06.01.15
OK! OK! You were supposed to get this newsletter yesterday to welcome you all into the Griffin New Year. BUT. I am writing to you from the intestines of the Opera House where we are creating the first production of Kate Mulvany’s Masquerade for Sydney Festival.
A truly national adventure for Griffin, the Drama Theatre is filled with actors and designers and musicians from Adelaide, Melbourne, Newcastle, Perth, Brisbane.
We are all working frantically to get everything ready for the first show tonight. Right now it doesn’t feel possible that the curtain will go up on time!!! There is way too much to do! But deep inside me I know it will happen and the first audience will tell us if we are on the right track. How? As Geoffrey Rush said in ‘Shakespeare in Love’ … ‘It’s a mystery’.
5 years, 6 Artistic Directors, 2 theatre companies (big love to the incredible team at State Theatre Company of South Australia), incredibly brave Festival Directors who believe in backing new Australian plays front and centre in their programmes, and 1 extraordinary playwright… if this is sounding like an Opening Night speech it’s because I still have to write it. If my co-director Sam Strong were here he would have to write it, but he has just welcomed his first child Henry into the world… So he is a little occupied! Congratulations Sam!
And back up the hill at the Stables The Unspoken Word is Joe is firing up the lights, Murakami is on its way and Caress/Ache is about to start rehearsals.
Welcome to 2015! It has begun!
