A couple of very interesting snippets of arts news over the last few days.
Today's The Australian reports that the La Mama Theatre in Melbourne have been put on notice by the Australia Council. Even Sydney audiences are well aware of the history behind La Mama, and even more well aware of the pressure on the council to provide more money to the small to medium arts sector.
Australia Council Chair James Strong last year flagged the possibility of a report into this sector of the theatre community. I don't believe that the article in today's Oz is the last story of its kind this year.
A wonderful article by Milan Kundera in the UK's Guardian about the future of writing. His comments are powerful stuff for playwrights in Australia - "life is short, reading is long, and literature is in the process of killing itself off through an insane proliferation. Every novelist, starting with his own work, should eliminate whatever is secondary, lay out for himself and for everyone else the ethic of the essential."
Still on the Guardian, is a most wonderful podcast with Sir Arnold Wesker. He talks of nostalgia, truth, disappointment and 'dying as a good career move'.
David Cote on his New York blog has finished his final installment of fraud in theatre. A really interesting debate.
Alison Croggon posted a great entry yesterday about a small scuffle between a playwright and a critic. Oh to be in Melbourne enjoying this sort of passionate argy bargy!
There's also a bit of agitation on ArtsHub with an anonymous spray about grant recipients.
Scratch, scratch, scratch.
Today's The Australian reports that the La Mama Theatre in Melbourne have been put on notice by the Australia Council. Even Sydney audiences are well aware of the history behind La Mama, and even more well aware of the pressure on the council to provide more money to the small to medium arts sector.
Australia Council Chair James Strong last year flagged the possibility of a report into this sector of the theatre community. I don't believe that the article in today's Oz is the last story of its kind this year.
A wonderful article by Milan Kundera in the UK's Guardian about the future of writing. His comments are powerful stuff for playwrights in Australia - "life is short, reading is long, and literature is in the process of killing itself off through an insane proliferation. Every novelist, starting with his own work, should eliminate whatever is secondary, lay out for himself and for everyone else the ethic of the essential."
Still on the Guardian, is a most wonderful podcast with Sir Arnold Wesker. He talks of nostalgia, truth, disappointment and 'dying as a good career move'.
David Cote on his New York blog has finished his final installment of fraud in theatre. A really interesting debate.
Alison Croggon posted a great entry yesterday about a small scuffle between a playwright and a critic. Oh to be in Melbourne enjoying this sort of passionate argy bargy!
There's also a bit of agitation on ArtsHub with an anonymous spray about grant recipients.
Scratch, scratch, scratch.
Image: Courtesy of Lamama, May Day protest with Peter Cummin and Graeme Blundell
1 comments:
"Oh to be in Melbourne enjoying this sort of passionate argy bargy!" ?
Goodness me! While Melburnians analyse the symantics of writing for the theatre, which (hopefully this will not come as a surprise to anyone) is what a playwright does, WE in Sydney have "passionate argy bargy" liberated from a plethora of pop-ups and personified in the annual celebration of papier-mache, cardboard banners and fashion misadventures - Mardi Gras.
I certainly hope you weren't at the Darlinghurst Theatre on Saturday night Mr Pickard.
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