28.01.21
Hello Grif-fans!
I’m Ang—I’m Griffin’s Marketing Coordinator, writing to you from my desk in the company’s little terrace house office on Craigend Street. To my right, there is an open bag of Easter eggs (and I won’t hear any criticism about how it’s ‘too early’ for Easter eggs—the chocolate simply tastes better in egg form). Outside, a cool misty rain is blowing about and I, of course, didn’t think to bring a jacket to work. All around me, at other socially-distanced desks, are my wonderful Griffin colleagues, which brings me to the question you’ve probably got on your lips… Why is the marketing chick writing the Griffin e-newsletter note?!
Well, dear reader, I’ll enlighten you. Declan mentioned in his note last fortnight that this year, the Griffs are taking turns writing to you, our beloved Grif-friends, in every newsletter. Declan will still be giving his updates regularly, but this year, when you open up that fateful email that drops in your inbox every fortnight, you’ll hear from some of the other Griffin staff! You might hear about which show they’re working on, catch a little glimpse of their day-to-day office routine, or get precious insight into what it’s like to work on the inside of a small-but-mighty theatre company dedicated to telling new Australian stories. You’ll probably get a unique mix of all three, depending on who’s writing. It’s going to be fun! I think at the Griffin office, we’ve all been feeling a little distanced from our audiences (because of the you-know-what), so this is our attempt at spreading some love and connection via the magic of the company enewsletter.
It’s been a pretty optimistic start to the year at Griffin, especially for the Marketing team (which consists of myself, and my colleagues AJ and Rebecca). Our first show for the year, Green Park by Elias Jamieson Brown, is totally sold out! This is wonderful news for the Marketing team—it means we can focus on creating interesting content for Green Park with an ever-so-slightly more relaxed frame of mind. For example, I had the pleasure of researching and writing a blog post about the history of the real Green Park this week. Having a sold out show also gives us a little more breathing room to start thinking about how we’re going to get people in the know about future shows, like Jali, Is There Something Wrong With That Lady? and Dogged.
We’ve also finished up a show already! One down! Pleasuredome by Xanthe Dobbie & Harriet Gillies went off without a hitch as part of Sydney Festival’s digital program. It was Griffin’s very first online show, and having seen it, I can safely say it’s one of the riskiest, smartest, weirdest, most gorgeous shows I’ve experienced in the past couple of years, on a stage or otherwise. I hope it comes back because more people deserve the pleasure of seeing it (See what I did there?). Congrats to everyone involved!
Other than that, the buzz around the office is related to our brand new Artist Membership program, which launched last week! For just $5 a month, artists and theatre lovers are granted access to a bunch of great stuff, including online masterclasses, Q&As, special discounts, digital content and more. I’m signed up, and I can’t wait for the first Members Newsletter to drop next week. Definitely get in on it.
And with that, Grif-friends, I think I’ll sign off from my first ever note! I might chat to you again later in the year—you never know your luck in the big city. I’ll leave you with something that’s been resonating pretty hard for me this week. This spoken word performance by Luke Currie-Richardson, performed at Sydney Festival’s The Vigil, hit me like a ton of bricks on the evening of 26 January. I’ve watched it upwards of ten times and I implore you to do the same! Seriously, do it.
Until next time,
Ang
Ang Collins
Marketing Coordinator
