Greenroom is 5 today

Yes, it’s been five years since Greenroom became a blog in its own right. I’d been posting on another site Groundling for a couple of years before that, but 1st September 2009 marked the first of what were to be hundreds of posts focussed on Queensland’s professional theatre: reviews, commentary, and interviews.

It’s been a labour of love. I started blogging because I had recently left the university where I had been teaching for 21 years and imagined the twilight of the so-called ‘retirement’ had come. I had to fill it somehow and, for a theatre academic, writing about my ‘field of study’ seemed a good enough place to start.

They say always write about what you know – I’d add love – if you want to enjoy the process as well as a modicum of success. I have; I really have enjoyed writing about theatre here in my corner of the world and state, and I think the blog has been a modest success. Earlier this year, the National Library of Australia included Greenroom in its database of significant sites, and I’m rightly proud of that.

I guess every blog will have a limited life, an end-point, a time to say, ‘Enough,’ and the time has come for Greenroom to close the door. Continue reading “Greenroom is 5 today”

Chris Beckey (Interview 44)

Image: Morgan Roberts

I met with Chris Beckey in July for coffee and a chat at The Three Monkeys in West End. Chris was then appearing in CALIGULA for The Danger Ensemble. As I edit this long-overdue post, he is preparing for the Brisbane Festival’s production of Ibsen’s A DOLL’S HOUSE in an adaptation by Lally Katz. Once again, he is working under the direction of long-time creative collaborator Steven Mitchell Wright.

That afternoon I asked Chris, as I do all artists I interview, what had brought them to where they are now. We end up talking about process as the afternoon ticked away. Continue reading “Chris Beckey (Interview 44)”