Free Range 2011: Jo Thomas (Interview 22)

The last time I saw Jo Thomas was on stage a couple of months ago at the Darlinghurst Theatre in Sydney. She was on tour at the time with Jo&Co (her company’s) show Sometimes I Find That I Am Naked. That production is ‘resting’ currently as Jo gets stuck into something completely different at !Metro Arts month-long Free Range Festival in Brisbane. She and the Naked … team will be back on the road later this year as part of a national tour through the independent theatre champion Critical Stages.

I’m keen to hear what she will be doing as she takes time out from what is a successful tour for Jo&Co. A bit of well-earned R&R, perhaps? Perhaps Recreation, but not much Rest, it would seem from what she has planned for herself and what Free Range has planned for Jo and the other artists being incubated during the month of June.

Free Range is about giving artists time and space over an intensive period to develop their work. When I spoke with Jo it was early days for her and her collaborators – a brainstorming period. The project piece, which she has called Ukiyo-e: Tales From the Floating World ‘doesn’t yet exist,’ she tells me, and it’s very different in style from Sometimes I Find That I Am Naked, which she describes as ‘populist.’ Continue reading “Free Range 2011: Jo Thomas (Interview 22)”