If you thought that the Sydney Theatre Company's reaction to a blog was extraordinary, hold your breath and wait for the response to this article in today's The Australian.
Rosemary Neill has asked the questions that dared not be asked and illustrated an extraordinary portrayal of the characters, the ego and the high drama within and around Australia's flagship theatre company.
It's sobering reading indeed.
I don't recall such a frank media discussion of the Sydney Theatre Company workings in quite a while... if ever. I can only imagine that they are apoplectic down at the Wharf this morning.
One of the most interesting aspects of the article is when they talk about the role that the STC plays in developing new playwrights for mainstage productions (Neill's brackets):
Robyn Nevin... adds that the STC runs the largest new writing stream of any state theatre company. (Even so, last year the STC programmed just one new Australian play in its main season).
It really is a sad state of affairs when the flagship theatre company points the finger to other smaller state theatre companies and says 'But, we're doing better than them!' and that the total better is one play a year.
Let's wait and see what happens next in Act II.
Image: 'Putting out the fire', courtesy University College Davis
Saturday, 7 April 2007
Would you find this article in the SMH?
Posted by Nicholas Pickard at 12:49 pm
Labels: Arts Journalism, Blogs, Directing, General Comment, Media, News, Playwrights, Playwriting, Sydney Theatre Company, Theatre
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7 comments:
The suspicion that dare not speak its name. What a shame there's no email address for Ms Neill. I'd love to email her and thank her for her insightful and well-researched article.
Can't wait for La Brookman's response to this!
Despite the fact that I think that you are slightly obsessed with all of this Mr Pickard, I can't help but feel that the combined efforts of Ms Neill and yourself are having a positive impact on the industry.
Good work son!
I agree. It's great to see good healthy debate powering through the 'industry'. A bit of shake, rattle and roll never did anyone any real harm. Some people I've spoken to over the easter break hadn't even heard of the STC before Cate Blanchett took over. I'm not sure whether that's a good thing, but at least we were talking about theatre.
What a great piece of writing by the OZ. As to your question at the top, I think you might find it in the SMH...
They ran an article about the plagiarism incident last year and another by Alexa Moses about their financial results last year which found them to be in the red.
Your point is taken though, a bit more hard questions wouldn't go astray.
Good point anonymous! Those two articles were very good and provoked a lot of thought, esp the Alexa Moses one.
It was a truly terrific article in The Australian. I've spoken with several SMH arts journalists over the years about these kinds of issues, and they have actually been really well informed and even aggravated by what they've learned about some of the movements at STC. Yet they don't write the stories.
STC has lost a massive amount of money over the past seven or eight years. Some surpluses early on in the Nevin era were called surpluses only because of shifts in the companies accounting practices.
To see the company full of English directors make me imagine it as a throw back to the Old Tote, the very thing STC was set up to change. But this is a reflection of Nevin's prejudice. To see resources squandered in the appalling Wharf2 Loud (and it's even worse predecessor Blueprints under Nick Marchand) is to witness lost opportunities that should make us grieve.
I'm enjoying watching the STC Actors Company. This will be Nevin's final gift. But to lose so very much in the doing?
I am actually a bit of a fan of the Wharf2Loud series. It opens up the STC to younger practitioners and makes it a lot more accessible. I agree with you on the Blueprints series. Appalling waste of time, money and resources.
Your point about the STC Mainstage falling back to the practices of the Old Tote is extremely interesting. I will have to explore that further.
Financially, I also heard that the new Sydney Theatre is costing the company a lot of money. It will be interesting to see what happens with the space over the next twelve months.
The jury is still out for me on the Actors Company. Alison Croggon gave a wonderful review of their latest production - Season at Sarsparilla - and from a Melbourne perspective put a lot of its success down to the work of the ensemble. It's always interesting to get an outside viewpoint on these things.
I will be keeping an interested eye on how it develops, as only time will tell.
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