. Read more.
Kate Fryer is a co-founder of independent acrobatic aerial theatre company Dislocate. Their Melbourne Festival show, If These Walls Could Talk, is another world premiere for the festival. Fusing theatre and circus, it’s a story about life, death and everything in between in an apartment overs five generations of tenants. What do you love most about your Melbourne Festival show?… Read more.
