Literary Awards Shortlist Announced

A tip of the hat to these fine individuals...


The Play Award

The Play Award ($30,000) is offered for a play or a work of music drama given its first production in Australia between 3 November 2007 and 3 October 2008.

Assessment is made primarily on the literary merit of the written text, and not on the merits of a particular production, although the judges will take into account the success of the work within the medium for which it has been written.

Previous winners of the Play Award include Louis Nowra, Michael Gow, Tommy Murphy and Debra Oswald.

2009 shortlisted writers are...
Andrew Bovell - When the Rain Stops Falling
Brendan Cowell - Ruben Guthrie
Tom Holloway - Don't Say the Words
Daniel Keene - The Serpent's Teeth
Damien Millar - The Modern International Dead
Tom Wright - The Women of Troy

Judges comments can be found HERE.


Script Writing Award

The Script Writing Award ($30,000) is offered for the screenplay of a feature-­length fiction film, for the script of a documentary film, for the script of a play or documentary for radio, or for the script of a television program (whether fiction or non-­fiction).

Assessment is made primarily on the literary merit of the written text, and not on the merits of the resulting film, radio or television program, although the judges will take into account the success of the work within the medium for which it has been written.

Previous winners of the Script Award include Jane Campion and Gerard Lee, Rolf de Heer, Christine Olsen and Anna Broinowski.

2009 shortlisted writers are...
David Caesar - Prime Mover
Greg Haddrick, Felicity Packard & Peter Gawler - Underbelly: Series 1
Anna-Maria Monticelli - Disgrace
Sean Nash - All Saints Episode 447: Not What You'd Expect
Louis Nowra and Rachel Perkins and Beck Cole - First Australians


Judges comments can be found HERE.


Other award shortlist details can be found HERE.

Who's Who in Creative Sydney?

For your interest...

Creative Sydney is a new festival of ideas that gives creative people the platform to discuss how we can make Sydney the best place in the world to create new film, art, design, music, technology, events and more.

It is part of Vivid Sydney, a unique new public festival featuring Luminous music festival at Sydney Opera House, Smart Light Sydney and Fire Water. Vivid Sydney is one of five anchor events in the first ever NSW Master Events Calendar created by Events NSW on behalf of the NSW Government.

And there will be a festival celebrating the wealth and diversity of the city’s creative talents from May 27- June 13.

As part of that Creative Sydney will be recognising the outstanding talent we have in Sydney; artists, performers and producers, and the people working behind the scenes to build the culture of our city.

They’re applauding the work of 100 Creative Catalysts, individuals who have developed original projects, products or services within their creative field, and who inspire and support other creative people.

And they want your input. Who inspires you? Creative Sydney is open to suggestions as they compile the Creative Catalysts list. They could be friends or peers, people you admire or icons you want to emulate.

Post your nominations on Facebook by April 3.

Register for the newsletter for updates and full launch details at http://creativesydney.com.au/

Follow on Twitter: http://twitter.com/creativesydney


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For the purposes of Creative Sydney the creative industries include: advertising, architecture, visual art, computer software & web development, design (interior, graphic, object), fashion, photography, film, video, animation, performing arts, music, literature and publishing, radio and television, crafts and video games.

NSW to spend $1 billion on the Opera House -- WTF?

As first published in Crikey.

The NSW State Government's announcement over the weekend to fund a renovation of the Sydney Opera House to the tune of $1 billion is either just a furphy or an ill-conceived waste of tax-payers money.

Revealed in Saturday's Sydney Morning Herald, the article stated "Treasury officials indicated two weeks ago that the Government was willing to provide the money needed for the restoration."

A spokesperson for the Premier told the paper that "it will be a joint funding proposal between the state and the feds." But already, the Federal Government is backing away from the project with the Prime Minister saying yesterday he was "sceptical".

He’s not the only one. The NSW government is already in the red so it would be timely to ask them where they intend getting any of that $1 billion from. As The Australian has reported this morning, it would require $64-70 million each year for a total of seven years.

I reckon the political media spinners are just having a laugh and this is just some type of half-cocked leak; tell the media they want to fix the Opera House, please a few arts benefactors then watch it get howled down in the public sphere. Or even better, get the Prime Minister to say he’s sceptical about the project. It's a win-win situation and you don’t have to spend a single cent.

Hypothetically, if it is an honest attempt by the government to completely gut the Opera House and rebuild it, then it's one of the most ambitious plans ever taken on by a State Government since Joern Utzon's vision was first conceived. It is also one of the most wasteful.

Everyone knows the problems with the Opera House need to be rectified. Quite simply, there isn't enough space to house a proper orchestra and the floor needs to be dropped some 18 metres.

However, Premier Nathan Rees told the Daily Telegraph on Saturday that he believes that "... funding for the arts generally hasn't been as high a priority as I believe it should have been for a city of international stature."

He's not wrong about that. As I wrote in Crikey last year, NSW continues to lag behind its counterparts in arts expenditure -- most particularly Victoria -- and the organisations who have suffered the most have been community based groups and regional arts organisations.

The saddest part of this is that only two months ago the State Government through their funding agency, Arts NSW, signed off on the death of four major regional music festivals -- the Bellingen Jazz Festival, the Tyalgum Festival, the Bangalow Festival and the Camden Haven Music Festival.

To give this some perspective, the Bellingen Jazz Festival last year received $11,000. Similar amounts were cut from these other festivals.

At the time, director of the Camden Haven Music Festival Alvena Ferguson said, "...while the Sydney Festival, which engages mainly overseas performers, received in excess of $4 million, many regional events such as ours, which contribute so much to the economic and cultural life of country communities, have not been supported."

No doubt Mrs Ferguson will be breathless at the weekend’s announcement.

The howling down has already started, particularly on the blogosphere (my site included) and through Facebook and Twitter communities.

Arts activist Marcus Westbury responded to the announcement on his blog asking, "Is this the best we can do with a billion dollars? Even putting aside the obvious case for spending the money on schools, hospitals, public transport and the rest of the state's clapped out infrastructure ... there are so many far more productive and urgent things that could be done with just a fraction of this money in the arts."

With $1 billion the State Government could revolutionise the way arts and music are created and consumed for generations to come, stretching from the Murray to the Tweed.

Certainly a longer term approach to fixing the Opera House is appropriate, but at a time when household income is dropping and a recession is about to take hold, wouldn't this money be better spent on community, regional and grassroots arts and music programmes to advance creative excellence and expose that excellence to everyone?

Break New Ground

Preview as published in the Sun-Herald.

It’s not just the footy field where passions run high between rival states. In the world of Hip Hop the antagonism is just as in-yer-face as any testosterone fuelled game of Rugby League.

“I feel like I’m invading when I go to other states,” says Leah Tilney (aka B*Girl Flix) a Brisbane based breakdancer who will battle with groups from around the country during Platform 2, a two day Hip Hop festival hosted by CarriageWorks.

“Off stage we are all friends, but when we’re battling…” Tilney trails off, clearly looking forward to competing against the very best breakdancing crews for the second year in a row.

“Queenslanders are super friendly compared to the other states. We’re also known for big power moves and big acrobatic head spins,” she explains. “Sydney people are more about style.”

Break dancing is only one part of the hip-hop culture which first emerged in New York during the 1970s.

The term refers to the four key elements of MC-ing, DJ-ing, graffiti art and breaking (or b-boying or b-girling) - each to be showcased during the festival.

“Hip Hop has really found its own voice in Australia,” says the director and organiser of the festival Nick Power (aka B*boy Rely). “We’ve got a lot of talent and artistic ability.”

Exported here in the 80s, its popularity has skyrocketed in recent times particularly within western Sydney and among young indigenous communities. Big names synonymous with the local movement such as Good Buddha, Morganics, Killer Queenz and The Last Kinection will descend on the old railway yards site in Eveleigh (near Redfern) for the weekend.

“Turntables now outsell guitars,” Power says. “The hip hop scene has been rolling along for over 20 years but what’s great now is that a place like CarriageWorks and even the Opera House are opening their doors and saying: ‘We want to be a part of this.'”

For Power, who will be joined by over 70 artists over the weekend, hip-hop is a legitimate art form that young people identify with more than other mainstream activities.

“For young men, it’s a great thing,” Power explains. “For instance, in dance, high school teachers will ring me up and say ‘I can’t get any boys to dance’ and I come out and say 'I’m a b-boy' and they’ll have thirty boys line up straight away.”

“It’s got to the point that if you’re the best b-boy in the school you’re now on par with the football captain. It’s become a stature thing,” he says.

It seems the days when parents just dropped their kids off to footy or ballet training are disappearing. Tilney, who earns most of her living from teaching breakdancing at centres and schools throughout Brisbane, has classes with a starting age of just 6.

“I’m amazed at how quickly the art form has taken off in the last five years,” she says. “Parents and schools are ringing up all the time now trying to get their kids in. It’s better than footy.”


The Platform 2 Hip-Hop festival takes places at CarriageWorks, 245 Wilson Street, Eveleigh, on March 27, from 7.30pm and March 28, from 2pm. Phone 1300 723 038 or see carriageworks.com.au.

Review: Concussion

As published in the Sun-Herald

Concussion
Wharf 2, Sydney Theatre Company
Until 4 April
Tickets $25-$45
Bookings (02) 9250 1777
Critic’s Rating 8/10


Like a Coen Brothers film, Melbourne-based Ross Mueller play presents us with a handful of characters with no apparent connection. Over the course of 90 minutes, Mueller cleverly brings them together, shifting between reality, fiction and the dark recesses of memory in a play of suspense and black humour.

Caesar (Terry Serio) is the city's last honest cop, who’s suffering concussion after a late night run-in with someone.

Word on the street (and in chat rooms) is that he beat up a homeless veteran. But Julia (Rachel Gordon), his lover and doctor and Katerina (Belinda McClory), his legal rep, tell him it isn’t so.

Throw in Caesar’s young son, Julia’s jilted ex husband and Katerina’s lover and the stage is set for a plot that twists, turns and unsettles with questions over what is the truth and who is making it up.

Directed by Brett Adam, Concussion is a wonderful and rare collaboration between Griffin Theatre and Sydney Theatre Company (the last being in 1994). Such a partnership needs to happen more often.

But despite the quality and skill of this new Australian play, the overall effect of it is diminished by Mueller trying to be that little too clever - adding in a conceit where the characters show an obvious awareness they are in a play.

It’s a shame because the plot, performances and design are tight enough to keep audiences guessing in a play that is yet another feather in the cap of excellent new Australian works.

Review: Travesties

As published in the Sun-Herald.

Travesties
Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House
Until 25 April
Tickets $30-$85
Bookings (02) 9250 1777
Critic’s Rating 7/10


There’s no plot to speak of, it copies the comic genius of Oscar Wilde and is set in the rather colourless world of Zurich – but Travesties, by revered British playwright Tom Stoppard, is a gregarious and witty romp that fictionalises an accidental meeting of Lenin, Irish writer James Joyce and avant-garde artist Tristan Tzara, according to British diplomat Henry Carr.

Be warned: it you don’t know much about these historical figures or aren’t familiar with Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, then Travesties is a bit like having your head banged by a very large book for a couple of hours.

First produced in 1974, this early play of Stoppard has his intellectual genius on show as he bounces around ideas on the importance of art in civilised society.

Expertly directed by Richard Cottrell and with an extraordinary costume and set design from Julie Lynch and Michael Scott-Mitchell, this production is fresh and entertaining with a wonderful cast, especially Jonathan Biggins as the bumbling Carr.

Count it. One Billion Dollars.

In today's paper;

"THE State Government has agreed to fund a $1 billion project to finally bring the Sydney Opera House in line with its designer's vision.

"Although a deal has yet to be signed with the Opera House board, Treasury officials indicated two weeks ago that the Government was willing to provide the money needed for the restoration."

One billion dollars. That's one expensive photo opportunity.

The saddest part of this is that only two months ago the State Government through their funding agency, Arts NSW, signed off on the death of four major regional music festivals - the Bellingen Jazz Festival, the Tyalgum Festival, the Bangalow Festival and the Camden Haven Music Festival.

To give this some perspective, the Bellingen Jazz Festival last year received $11,000. Similar amounts were cut from these other festivals.

At the time, director of the Camden Haven Music Festival Alvena Ferguson said, "while the Sydney Festival, which engages mainly overseas performers, received in excess of $4 million, many regional events such as ours, which contribute so much to the economic and cultural life of country communities, have not been supported".

No doubt Mrs Ferguson will be breathless at today's announcement.

Just imagine for a second what you would do with $1 Billion. We all know there are major problems at the Opera House which need to be rectified. We all know of the importance of this cultural icon which is recognisable around the world. But at a time when household income is dropping and a recession is about to take hold, wouldn't this money be better spent on community, regional and grass roots arts and music programmes?

$1 Billion could go to Carriageworks to assist them in properly paying young artists for their festivals.

$1 Billion could go to every independent theatre production in the state to assist them in staging costs thereby increasing the share of box office revenue for co-operatives.

$1 Billion could reinstate the role of regional performing arts organisations such as the Northern Rivers Performing Arts to create and tell local stories.

$1 Billion could assist Councils across the state to implement programmes of creative renewal such as the one now happening with Renew Newcastle.

$1 Billion could be filtered to local community theatres like ShopFront to expand their youth contemporary arts programmes.

$1 Billion could finance the renovations and rebuilding of theatres such as Marian Street and the New Theatre.

$1 Billion could see visual and performing arts programmes implemented in every youth centre in the state.

$1 Billion could see more community access to major arts events and productions off-setting the ticket price for those on lower incomes.

$1 Billion could see the purchase and up keep of the diminishing amount of arts spaces and studios in the inner city.

$1 Billion could finance a state-wide Don Dunstan style of public art programme throughout the state.

$1 Billion could provide musical instruments for every kid in every primary school.

$1 Billion would totally revolutionise the way the arts and music are created and consumed within our state.

Where would you like the $1 Billion to go?

To New York With Love

For those expat readers in New York, The Production Company - that little Australian theatre group based over there - are opening a new Patricia Cornelius play tonight.

They're an interesting group and have already produced plays by Ben Ellis, Lally Katz, Ross Mueller and Anthony Crowley.

The details are below. And if any of you get there, I'd be really interested to hear what the show is like.


The Production Company proudly presents the American Premiere of

LOVE
A new Australian play by Patricia Cornelius
Directed by Mark Armstrong

Starring:
Bronwen Coleman
Erin Maya Darke
Ken Matthews

March 20th – April 12th
8PM Wednesday – Saturday
3PM Sunday

Center Stage, NY
48 W. 21st Street, 4th Floor
(Between 5th & 6th)

Tickets $20 at TheaterMania
(212) 352-3101 or http://www.theatermania.com/

Producer: Mary Cross • Stage Manager: Jeff Meyers* • Scenic Designer: April Bartlett • Costume Designer: Deanna Frieman • Lighting Designer: Dan Henry • Sound Designer: Sara Bader • Dialect & Vocal Coach: Kohli Calhoun • Fight Choreographer: Noah Starr • Publicist: Katie Rosin and Kampfire Films PR • Accounting and Tax work provided by Cilibrasi & Associates

*Member, Actors Equity Association • Equity Approved Showcase

www.productioncompany.org

One of the most beautiful things in the world...

If I were an actor...

I received this note today from Forced Entertainment. If I were an actor, I'd be on the first plane outta here.


Dear All,

For those professional practitioners amongst you:

Forced Entertainment are looking for performers to join their core company for a major new performance project combining text, movement and image. The project will be rehearsed in Autumn 2009 and Spring 2010, opening in May 2010 before touring in Europe and elsewhere in the subsequent 10 months.

We're looking for performers with an interest and experience in experimental performance and are especially interested to see people that have some kind of movement (dance or other) skills in their repertoire.

For more information and to apply for the audition please download and ‘Audition Application Spring 2009’ from:
http://www.forcedentertainment.com/thecompany

The deadline for audition applications is 12noon on Tuesday 31st March 2009.

Audition workshops will take place on the afternoon of Saturday 18th and the morning of Sunday 19th April in London. Successful applicants will be required for both of these days.

Please pass this notice on to anyone you know who might be suitable.

Cheers.

Right, it's official...

If you're not on Twitter, then you're no one. Get on it.

There's even an interesting list being compiled at The Social Pages of Australian creative organisations from film, the visual arts, broadcasting, performance and media already there.

There's Company B, Sydney Opera House, MCA, Carriageworks, Griffin Theatre, FBi, Sydney Writers Centre, Sydney Festival, The Art Life etc etc etc.

Facebook is dead. Twitter it.

In fact, anyone who tweets a decent 140 character review of a show in Sydney and sends it to me, I'll post it on the blog. (If you do it straight after the show, that's even better).

Review: Tattoo

Blog notes: My review of Tattoo which is posted below didn't have the space to fully expand on the intricacy and complexity of this play.

The timing of the production cannot be underestimated - just today I see that Josef Fritzl will appear in an Austrian court to face trial. Despite the timing, this play is an historical piece which was first written and produced in 1992 just after the fall of the Berlin Wall. It's about reunification and German guilt, Hitler's willing executioners, about collective forgetfulness... It's about 'keeping it in the family'.

The parallels with Fritzl are unnerving. The silence of the mother, the neighbours, the entire town. Did they know? Did anyone try to do anything?

No doubt, we won't find out any of this from the trial.

Interestingly, debates about this theme have also been raised around the release of the new Kate Winslet film The Reader and there was a fascinating article in The Australian by Tim Bower which argues that "sixty years after the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals and when nearly all the murderers are dead, the truth about Germany's reintroduction of slavery and persecution into 20th-century Europe has become blurred by convenient myths".

It's a fascinating discussion which directly correlates with what this play is screaming out.

Despite the relevancy it's a real shame that the director didn't use a better translation. I learnt of the importance of good, thorough and relevant translations while studying theatre directing in Slovenia all those years ago.

You can hear the German in the text and you can hear where words don't fit. Even the names of the characters are affected by translation and chosen quite deliberately. To my ear 'Dog Face Julie' doesn't sound quite right and the fact that the youngest and more unruly daughter is called Lulu is loaded with over one hundred years of Germanic literature history.

Dramatically, such an ordinary translation puts up a wall between the audience and the action. Regardless, this is a very interesting and timely piece.

Review as published in yesterday's Sun-Herald.


Tattoo
Griffin Independent, Stables Theatre
Until 28 March
Tickets $26-$30
Bookings (02) 8002 4772
Critic’s Rating 6/10


Less than a year ago, Austrian father Josef Fritzl made headlines when it was discovered he had locked up and abused his daughter for 24 years.

The world was shocked. For most people, family represents what should be a sanctuary - if you look through the eyes of the family, you look through the eyes of the world.

Tattoo, by German playwright Dea Loher, portrays a family corrupted by the actions of a father, Oven-Wolf (David Ritchie), who is sexually abusing his eldest daughter, Anita (Sophie Kelly).

The mother of the family, Dog Face Julie (Sandra Eldridge), just looks on as a silent witness while nervously scratching away at her arms, head and neck. When a local flower shop boy (Simon Corfield) learns of the abuse he takes Anita away, forcing the abuser to turn on his youngest daughter, Lulu (Megan Drury).

Director Rochelle Whyte has created a Doll’s House space straight out of a story book. But it’s a story book which is clinical and white against the dark backdrop of Oven-Wolf’s heinous acts.

As a parable for the wider world it is disturbing, showing that the legacy and repercussions of mistakes and evil will go on if good people do nothing.

The actors deliver powerful caricatures in the grim fairytale world but they don’t go into deeper moments of sincerity to allow the harsh reality of these true stories to come through.

After all, fairy tales are at their most powerful when you see reflections of your world.

Review: Vigil

As published in yesterday's Sun-Herald.

Vigil
Old Fitzroy
Until 28 March
Tickets $21-$35
Bookings 1300 438 849
Critic’s Rating 7/10


Being on your deathbed is hard enough as it is but when a long lost relative turns up to hurry you along, you’re sure to find yourself fighting against the odds.

Vigil by Canadian playwright Morris Panych is a wicked little black comedy which follows Kemp (Travis Cotton), an anti-social and politically incorrect loner who comes to see off his dying aunt Grace (Gertraud Ingeborg). Days turn into weeks, the weeks into months and Kemp, who has only one set of clothes, gets increasingly impatient.

He is unashamed in his wish to send her off, telling her at one stage that he is worried about her health: “I think you might be getting better”. Indeed, the whole play is littered with evil and hilarious one-liners straight out of a Monty Python skit. But as time goes on, Kemp starts pondering his own life and mortality.

It’s a very unusual choice for this small theatre which usually programs edgier new Australian works; this play is a little safe. But it is a beautifully realised production directed by Susanna Dowling. With some amazing live music performed by Ekrem Mulayim, this production doesn’t overplay the comedy and the result is a piece which ends up being quite touching and profound.

Mr Pickford's Review of Guys and Dolls

I wouldn't normally publish a review from somebody else on here, but I'll make an exception this week.

First up, and as published in yesterday's Sun-Herald.


Guys and Dolls
Capitol Theatre
Until 31 May
Tickets $70-$130
Bookings 1300 723 038
Critic’s Rating 7/10


Guys and Dolls is such a big and brash Broadway musical it’s really hard to go wrong. It is New York in the 1950s with stories of gangsters, illegal crap games, a Salvation Army band and nightlife in the city that never sleeps.

So famous is the story of Nathan Detroit, Sky Masterson, Sara Brown and Miss Adelaide that some people in the opening night audience were dressed to the nines with fedoras, pinstripes and two tone shoes.

As a musical, Guys and Dolls has all the right ingredients; love, conflict, comedy and songs that soar. It’s the classic boy-meets-girl story, but there are two love stories linked. There’s the gambler and his pursuit of the Salvation Army doll and there’s the hapless crap game organiser and his loved up dancer fiancee.

This version, first produced in 2005 by the British-based Donmar Warehouse, is sharp and quick, elevating the dialogue and characters and removing the traditional reliance on big ensemble numbers.

Every piece of interaction between the characters is magnified so that when the big numbers do happen, they knock your socks off.

The set and staging are kept minimal, with a few relatively simple backdrops that recall the intimate and rustic Donmar Warehouse space in London, never drawing attention away from the action which is happening on stage.

This Australian production injects a bit too much star power to its line-up. Although Lisa McCune, Marina Prior, Ian Stenlake, Garry McDonald, Shane Jacobson and Magda Szubanski all strut their stuff expertly, many of them are miscast.

McDonald seemed too old for the role of Detroit, while Prior was competant but lacked the youthful effervescence of a showgirl.

Szubanski, despite her considerable skill, just didn't have the presence as a big-gun gangster from Chicago.

McCune, however, was clearly multi-talented with a beautiful voice. Stenlake and McCune have a great range and both gave a fabulous performance.

It helps that with songs like Luck Be A Lady, Take Back Your Mink and Bushel and a Peck you can’t but help but be captured by this pure Broadway musical.

The chorus line is remarkably small for such a big musical and the real stars of this production are the minor characters and the ensemble of dancers who drench the stage in energy and skill.

The direction by Michael Grandage and choreography by Rob Ashford seamlessly travels from big powerful numbers such as Havana to the more touching and subtle moments of dialogue.

The most elegant scene is between Salvation Army doll Sarah (Lisa McCune) and her uncle Arvide Abernathy (Russell Newman) during More I Cannot Wish You and the show-stopper is the brilliantly executed Sit Down You’re Rockin’ the Boat.



Post script: The Donmar did not stage Guys and Dolls in the warehouse space, it was in the Piccadilly Theatre.

ABC Funding: Spread the Word

From our friends at the MEAA;






If you want to send your own email to the Ministers responsible, here are some email addresses to get you started. Otherwise you can send an email to all of them at once using our form at http://www.alliance.org.au/abcemail.html

*****

The Hon Stephen Conroy, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy

Email: senator.conroy@aph.gov.au

The Hon Peter Garrett, Minister for Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts,

Email: Peter.Garrett.MP@aph.gov.au

The Hon Wayne Swan MP, Treasurer,

Email: Wayne.Swan.mp@aph.gov.au

The Hon Lindsay Tanner MP,

Email: Lindsay.Tanner.MP@aph.gov.au.

If you are having trouble seeing this email visit http://www.alliance.org.au/abcemail.html

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.

Ruben Guthrie Loses a Few Passengers

There's a little unhappiness down at the old tomato sauce factory on Belvoir Street where a few noses are out of joint.

Ruben Guthrie, another play which has made good in the Downstairs theatre, received a promotion and will be enjoying a mainstage season in the upstairs theatre in a couple of months.

But a few actors from the original cast won't be going with it.

The play, written by Brendan Cowell and directed by Wayne Blair, follows the ups and downs of a 29-year-old advertising creative and his battle with the bottle.

I wasn't the biggest fan of the play and found it a bit la di da - but when I discovered a couple of the actors won't be going with it I was very surprised.

Sure, the play has problems - primarily dramaturgical - but the least of its problems were the actors. In fact, you could almost say the acting ensemble was its strongest element.

The cast in the original production included Megan Drury, Tracy Mann, Lex Marinos, Torquil Neilson, Sam Reed, Toby Schmitz and Christopher Stollery. But a few names will magically disappear when it ascends in May.

But there's a bigger problem here as well. All the above-mentioned actors worked on the show last year for free. Well, they may have received a cut of the co-op cake but essentially, this was an unpaid gig which wouldn't have got anywhere near MEAA award rates.

This included four or five weeks of rehearsals, a four week season and the invaluable creative input put into the development and fine-tuning of the show.

So you can only imagine the ... well ... 'something' going down after a few ejections. I certainly wouldn't be very happy.

But what are the ethics around co-op theatre making good? Do producers and directors have any responsibility to actors who have not only sacrificed their time and creativity but also performed to critical acclaim? Or is it all fair in love and war?

In a world where shows from the independent sector are increasingly noticed by mainstream producers and programmers is there any responsibility at all to the creatives? I suspect there probably isn't but we live in a very small world here in Sydney Theatre Land.

This is the second show in as many years which has gone directly from the downstairs Belvoir space up to the Company B space - the last being Kate Mulvaney's The Seed which managed to keep all three actors during the transfer.

I suppose the moral of the story is that this is just the way show business works and nothing should be taken for granted - especially if you're an actor in an independent theatre production. Unless of course you can find away to put in an additional clause in your contract.