In this guest blog, actor Jeremy Waters, who plays Jason in Crushed, shares a spooky story about their time in the Studio 14 space… 

 “Actors can be a superstitious bunch. Curses, ghosts and rituals carry a lot of currency within the board-treading fraternity. We’re attuned to any ‘signs’ that shape our theatrical destinies. I think the ephemeral nature of theatre encourages this. It makes sense that strange parts of our universe can be stirred as we go about the business of telling stories.

While rehearsing Melita Rowston’s brilliant new play Crushed as part of a Queen Street Studio residency, Sean Barker, Lucy Miller and I were diligently working through some of the complexities of the play when something occurred that left us all open-mouthed…

There’s a strong balloon motif that runs through the play – literally and figuratively. So, there we were, three actors alone in the big Studio 14 space working on a scene that centres around this motif. We were actually doing work. Really. We were. I was offering a piece of blinding insight towards this crucial scene – really, I was, when I saw a flash of colour in the corner of my eye and Stone The Flamin’ Crows Elsa! a cheeky clutch of helium balloons hovered mid-air between Sean and me. They must have been clinging to the high ceiling then deflated and floated down while we gabbed about the play.

After the requisite ‘Whooooahs’ and ‘What the…s,’ we agreed this was a sign from the theatrical powers that be, a quiet little nudge to let us know that we were not alone as we pushed off from land in the good ship Crushed…

When our esteemed director Lucinda Gleeson returned from a production meeting, she was suitably impressed by the cool shit we had seen. Being of our ilk, she quickly recognised ‘The Happening’ for what it was. So, to ensure our director caught a whiff of its presence, our friendly spirit let one last balloon float down and nestle gently at her feet.

Call me crazy (it’s been done) but this was an intervention. We now know that the Crushed team are not alone as we embark on this significant theatrical journey.”

‘And you, a would be player too

Will give the angry ghosts their due

Who threw their voices far as doom

Greatly, in a little room.’

World premiere, presented by Chester Productions, in association with NEW THEATRE / The Spare Room 2012

CRUSHED
By Melita Rowston

In the summer of 1988, ‘Sunny Girl’ Susie turned sweet sixteen. Her boyfriend Jason gave her a Poison t-shirt, her best friend Kelly gave her a name-necklace, and Kelly’s boyfriend Dazza gave her a handful of pills.

That night Susie Greene disappeared and was never seen again.

Twenty-two years later, the blood splattered t-shirt of the missing schoolgirl is unearthed in the scrub and Jason, Kelly and Dazza are brought back together for the bleakest of high school reunions.  As the police uncover more evidence, Susie’s oldest friends are forced to confront their memories of a night they’d hoped to leave buried in their adolescence forever.

CRUSHED is a darkly humorous murder mystery/whodunit, a fast-paced, acerbic Gen X ride that drags the ‘lost child’ of Australian myth into the 21st century. This daring and imaginative play captures the spirit of the 80s with ironic hindsight and explores the sinister violence that lurks beneath the sun-bleached façade of Australia’s ‘she’ll be right’ culture.

Directed by Lucinda Gleeson
Produced by Jennifer Campbell for Chester Productions
Set and Costume Designer Eliza McLean
Lighting Designer Richard Whitehouse
Sound Designer Simon Choi
Dramaturg Erin Thomas
Performed by Sean Barker, Lucy Miller & Jeremy Waters

SEASON:
16 May–9 June

PERFORMANCES:
Tuesday–Saturday 8pm, Sunday 5pm

TICKETS: 
$30
$25 concession, groups (10+)
$15 previews Wednesday 16 & Thursday 17 May
$17 student rush
Cheap Tuesdays (‘Pay What You Can’ $10 min)

VENUE: 
New Theatre 542 King Street Newtown

TICKET GIVEAWAY!

If you’d like to score tix to Crushed tomorrow night at the New Theatre, email through to publicity@newtheatre.org.au with QUEEN ST STUDIO COMP as the subject line.

Last week we released the program for our 30 Days & 30 Nights celebrations taking place at FraserStudios in June 2012. It’s our last month in the building and we’re giving the public a final chance to come and enjoy the space, see our artists’ work, and have a drink with us in the amazing warehouse building we’ve called home since October 2008.

You can click HERE to head to our website for all the info, but here’s a run through (we’ve tried to keep it brief):

First up is the launch of our archival document 1,386 days at FraserStudios. We’re launching this, and the rest of the 30 Days & 30 Nights program, with a swanky ‘do on Friday 1 June. It’s invite only, but we have tried to invite all of our ex-residents, so if you’d really like to come and celebrate with us (and Clover Moore!) email julia@queenstreetstudio.com and we’ll see what we can do.

We’ve also collaborated with the super lovely  wine brand Cake Wines to have a pop-up bar in Studio 10 for the whole month of June. Open Thursday-Sunday, The Cake Pop-Up Bar be serving wine, beer and cider and announcing some special programming of their own over the next few weeks. Stay tuned.

In Studio 10 our final Visual Arts Residents will present an exhibition called “Our House”; playing with notions of home, domesticity and family. With work ranging from installation, sculpture, painting, audio-visual work and community-based projects, this eclectic exhibition is not to be missed (and well worth a trip down to The Cake Pop-Up Bar which is sharing the same space).

In Studio 12, our archival photographer Arunas Klupsas will display one hundred of some 24,000 photos taken at FraserStudios over the three-and-a-half years. Arunas’ images capture the many and varied transformations of the space and the people who have inhabited it so we can’t wait to show some of his work off!

Strings Attached

And in Studio 14, co-founders & directors Sam Chester & James Winter have put together a program of masterclasses, free drop-in classes, final commissions and showings from some of our favourite Performing Arts Residents past and present…

From Monday 4 June — Friday 8 June, daily masterclasses will be held at an affordable rate of $65 a day with fantastic Sydney artists Kaz Therese, Strings Attached, The Fondue Set, Kate Gaul and Kate Champion. Spots are limited and this is the only part of 30 Days & 30 Nights  we need you to register for in advance. So if you’re a performance-maker, actor or dancer who wants to brush up on their skills, click here for more info or to register.

That same week we’re also offering some FREE drop-in classes from our FraserStudios regulars, not only for performers but for anyone who wants a final turn on the tarkett. There’s Bollywood, stage combat, Jamaican Dancehall & Reggae and Konga… all for free!

POST, Venettia Miller & Ryuichi Fujimura and Wrong Solo have each been given four days in Studio 14 to develop an old or new work, which will then be showed in the space on Thursdays at 7pm, also free. We’re excited to facilitate the creation of work one final time in our beautiful concrete-walled Studio 14.

And last, but certainly not least, Friday & Saturday nights at 7pm will feature Platform 5, curated by Linda Luke, Tin Shed Camping Tours, Double Trouble with Julie-Anne Long & Martin del Amo, The Cardio Church Gala Performance with Matt Prest & James Brown, WHIP IT with Nikki Heywood & Ryuichi Fujimura and The Modern Social, with Anton… a true celebration of all the amazing things that have happened in our space and a chance for you to get involved (sometimes even on the dancefloor!) for one last time.

Then we’ll wrap it all up with an old-school Backyard BBQ on Saturday 30 June at 2pm. Everyone’s invited!

Click HERE to view the full program (and times!) online. We can’t wait to see you in the month of June.

Arts entrepreneurs at some stage will consider setting up an organisation – especially if they want to benefit from tax concessions, government grants and philanthropy.

What are the important first steps?

What are the key issues to make sure my start-up company survives?

Where can I go for help?

What are the lessons other organisations have learnt?

Join us for a practical discussion with our panel of arts entrepreneurs from diverse backgrounds. We will discuss the challenges and share some practical tips on how to make your start-up company a success.

On the panel:

Andrew Batt-Rawden is an emerging composer. He co-founded Chronology Arts in 2007 with composer Alex Pozniak, is on the Sydney Arts Management Advisory Group committee, and has worked with the Song Company and Tom Bass Sculpture Studio School in administration and management. In 2012 he was a NSW Finalist for Young Australian of the Year.

Prior to being appointed Artistic Director of Aurora New Music Inc in 2010, he had been a board member of the company since 2009. He is currently writing a book (Business Plan for the 21st Century Composer), a song cycle in collaboration with poet Chris Mansell and is studying for a Masters in Composition at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

Catherine Keenan is the co-founder and executive director of the Sydney Story Factory, a not-for-profit creative writing centre for young people opening in Redfern in July 2012. She was formerly a journalist at The Sydney Morning Herald, where she worked as literary editor and as an arts and features writer, and in 2007 co-edited The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide. She has published hundreds of stories, book reviews and interviews for publications including The Times Literary Supplement. She holds a doctorate in English Literature from Oxford University, and has tutored at the University of Western Australia and Oxford. She is an honorary associate at the Faculty of Education and Social Work at the University of Sydney.

James Winter is a co-founder and director of Queen Street Studio; a non-profit management team who provide Sydney’s independent Performing and Visual Arts communities with space to create, Queen Street Studio currently manages FraserStudios and Heffron Hall, Sydney.

Since graduating from the Centre for the Performing Arts (Adelaide) in 1993, James has been Artistic Director for Brand X Theatre, D Faces of Youth Arts and Ashfield Youth Theatre, along with Associate Director for Urban Myth Theatre of Youth. James has also worked in Cairo (Egypt) with African refugees on a six month Australia Council program “Out There Everywhere” to establish theatrical and community cultural development projects for artists in exile. James is an event coordinator for South Sydney Youth Service’s Mad Pride Youth Event and has created festivals for Centenary of Federation, Feast Gay and Lesbian Cultural Festival and the 2002 Sydney Gay Games Cultural Festival.

Lew Palaitis General Manager Sydney Fringe

RSVP & INFORMATION

Monday 30 April, 2012
6.00 ­– 8.00pm
Australia Council for the Arts
372 Elizabeth Street, Surry Hills

Please register by emailing Lizzy Galloway at info@samag.org.

FREE to 2012 SAMAG members — $10 for non-members / $5 for students

Please pay at the door — cash or cheque only.

Click here for to head to the website.

They have just extended their application deadline for the 2012 Ensemble to 30 April, with auditions taking place on 14 May.

Turning the ripe old age of 10 2012, this opportunity has allowed artists across all disciplines to work with professionals such as Sam Chester, Drew Fairly, Cat Jones, Julie Vulcan, Melissa Hunt and Emma Lockhart Wilson. Disciplinary areas cover movement training, creative development and sound design and composition.

Artists between 18– 30 years are encouraged to take part (it begins in July and ends in December), As part of the application you will be required to prepare a 2 minute audition performance.

To apply for the program, complete the registration form (click HERE to get your hands on one) and send the completed form to Julie Vulcan – associateddirector@pact.net.au with “Ensemble 2012” and your name in the subject.

Good luck!

This program provides actors, dancers and moving artists with the opportunity to enhance their inspiration and further develop their skills with the assistance of professional artists.

It’s also a fun, no strings attached way to get on the floor and get moving as the cold weather sets in! There’s no need to register or commit to the full program, just drop in you feel like having a ‘run around’.

”Run Around” will allow dancers, actors and movers to train with others and understand alternative opinions of improvisation, physical theatre, composition and Butoh,

The classes will start at 6pm and end at 8pm in Studio 14, FraserStudios and cost $15. The first ToolKit class begins on the 7th May with our very own QSS co-director Sam Chester kicking things off in the first week!

Program:

May 7th – Sam Chester (Queen Street Studio Director, choreographer, movement teacher and ex-dancer)

May 14th — Simone O’Brien (Legs on the Wall)

May 21st – Natalia Ladyko (Umbrella Theatre, ERTH)

May 28th – Surprise guest

Click here for more information.

A hop, skip and a jump away over at MOP Gallery next Thursday is the opening of “Ex Post Facto”, an exhibition from The Paper Mill directors Aaron Anderson (also a current QSS-Resident), Kate Campbell, Anne-Louise Dadak, Christopher Hodge (an ex QSS-Resident), Sian McIntyre, Stephanie Peters and Laura Pike.

For just over a year The Paper Mill were able to call home a fantastic, slightly angular, space in the heart of the city at Angel Place, which saw its final exhibition late last year. In this exhibition at MOP they seek to investigate notions of impermanence and transience — something we can relate to with the FraserStudios project coming to an end in June 2012.

MOP is infamous for throwing a great opening bash so head along on Thursday 19 April from 6–8pm to see what the Paper Mill directors have been up to ‘after the fact’. Click here for all the info.

Square One is preparing to open soon, with expressions of interest being taken for creative work spaces in their studio complex on Cleveland Street (corner of Great Buckingham) in Surry Hills.

Seeking multi-disciplinary artists of all kinds -

• PAINTING • NEW MEDIA • TRADITIONAL MEDIA • MULTIMEDIA INSTALLATION • SOUND & LIGHT  • ANIMATION • ASSEMBLAGE • NEW TECHNOLOGY • PHOTOGRAPHY • MIXED MEDIA • DESIGN • INDUSTRIAL  DESIGN • FURNITURE • SCULPTURE • INTERIOR DESIGN • ARCHITECTURE • OBJECTS

Beautiful art deco building, walking distance to Central Station, flexible open plan creative work spaces, $8 per square metre per week.

We’re told the open-plan studios have excellent natural light and extremely high ceilings. Walls can be erected to a height of 2500 cm and studios secured. And there’s gallery space, a shared kitchen, permanent parking spots available and free 24-hour street parking on weekends…

Sound good to you? Contact Sean on ph: 0439 93 93 93 or email:  sean@sq1.net.au.

INFO:

SQ1 — Square One Creative Work Spaces — Surry Hills NSW
267–271 CLEVELAND STREET (CNR GREAT BUCKINGHAM STREET)

The Projects Officer plays an important part of the program team.  S/he supports and coordinates program delivery by organising ticketing, front of house (FOH) and catering.  S/he also assists senior programming staff by tracking project timelines, drafting contracts and organising travel and accommodation.  The Projects Officer’s role is particularly important because it is one of the key points of connection between Performance Space and CarriageWorks.

The Projects Officer reports to Performance Space’s Associate Directors/Producers and works as an active member of the program team.

For more information about the position, please contact Emiline Forster, Performance Space’s Administrator on (02) 8571 9111
or admin@performancespace.com.au.

Or, click here to head to the P-Space website and download the job PDF.

The deadline is 9am, Monday 16 April, 2012. Interviews will be held the following week.

Over the next week. ex QSS-Resident Agatha Gothe-Snape will be holding two hour conversations in the CarriageWorks foyer with members of the local community and leaders from Sydney in the fields of art, film and government for a project entitled Every Future Here Now. A creative way of imagining the future of CarriageWorks, who have commissioned the project,  Gothe-Snape will create a large-scale drawing on-site during the sessions to become the blueprint for the future of CarriageWorks and hopefully uncover possibilities never before imagined. Participants include Fiona Winning, the newly announced Head of Programming at Sydney Festival, and Rachel Healy, Executive Manager of Culture for the City of Sydney. The sessions happen over the next four days and if you’re interested you can drop by and have a look and a listen. Click here for the info.

If you happen to be in Melbourne, ex QSS-Resident Zoe Coombs Marr has a Comedy Festival show on in the Melbourne Town Hall called Gone Off which is on until 22 April. Zoe is a member of the performance trio POST, who have a Performing Arts Residency at Heffron Hall later in the year, and is a very funny lady so you should definitely head along if you can. Click here to buy tix.

Current QSS-Resident William Mansfield, who is working with Eddie Sharp and Kenzie Larsen while here at FraserStudios, has been announced as a finalist in this year’s Spirit Of Youth Awards, sponsored by Qantas. Will describes himself as a multi-disciplinary Visual Artist and works across a variety of mediums including graphic design, film, installation, sculpture and performance. Good luck Will

Last week also saw the re-launch of the rebranded Museum of Contemporary Art Australia following a $53 million refurbishment which has been highly anticipated in Sydney’s arts community. Reports so far have been glowing, with the museum boasting a new level to house its own fantastic collection plus talks and events going late into the night every Thursday, including a chat with ex QSS-Residents Brown Council and The Kingpins programmed over the next few months. Coming up in June, Performance Space have been asked by MCA Australia to put together a program of performance, site-specific and participatory art called Local Positioning Systems, which will involve six fantastic Australian and UK-based artists including ex QSS-Resident and Blueprint mentor Julie-Anne Long. Plus we’re pretty excited about ARTBAR, which will take place on the last Friday of every month and is run by our very own Events Coordinator Kym Lenoble. We’re hearing great things about the artists who will be involved and are expecting the unexpected. So head along to the new MCA Australia and see what all the fuss is about.

If you’re a QSS-Resident past or present doing exciting things you’d like us to help promote, please send an email through to julia@queenstreetstudio.com and we’ll happily do our bit to support!

Craig Waddell’s Archibald finalist self-portrait ‘I see myself in you’

We are thrilled to announce that current QSS-Resident Craig Waddell has been selected as a finalist for the Archibald Prize; the annual prize recognising the best of portraiture around the country.

Craig’s self-portrait, ‘I see myself in you’ was selected for this prestigious award, a painting inspired by his relationship with his wife Jessie and in fact painted on top of an old portrait of her.

Waddell also received a Wynne Prize nomination for ‘The dunce – I will learn the rules before I speak’.

The winners are expected to be announced this week.

Click here to read more about the portrait.