02.01.20
2020! The future! It wasn’t supposed to start like this. But here we are in the smoke haze, hoping that friends and families around the burning country can be helped to safety.
This year we will be talking about the last 50 Years of the Stables, but we’ll also be having big conversations about the next 50 years, not only for our theatre, but for the whole country and the planet we share.
David Williamson’s play Family Values has been provoking huge conversations among the cast—and we hope the play will make everyone talk. It’s a short play, but a big one, from a playwright who has been with this theatre since the beginning. Lilian Horler, one of the founders of The Nimrod, emailed the other day reminiscing on 1971, when David came to Sydney for the opening of his play The Removalists at the Stables. He was sleeping on her floor, I believe. He doesn’t need to do that now obviously, but it reminded me of how so much of this industry is built on extraordinary community. There are so many instances of radical hospitality in the theatre—sharing meals, spare rooms, resources, opportunities—as actors, creatives and companies generate stories around the country.
The generosity that I see in the theatre is the generosity that we are going to have to enact across the country in facing the challenges of the next 50 years—indeed, the challenges of the next few weeks—as we find new homes and jobs for all the people who are displaced, as well as food and clothing for the people who have lost everything.
Take care, stay safe, support our firefighters as much as you can, and I will see you in the foyer.
Love,
Lee
