Category: Interviews

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Life’s Good: Nelle Lee (Interview 19)

Life is very good right now for Nelle Lee,  producer-actor, writer and one of the artistic director triumvirate of the very successful independent theatre company, Shake and Stir.

She and the rest of the company are on the first leg of their national tour of Statespeare and, earlier this week in a special ceremony, she was awarded the University of Southern Queensland‘s Young Alumnus of the Year Award and Faculty of Arts Prize. We catch up at Jilly’s coffee shop, just round the corner from Toowoomba’s Empire Theatre where Statespeare is playing this week.

Nelle arrives in a flurry, a bit late from an interview with a local television crew. It’s good to see her so energised and happy and confident. We eschew the contents of Jilly’s famous wicked-cake case, settle on coffee and start to talk. It’s been a while since we did this – apart from quick ‘hellos’ in theatre foyers across the years since her graduation from the Theatre program at USQ in 2004. It seems there hasn’t been a spare moment for her since then. Shake and Stir started (in a part-time way) in 2006, but has been going flat out since 2008-09, she tells me – not bad going. She’s modest about her achievements: ‘I have a lot of people to thank.’ She’s not yet 30, I think, and she can already claim to have a huge career hit on her hands with the theatrical start-up company that is Shake and Stir. The company gets no government subsidy or philanthropic money, and is entirely self-supporting.

Shake and Stir employ over 20 actors a year with 8 full-time positions. All actors are paid at above-Equity rates.

In addition to their mainstage performances in Brisbane and on tour – they do not have a home theatre base – Shake and Stir also run teacher professional-development workshops and after-school and holiday classes for kids either in-school or at Brisbane’s Old Museum. Whilst the focus of their performance work is on introducing young people to Shakespeare, they are also keen to do the same for other classic works. Their production of Animal Farm (another school syllabus favourite) is programmed for production later this year. But for now and for the next four months as they tour Australia, it’s Statespeare which was commissioned by the Festival of Cairns in 2008 and which has been hugely successful for the company ever since. Continue reading “Life’s Good: Nelle Lee (Interview 19)”

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Niki-J Price (Interview 18)

As I Skype with Niki-J Price she tells me she is enjoying a little stillness in the Brisbane rain –  ‘a bit of a homesick moment,’ she says – she’s Welsh by birth. Niki-J’s taking a short break from rehearsals as part of the Empire Burning company. There’s a run-through that night, ‘and it will be my first ever appearance on the Sue Benner stage.’ Niki-J is one of the cast in Eugene Gilfedder’s new play which opens on Friday at !Metro Arts as part of their Independents’ season for 2011. ‘I’m more than thrilled to be working with such an amazing cast. What a gift it is to be sharing the stage with some of Queensland’s finest male actors – including young Finn (Gilfedder-Cooney) who is not afraid to take such bold steps.’ I think to myself that she is probably going to be right at home in this company. Niki-J herself is a fine actor – on stage as bold and courageous as they come.

I’m keen to find out more about her and to find out what feeds her artist’s imagination. I begin by asking her a question that’s been puzzling me for ages. What’s the ‘J’ in Niki-J stand for?  She tells me it’s for ‘Jayne’ but she only added it when she was 18. ‘At the time I thought a second name would be nice,’ and so she became Nicola Jayne Price – a good Welsh name, I note and one that morphed over time into Niki-J.

As a child, she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do with her life. ‘It was a small, mid-Wales country town – all a bit incestuous; you’d walk down the street and see someone you were related to.’ When she was 13 she discovered the local youth theatre, and that was it. It was there that her eyes were opened to a wider world, and where, she confesses, she learned to drink and smoke. The first play she appeared in happened to be Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood, the same play, incidentally, in which she appeared in December last year for Fractal Productions in Ipswich and at the Old Museum in Brisbane. Continue reading “Niki-J Price (Interview 18)”

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Playing with monsters: Benjamin Shostakowski (Interview 17)

PHOTO: Benjamin Shostakowski

Hoorah, hoorah, I’ve found a kindred spirit – someone else who loves the ‘Master of the Vaguely Ominous’ – Edward Gorey (1925-2000), American illustrator and author of some of the oddest and funniest books around. His surname, once you get to know his work, seems wonderfully apt.

My Gorey antennae twitched when I saw that a company called ‘Monsters Appear’ was producing a new play called The Glorious Nosebleed. This is the title of one of Gorey’s more famous books, and the one that brilliantly illustrates what is meant by adverbs (!) … such as, ‘He ran down the hall maniacally,‘ with the accompanying picture of an Edwardian gentleman in night attire brandishing a large axe  – or this one

‘He looked out of the room hopelessly.’

Known for his darkly comic tales and brilliant draughtsmanship Edward St John Gorey was also a true eccentric. He loved cats and wearing fur coats, which made the lanky Yankee look like a huge and rather patrician cat himself. Gorey lived in New England and was also a ballet and theatre devotee. He illustrated posters and programmes for the NY City Ballet as well as for local community theatres. He was nominated for a Tony in 1977 for his costume and set designs for Dracula, and won for Best Costume Design. By the way, you can also buy a Gorey-designed Dracula Toy Theatre on Amazon and yes, I have a small collection of Gorey-ana and anyone who likes Gorey gets my vote.

So it was that I found myself interviewing Benjamin Shostakowski (a Gorey aficionadao) and one of the team of Monsters Appear who, with a name like that, clearly also get a kick out of scary things and the finely-drawn macabre-in-the-ordinary. This is how they see themselves

Monsters Appear is an emerging Brisbane independent theatre collective comprised of Benjamin Schostakowski, Athalia Foo and Nikki Taurau. The collective present new contemporary performance works that aim to provide a unique experience for their audiences. Their work melds together traditional theatrical devices and modern technologies. Monsters Appear employ visual stage images, illusion, projected images and minimal dialogue to play with space and time. With a zealous theatrical sensibility, they aim for the unexpected. (Media Release) Continue reading “Playing with monsters: Benjamin Shostakowski (Interview 17)”

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Kat Henry (Interview 16)

Photo: Kat Henry

Much of the talk in town and on the interwebs right now concerns gender equity in the theatre. Women playwrights and directors and actors continue to battle what many are calling, perhaps intemperately – but who can blame them – ‘the boys’ club.’ It’s not just here either; American and British women have their dander up as well.

When a woman succeeds in securing a paid job as a director or actor, or when she wins an award for playwrighting, then it’s cause for celebration. So it was last week when expatriate Brisbane writer (she now lives in Melbourne) Shannon Murdoch won the prestigious Yale Drama Series award for her play New Light Shine. As they used to say before digital technologies arrived to spread news in a flash, ‘the wires hummed’ with the news. Shannon was congratulated, contacted, and readings were being set up just-like-that. Hoorah! I’m told New Light Shine was one of the ‘must see’ works at this year’s National Play Festival. I wonder if it has been secured for an Australian production yet and, if so, who will direct? Whatever the answers, it’s a thrill to see Shannon Murdoch’s work being recognised in this way.

There are two women directors currently at work in Brisbane on productions: Andrea Moor on Water Falling Down for Queensland Theatre Company, and Kat Henry on The Ugly One by Marius von Mayenburg for the independent company 23rd Productions.  Greenroom interviewed Andrea last year when she was working on Tender – you can read the review here. I was delighted to meet Kat Henry a week or so ago at the theatre and to get her to agree to an interview. Continue reading “Kat Henry (Interview 16)”

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Jason Klarwein (Interview 15)

The last time I sat down with Jason Klarwein to talk about theatre was 10 years ago, shortly after I had been appointed to the Board at Queensland Theatre Company. At that time Jason was in the first intake of the Company’s Emerging Artists program. I followed all of the artists over the course of the year and touched base with them from time to time about the experience. I had hours of  audio interviews which I subsequently had transcribed and filed away for an article which has yet to be written. (Note to self: do something about this).

There’s an old saying that goes if you’re still in theatre 10 years after you begin that you’re there for life. If it is true, then Jason – actor and now Artistic Director of Queensland’s iconic Grin and Tonic Theatre Troupe – has passed the point of no return. He laughs when I point this out. With his first professional job for Disabled Arts The Glass Cage in 1996, he agrees that he is definitely well beyond the 10 year turning point. He joins what is becoming something of a league of newly-appointed artistic directors around Australia, many of whom cite ‘actor’ or ‘designer’ or ‘producer’ before ‘director’ as their theatre ‘speciality.’

I wanted to talk with Jason about what he’s been doing in the years since we last spoke in depth and, of course, about Grin and Tonic and his vision for its future. He’s already got a 5 Year Plan under way, and I managed to winkle out some of the ideas informing the first year at least. We spent a good 45 minutes or so having a mutually enjoyable rant about theatre things. There’s a lot to talk about. As to what he’s been doing in the interim, Jason lists five career highlights. Continue reading “Jason Klarwein (Interview 15)”