Weekend Reading

A few interesting articles in the weekend papers - the first is a story in The Australian about the ever passionate artistic director of the Australian National Academy of Music, Brett Dean. I think it was about a year ago The Bulletin (remember that publication?) called him the most influential arts person of the year.

The other a story in the Herald about the new man about town, Toby Schmitz. But why on earth did he have to tell the journalist this?

This month Schmitz takes to the stage as artist, poet, painter, composer and iconoclast Tristan Tzara in Tom Stoppard's comic masterpiece, Travesties. He was given the role five days before director John Bell offered him a part in The Alchemist with the Bell Shakespeare Company. Reluctantly, he turned Bell down - for the second time. "I feel terrible about that. I had to write him a letter saying sorry, sorry, sorry. He rightfully called me a little bugger," Schmitz says.

It's lucky, as Brendan Cowell mentions in the article, that he's shy.

There's also some great coverage of the recent Sydney Festival in RealTime. There's a great review by version 1.0's David Williams on the Belarus Free Theatre production and a nice reflection by Keith Gallasch on my favourite show of the festival No Dice.

And speaking of weekend reading, SAJ has just made good and is now the new theatre reviewer for the Sun-Herald with Jason Blake moving across to the SMH. It'll mean a lot more reviewing and a lot quicker.

So please don't hesitate to contact me about your shows - especially the fringe and underground. With space for three reviews a week I have to do a good selection of the mainstream and the independent. Of course I can't guarantee anything but I certainly respond well to nagging.