Category: Interviews

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Megan Shorey (Interview 34)

Megan Shorey will never write a musical. Or so she tells me. But before I can wonder if I’m having a coffee with the wrong gal, she clarifies: “At Joymas Creative we write Music Theatre. Theatre with music, for theatre lovers; for people that enjoy a mental challenge, an emotional challenge; where the songs continue to drive the narrative.” So, if you’re looking for sequins and a kick-line, you’d better head elsewhere. Or stay – and enjoy something new.

Joymas Creative is a Brisbane-based, independent music theatre company that produces its own work, and has done so since 2009. It is headlined by the extraordinarily talented Megan Shorey – writer, director, producer, songstress, wife and mum.

I met Megan for the first time last week to chat about the launch of Joymas’ 2013 season. We covered kids’ illnesses, ballet school madness, starting prep and our mutual disdain for babies that don’t sleep, and then I remembered I had to do an interview. Not only is Megan one of the most delightfully articulate, clever and engaging women I’ve met, she’s also got her finger firmly on the pulse – and a good thing too – for 2013 will see Joymas embrace the often elusive, yet always intrusive Generation Y. Continue reading “Megan Shorey (Interview 34)”

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Claire Christian (Interview 33)

I had the pleasure yesterday of speaking with Claire, the current Director of Empire Youth Arts. We chatted about the work being done by EYA in Toowoomba and the surrounding regions in southern Queensland.

Over the past couple of years I’ve seen a lot of the work being done in the various after school and performance projects which EYA has produced. The scope and outcomes are impressive, to say the least.

Claire expanded. “Some … that I’m really proud of include a partnership with Toowoomba Flexi School for National Youth Week. We also worked with the boys from Optikal bloc to create a documentary. We facilitated a Child Protection Week project with some young children at Rockville Primary school, and provided them access to a couple of visual artists.”

In addition, during 2012 there were two IMPACT Ensembles: the first was a production of Blackrock which Claire speaks about in the interview. She notes that it was particularly exciting for the group who had partnered with the Toowoomba Says no to Violence movement, and held a Young Men’s Forum day as part of the overall project.  The second IMPACT Ensemble a production written, performed and designed by the ensemble members has just closed. Claire and I chat about the value of this particular project in the interview. Continue reading “Claire Christian (Interview 33)”

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David Berthold (Interview 32)

Image of David Berthold by Justine Walpole

A couple of weeks ago, David Berthold and I find ourselves seated on a very lumpy couch outside Room 60 down the hill from La Boite Theatre’s Roundhouse precinct at Kelvin Grove. We have taken refuge outside because it’s movie night and, apparently, one of the worst movies ever made is screening inside for the afficionados of such things. We take our two (very nice) glasses of Pinot Grigio outside to enjoy the early Spring weather. It is, I think, a rather nice way to conduct an interview. A couple of hours later we head off after a chat that revolved around Tender Napalm, the play by Philip Ridley which David is currently directing for La Boite. We actually spun out over lots of things from opera to Berlin to arts funding and the kinds of audiences that La Boite has attracted during his tenure – he became Artistic Director in 2008. It was a good chat, all in all. Here’s what I remember of it; the notes helped.

I’ve known David for years, ever since he was Artistic Associate at Queensland Theatre Company way back – well, in the early 90s anyway. I’ve worked with him (for the first time earlier this year in As You Like It) and we’ve chatted on many occasions, but I hadn’t known till now that he is a baritone and an opera buff and that once upon a time, he wanted to be an opera singer. He confesses that his dream is still to sing Schubert’s Winterreise with all its ‘infinite meanings’ in German – but more of that later. Continue reading “David Berthold (Interview 32)”

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Steven Mitchell Wright (Interview 31)

Photography: Morgan Roberts

This week marks the second time I’ve spoken with Steven Mitchell Wright for Greenroom. The first was in June last year for the Free Range Project – Interview 21 – 10 interviews ago as it turns out. Steven is the AD of The Danger Ensemble which has also featured here on Greenroom via last August’s Hamlet Apocalypse. This work, another of Steven’s creations, appeared in La Boite’s 2011 Indie season. It was one of the more dangerous, ‘in yer face and be damned if you don’t like it’ productions I’d seen in ages. But it was more than just dangerous for its own sake; it was risky, sure but courageous, thrilling and accomplished – and it got my heart racing. That doesn’t happen to me very often in the theatre. The ideas and their theatricalisation did it for me with Hamlet Apocalypse. You can read the review here. This time around we talked about the latest work Loco Maricon Amor (‘Crazy Queer Love’ trans in case you wondered) which opens its world premiere season this week at Metro Arts in Edward Street Brisbane.

You’ve probably already seen this wildly coloured, staring figure – the production image for Loco Maricon Amor. It’s Salvador Dali, of course – the crazy, trademark moustache gives it away. The image, one of the more successful theatre posters I’ve seen for ages, hints at and suggests so much, teasing the viewer to engage with the real eyes in a painted face set against an exploding universe. It’s a new work but I’m actually less interested in what the play is about – the plot to be terribly old-fashioned – than in the realisation of the work. I’ve already read in the media release that ‘Loco Maricon Amor isn’t about any one thing. But it is about love and death and their interconnectedness.’ Big call.

To that end I steer the conversation around to how Steven and the Danger Ensemble work. I want to know where these ideas come from and how they do it – the nuts and bolts of their working process. How did Loco Maricon Amor take shape, for example? I know before I ask that it’s not going to be a simple response, and that’s the way it turns out.

The form of a work becomes its delivery method.

As Steven puts it, ‘Each project is different, and I’m adamant that each work has to find its own process.’ Another side to the good design axiom of form following function. ‘Finding this is important to me. But, at the start, the story has to be important. Why would you invest so much time and energy without a sense of its being important? And I need a sense of the “heart” of a work.’ So, that’s the way our discussion proceeds – about how this play found its authentic heart and external shape.

Continue reading “Steven Mitchell Wright (Interview 31)”

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Rob Pensalfini (Interview 30)

Rob Pensalfini is a busy and much-travelled man. I found out just how much when I asked him (jokingly) what had brought him to Verona. He’s currently directing and appearing in Two Gentlemen of …  for the Queensland Shakespeare Ensemble. He’s also QSE’s AD, and has been since its inception in 2001. He’s proud of the fact that QSE has grown and, indeed, lasted for over a decade. That’s pretty good for an independent theatre ensemble. ‘We have a committed core of artists and it now feels artistically stable and progressive.’

But first … the road from Perth (where Rob, the son of Italian migrants, was born and raised) to Brisbane – wound its way via the US and the Australian western desert country. By the way, Rob has a PhD in Theoretical Linguistics from MIT (Boston). The Boston part is important to Rob’s story. You could say that it was here that he had his theatrical epiphany or, at least, that the seeds for QSE were sown. Continue reading “Rob Pensalfini (Interview 30)”