Snapshots of Brisbane Theatre 2009-2014
Diane Cilento with Peter Finch, originally uploaded by State Library of Queensland, Australia.
Location: London
Date: December 1954
Description: Photographed in London during the making of the film ‘Passage Home’ (released in 1955)
Information about State Library of Queensland’s collection: pictureqld.slq.qld.gov.au/
With all the talk of free range and incubation models, it was probably inevitable that I started thinking of chicken and egg metaphors as I prepped to talk with Daniel Evans, Jo Thomas and Steven Mitchell Wright this week. All are involved with the 6th Free Range Festival which occupies nearly the whole of the month of June each year at !Metro Arts’ Edward Street, Brisbane home.
It’s going to be a busy barnyard from 3rd to 28th this year. As the press release notes about the Free Range program, it
will bring together an eclectic group of independent performance makers to seed new ideas and evolve new work through a challenging, intense and inspiring month-long program.
Dan Evans tells me more about the process of getting this stimulating and immersive experience up and running. Continue reading “Free Range 2011: !Metro Arts – to begin at the beginning …”
Full program details from the company website
Details on company production page
Tim O’Connor is Brisbane-born and bred. It’s clear when you hear him talk that he loves this city. He tells me it’s the place he always wanted to be and to remain. When he was growing up he went to see shows at QPAC, La Boite, QTC and Harvest Rain where, in time, he would go to Saturday afternoon drama workshops at their Sydney Street Theatre premises in New Farm.
After school and done with study, he became Harvest Rain’s volunteer dogsbody, the box-office boy who ‘ … hung around until they gave me a job. I was an 18 year old bum who got work experience, bided my time and found myself in the right place at the right time.’ Eventually, he became Harvest Rain’s Artistic Director at the age of 22; it is the position he now holds.
During the first few years of the 2000s, Harvest Rain was in a period of transition. The Parkin Brothers had taken over the theatre arm from the church who owned it at the time. ‘It was one thing for them to run a church and another to run a complete separate business which had become bigger than the church itself. I don’t think they realised what they had taken on. They had to give up their ownership and I took over. I was the last man standing.’
I ask him what a very young, fledgling Artistic Director thought he could do with that particular company at the time. It turns out his ambitions for Harvest Rain then are pretty much a continuation of what they are for the present-day company: to continue the development which they have largely realised over the past 10 years – to make it a pro-am and eventually fully-professional company.
At the core we believe in doing theatre that is attractive to family and to creating theatre that anyone can come and enjoy – theatre for the masses if you like.
‘I came in and enhanced what was already there,’ but Tim wanted to expand from the old programming model of 3-4 shows a year. He began directing the company towards musical theatre because ‘… that is my clear, passionate love. I had a vision that the company could be big. I wanted to do lots of shows, to tour, to develop a training program and maybe even develop outside Brisbane. In the last 10 years I have taken the company that way.’ Continue reading “Tim O’Connor (Interview 20)”