In Good Company - A manual for producing independent theatre by Lyn Wallis. Currency Press 2005. $32.95 illustrated paperback.
Lyn Wallis was artistic director of The Jigsaw Company here in Canberra for 4 years in the '90s, and was largely instrumental in taking Jigsaw beyond its original theatre-in-education format to include young adult theatre, so successfully followed up by recent director Greg Lissaman.
Wallis went on to become Downstairs Theatre Director at Belvoir St, Sydney, where she set up the mentoring program, B Sharp, for Company B. She has observed and assisted the development of independent ("indie") theatre alongside the "world of fully-paid professional theatre [where] an artistic director would have for each production a full complement of designers, a production manager, a rehearsal room, a season stage manager (and maybe ASM), a costume co-ordinator" while the employing company "would very likely have an in-house marketing and publicity department and graphic designer, and would act as overall producer of the work, under the watchful eye of a general manager or administrator".
"The independent situation is rarely so richly resourced!", she writes, but small companies still need to cover all the producing responsibilities - and her book tells you how to do it. Written in a direct, sometimes even blunt, conversational style, In Good Company is a really useful book for what Wallis calls "collaborators" in Canberra's multitude of small independent theatre groups. Wallis describes it as a "practical guide for producers of small-scale professional, co-operative and amateur theatre", and that's exactly what it is.
For example, it gives you all the websites you need, to find out everything you've always known you needed to know but maybe never knew how to find.
I want to add drama teachers to the list of must-readers. The book is both full of information teachers need to put on public performances, but it is also a model for teachers to use. Wallis describes typical small company structures which can clarify how to set up a school student group as a production company, both to take the load off an individual teacher's shoulders and to teach the students about theatre in the real world.
And what is the real world of Canberra theatre? It's jam-packed full of small-scale professional, co-operative and amateur theatre. Some have lasted, it seems, forever - Canberra Repertory, for example - but many others are short-lived. There was Theatre ACT, Fortune Theatre, Canberra Theatre Company, which were the forerunners of The Street Theatre.
Looking over the reviews I've written in the past 10 years, I re-discovered names like Culturally Innovative Arts (remember David Branson?), Company Skylark, Elbow Theatre, Eureka!, BITS Theatre, WildWood Theatre, Women on a Shoestring and other fully professional outfits. When I began counting groups like those run by former students of colleges and universities, individuals, amateurs who sometimes employ a professional director and a host of other combinations, I found a total of about 70.
Full Tilt, New Erektions, Hidden Corners, Bohemian Productions, Paradox Theatre, Odd Productions, Free-Rain, Aberrant Genotype Productions - the mind boggles at the variety.
For a new company, begin with clarifying how your group will work. Write a Letter of Agreement between everyone involved, even if you remain an informal company. Inc or not to Inc? is an important question: "incorporation vs incarceration", says Wallis.
How independent do you want to be, or what can you gain from being associated with a venue which may provide box-office facilities, publicity, technical staff and other services in a "curated season". This is the direction The Street Theatre went in the days when several professional companies realised that doing everything separately, in effect in competition with each other, was counter-productive. Better to work co-operatively in The Season at The Street, so that funding applications had a firmer base, and costs such as publicity and ticketing could be shared.
What's the best way of managing the rehearsal and performance periods, covering your insurance and other legal requirements, setting up an Australian Business Number (ABN) and GST arrangements, handling the media, getting copyright right? Everything is answered in this almost pocket-sized book. "The more task-specific people you can build into your team the better, but most companies don't need (and don't have!) a dozen people to get a small-scale production up and running" and Wallis explains different options with real-life examples.
My advice is to read the book from cover to cover first, to get the big picture. Then go back and tab the pages with the particular bits of information you need. That's my only gripe. I would like a double-page spread at the beginning or the end with a complete flow chart from first meeting, through planning, administrative and legal set-up, funding and publicity, rehearsal, venue arrangements, production week, performance season, project completion and on-going arrangements.
Each twist and turn in the chart of the company's affairs could be flagged with the page number where you can follow through the details. Then the book would be just about perfect. And it may well save many theatre collaborators much angst, and even extend their - theatrical - lives.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Tuesday, 28 March 2006
Saturday, 18 March 2006
2006: The Elephant Man by Bernard Pomerance
The Elephant Man by Bernard Pomerance. Moonlight, directed by Jay Sullivan at ANU Arts Centre Drama Lab. March 15-25, 8pm.
I'm glad I never saw the David Lynch film, which seems to count the roles of John Merrick and Dr Frederick Treves as the star parts. In Moonlight's production, Matt Borneman certainly stands out as the Elephant Man and Justin Davidson does a competent job as Dr Treves.
But the star is clearly Rachael Teding van Berkhout as Miss Kendal. The historical actress was Mrs (later Dame Madge) Kendal. In 1895 George Bernard Shaw said of his new play Candida "There are only two people in the world possible for [the woman's part]: Janet Achurch, for whom it was written, and Mrs Kendal." Van Berkhout played absolutely candidly as I am sure Mrs Kendal would have done, in sensitively showing Merrick true compassion.
I was somewhat surprised that Moonlight have moved away from their original plan of presenting three plays by one major playwright each year, previously Brecht and Chekhov. Though Sullivan has understood and successfully applied the non-naturalistic style of this play, The Elephant Man does not have the complexity to properly put ANU drama graduates to the test, nor the place in the theatre canon to justify study by undergraduates.
This production turns Moonlight into just another amateur theatre group, rather than the valuable link it has been for two years between gown and town. I thought the Edith Torey Bequest, which helps fund Moonlight, specified drama education as its purpose, but there is not enough to learn from Pomerance's chronological documentary piece of "faction".
But this is not to say the evening is wasted. I found the theme demonstrated through the awful experiences of Merrick as a freak show exhibit, and the moral problem Miss Kendal causes for the treating doctor, whose Christian beliefs run counter to his science, showed how we have not come very far since the days of the real Joseph Merrick. We may think we are liberated by reality television, but it seems to me like just a new kind of freak show, engendering similar prejudicial attitudes. The anti-discrimination message is made clear in this production - a worthwhile result.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
I'm glad I never saw the David Lynch film, which seems to count the roles of John Merrick and Dr Frederick Treves as the star parts. In Moonlight's production, Matt Borneman certainly stands out as the Elephant Man and Justin Davidson does a competent job as Dr Treves.
But the star is clearly Rachael Teding van Berkhout as Miss Kendal. The historical actress was Mrs (later Dame Madge) Kendal. In 1895 George Bernard Shaw said of his new play Candida "There are only two people in the world possible for [the woman's part]: Janet Achurch, for whom it was written, and Mrs Kendal." Van Berkhout played absolutely candidly as I am sure Mrs Kendal would have done, in sensitively showing Merrick true compassion.
I was somewhat surprised that Moonlight have moved away from their original plan of presenting three plays by one major playwright each year, previously Brecht and Chekhov. Though Sullivan has understood and successfully applied the non-naturalistic style of this play, The Elephant Man does not have the complexity to properly put ANU drama graduates to the test, nor the place in the theatre canon to justify study by undergraduates.
This production turns Moonlight into just another amateur theatre group, rather than the valuable link it has been for two years between gown and town. I thought the Edith Torey Bequest, which helps fund Moonlight, specified drama education as its purpose, but there is not enough to learn from Pomerance's chronological documentary piece of "faction".
But this is not to say the evening is wasted. I found the theme demonstrated through the awful experiences of Merrick as a freak show exhibit, and the moral problem Miss Kendal causes for the treating doctor, whose Christian beliefs run counter to his science, showed how we have not come very far since the days of the real Joseph Merrick. We may think we are liberated by reality television, but it seems to me like just a new kind of freak show, engendering similar prejudicial attitudes. The anti-discrimination message is made clear in this production - a worthwhile result.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 17 March 2006
2006: Mass Appeal by Bill C. Davis
Mass Appeal by Bill C. Davis. UC Players dinner and show at the University of Canberra Café, above the Refectory, Building 1. Fridays and Saturdays March 17 - April 8. Dinner 7pm, Show 8.30pm. Bookings: 6201 2645
This is an American Catholic comedy about a young seminarian who believes he should bluntly tell the truth - to his superiors and to the congregation. Will he make it to deacon, sexual abstinence and full priesthood? Peter Holland plays Mark Dolson with the insistence of a reformed do-gooder. Not very likeable, however sincere.
Can Father Tim Farley, Irish whisky priest, turn this raw youth into a loveable rogue like himself, trusted and adored by his congregation? Is this what he should do, knowing that popularity is achieved more by being deliberately inane rather than pontificating? Avoiding, gently covering up the truth more often helps people in crisis than exposing them directly to reality.
Davis made his reputation when this, his first play, went on Broadway in 1981, and it has played regularly since then in America and Europe, opening shortly in London. Mass Appeal was also a film starring Jack Lemmon in 1984. Its comic effect is in the neat twists and turns of dialogue between Dolson and Farley, Farley and the invisible secretary Margaret, Farley and his superior on the phone, interspersed by Farley's and Dolson's sermons. The UC production needs a bit better pacing, but the script is good enough to make its mark.
Though the play is not, to my mind, as deep and satisfying as its reputation suggests, it is an interesting exercise in switching the characters' roles. Farley learns as much about the need to tell the truth as Dolson learns about the need for empathy so that others will hear the truth you have to tell. Worth a visit, with a pleasant meal to boot.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
This is an American Catholic comedy about a young seminarian who believes he should bluntly tell the truth - to his superiors and to the congregation. Will he make it to deacon, sexual abstinence and full priesthood? Peter Holland plays Mark Dolson with the insistence of a reformed do-gooder. Not very likeable, however sincere.
Can Father Tim Farley, Irish whisky priest, turn this raw youth into a loveable rogue like himself, trusted and adored by his congregation? Is this what he should do, knowing that popularity is achieved more by being deliberately inane rather than pontificating? Avoiding, gently covering up the truth more often helps people in crisis than exposing them directly to reality.
Davis made his reputation when this, his first play, went on Broadway in 1981, and it has played regularly since then in America and Europe, opening shortly in London. Mass Appeal was also a film starring Jack Lemmon in 1984. Its comic effect is in the neat twists and turns of dialogue between Dolson and Farley, Farley and the invisible secretary Margaret, Farley and his superior on the phone, interspersed by Farley's and Dolson's sermons. The UC production needs a bit better pacing, but the script is good enough to make its mark.
Though the play is not, to my mind, as deep and satisfying as its reputation suggests, it is an interesting exercise in switching the characters' roles. Farley learns as much about the need to tell the truth as Dolson learns about the need for empathy so that others will hear the truth you have to tell. Worth a visit, with a pleasant meal to boot.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Sunday, 12 March 2006
2006: The Dora Fay Davenport Show: How to Achieve Domestic Bliss by Nigel Sutton and Jenny Hope
The Dora Fay Davenport Show: How to Achieve Domestic Bliss by Nigel Sutton and Jenny Hope at the National Museum of Australia Studio, March 12-13, and Saturday-Sunday March 18-19, 10.30-11.30am and 2.00-3.00pm. Tickets: $5 Bookings: 6208 5021 Details: http://www.nma.gov.au/events/major_events/the_dora_fay_davenport_show/
It's a bit disconcerting, but very funny, when museum exhibits come alive and you see your own memories on stage. Dora Fay Davenport is a fiction but she could easily have been the famous fifties radio housewife's adviser she claims to be, presenting her first show on brand-new television in 1957.
How I remember the slightly gauche fixed smiles and awkward hesitations, and the compulsory English accents, of the first Australian live television. Presenters were not allowed on without proper elocution lessons, and Sutton and Hope have clearly done their homework. So the play works as it is meant to for Senior Citizens like me, almost squirming while laughing at what we - or at least our mothers and fathers - were like then.
But Dora's how to decorate the home and cook a sponge show takes an interesting twist when her husband makes fun of the idea that her housework is not real work - like a man in his office for eight hours at a stretch. Hope does a wonderful comic solo, starting at 5am (she has to light the wood stove), getting the four children aged 9 to 12 and her husband out of the house on time with their lunches, preparing a tuna mornay for the unexpected dinner guest - her mother-in-law, who checks her dusting and offers no more than faint praise for the mornay attempt "Nice - but what is it?" ...... through to her husband's querulous demand, when she finally needs a cup of tea after putting the children to bed and washing up: "Aren't you coming to bed, dear." A flashback to World War II shows how women then were accepted as real workers - all forgotten by men by 1957.
Commissioned by the National Museum, this play is a great initiative which young people enjoy as much as seniors do. See it now before it moves on to the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, but I trust that it will return for a longer season here soon.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
It's a bit disconcerting, but very funny, when museum exhibits come alive and you see your own memories on stage. Dora Fay Davenport is a fiction but she could easily have been the famous fifties radio housewife's adviser she claims to be, presenting her first show on brand-new television in 1957.
How I remember the slightly gauche fixed smiles and awkward hesitations, and the compulsory English accents, of the first Australian live television. Presenters were not allowed on without proper elocution lessons, and Sutton and Hope have clearly done their homework. So the play works as it is meant to for Senior Citizens like me, almost squirming while laughing at what we - or at least our mothers and fathers - were like then.
But Dora's how to decorate the home and cook a sponge show takes an interesting twist when her husband makes fun of the idea that her housework is not real work - like a man in his office for eight hours at a stretch. Hope does a wonderful comic solo, starting at 5am (she has to light the wood stove), getting the four children aged 9 to 12 and her husband out of the house on time with their lunches, preparing a tuna mornay for the unexpected dinner guest - her mother-in-law, who checks her dusting and offers no more than faint praise for the mornay attempt "Nice - but what is it?" ...... through to her husband's querulous demand, when she finally needs a cup of tea after putting the children to bed and washing up: "Aren't you coming to bed, dear." A flashback to World War II shows how women then were accepted as real workers - all forgotten by men by 1957.
Commissioned by the National Museum, this play is a great initiative which young people enjoy as much as seniors do. See it now before it moves on to the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, but I trust that it will return for a longer season here soon.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
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