29.06.21
Dear Grif-friend,
Well… Here we are again. 😷 🥴
Once again, we’ve been issued with the heavy task of temporarily shuttering the SBW Stables—cancelling ATYP’s season of Lewis Treston’s Follow Me Home (tragically the second COVID cancellation this beautiful show has endured). And over at Seymour Centre, we had to cancel the remaining performances of our return season of Suzie Miller’s Prima Facie, which was almost sold out. Our thanks for your patience and understanding with this incredibly disappointing news.
Suffice to say, in the face of this crisis we’re doing our best to remain resilient and to keep fighting strong. This spirit has been taken up by no one better than director Tessa Leong and the magnificent cast of Kendall Feaver’s Wherever She Wanders. We’ve had to cancel the first preview of Wherever She Wanders (and we’ll be contacting ticket holders for this performance over the next day or so to discuss ticket options!), but the rest of the season stands in hopeful anticipation that we can bring you this exceptional piece of new Australian writing in July.
It is also just two days before End of Financial Year. In true Griffin spirit, our small-but-mighty theatre is financially supporting our casual and front of house staff, as well as the actors and creatives whose performances have been cancelled. With more rough times looming and our box office income disappearing, this is a pretty scary time to be shouldering these costs. So if you’re in a financial position to lend us a hand, we’d be extremely grateful for the assistance. And to those of you who have already generously donated, a massive thank you!
It’s not all doom though—today we’re also excited to announce the five shortlisted playwrights for the 2021 Griffin Award! This year, we received 119 entries, and five plays were shortlisted! Congratulations to Olivia Clement, Amarachi Okorom, Oleg Pupovac, Daley Rangi and Megan Wilding for writing some truly incredible works! Jamila Main‘s play How to Eat Rabbit was also awarded Highly Commended this year. The winning play will be announced at our annual Griffin Award event, which we’re working toward amidst the restrictions… we’ll update you on it very soon, we promise!
If you’re an artist and the above has got you a bit inspired to make something new, consider signing up to be a Griffin Artist Member. You’ll get access to an incredible archive of online workshops on topics like narrative and story development, writing from personal experience, and creating digital theatre, which you can scope out from the comfort of your living room (or bed, depending on where you are in your lockdown journey…).
That’s all, friends. Stay safe, stay connected, and we’ll see you on the other side of this.
Much love,
Declan (Artistic Director)
& Julieanne (Executive Director)
