Where Playscripts Go To Live and Other Art-Related Events

I remember (this is Catherine here) such a long time ago being completely devastated when my play Clark In Sarajevo was knocked backed from being published. It had done incredibly well – hell I stood at photo shoots for Literary Awards and it seemed everyone else had their plays with the lovely gold imprint to say you are “shortlisted” sitting on the table to be autographed. But in those days I was still under the belief a play would never be real unless it was a book. Oh it came close – a tiny publisher down south of Sydney, it even went to the proof stage and then they suddenly disappeared. Even more exciting a major American Theatre Magazine wanted it, I was told it was happening! It was real. It was not.

But the play fell on its feet with the dynamo of AustralianPlays.org. They had it in brochures and showcases and since then Clark In Sarajevo has had a multitude of productions from the major acting schools i.e NIDA, WAAPA, WAYTCO to tertiary acting programs all over the country. In the last couple of years it has had productions in both Singapore and Scotland as well.

Now AustralianPlays.org has a vast number of plays that can either be bought or borrowed, yes you can get a library card! Critically the majority of these plays would have been lost if it weren’t for this institution. They are international in their reach with welcoming introductions in German, French and Japanese.

Crucially they are advocates. Tom Healey the Literary Manager, amongst other capacities, chooses plays that he believes will suit a certain demographic and this is promoted through social media. There are also interviews with writers online, which may be of enormous help to actors, directors or writers and many others.

Our Ned has just had 10 of his Shakespeare for Australians plays published under the title Magic Box. It’s right there on the front of the page of the site. Go see.

Now onto a couple of other things one of my plays Deviant Art for the Degenerate was recently shortlisted for the AABB Foundation Playwriting Competition in the U.S. One of the aims of the prize is to create LGBT themed plays based on or inspired by history. (Yes AustralianPlays.org my latest draft hasn’t yet been sent to you with its new title!). It didn’t win but it made me think it’s time now to keep pushing this work further…

Finally if you are in Sydney I’ve three paintings in the Artsite Christmas Salon Collector’s Choice. It goes from the 30 November to the 15^th December.

Here’s the link to the address and to preview the works:

  

http://www.artsite.com.au/next.php

All works under $1500 and one work up at a time until sold. So if you are at all intrigued check out the stock room to see my other ones.

This one is called Precious Metal Mind (Acrylic on Canvas, 46 cm x 46cm)

Let's talk about making art (not marketing art)

We just had to share this fabulous, thought-provoking article by Todd London: I Don’t Want to Talk about Innovation: A Talk about Innovation.  

This may be wishful thinking on my (Noëlle’s) part, but it seems more and more writers and artists are speaking out about the ugly commodification of their art. Speaking out against being reduced to ‘content providers’. Resisting the the wearying professional imperative to collect followers and build a brand rather than develop a voice. Refusing to be positioned as part of the marketing mega-industry. I’m not advocating we stick our heads in the sand, but to those who sigh and say well that’s just the way it is, I want to shout: No! It doesn’t have to be like that.

Some work is small-scale and intricate, niche-orientated, demanding, unfashionable in its form or style or subject matter—and that’s OK. Some work is quiet, contemplative, unlikely to draw much in the way of media attention—also OK. Some work will never attract the corporate dollar, some work doesn’t aspire to mainstream status—and that’s OK too. And of course, some work may achieve commercial success without ever having had that objective.

I’m encouraged and cheered by this rising tide of dissent, by the resistance (and resilience) of writers and artists …

In this article English art critic Sarah Kent asks ‘If the most important thing about art is its wacky newsworthiness, how do we engage with it on any other level?’ Artists, she says, are ‘caught between a rock and a hard place. Market domination stifles creativity by seducing artists into producing glitzy commodities that shriek: “Buy me! Buy me!” Kent is discussing the visual arts, but I think much of what she says also applies to theatre, writing and other artforms. ‘Since an important part of their remit is to attract large audiences, museums and galleries unwittingly create a trap of a different kind—encouraging artists to woo the public with accessible art. Often the result is bland mediocrity …’

Finally, a bit of a tangent. In a recent j’accuse-type article Jonathan Franzen points the finger at technology. While he does raise some important issues, I can’t go along with a lot of what he says. Thanks to technology a much wider and diverse group of humans now has the power to tell their own stories. And tell the world what life is like in their particular corner. Here’s a counter POV—one of many written in response to Franzen.