05.12.19
I don’t know about you, but I keep waking up in the middle of the night thinking the house is burning. A strange and awful beginning to December with the city shrouded in smoke, our hearts go out to the communities in the path of all the fires.
Sometimes the job of theatre is to sweep you away from your daily stresses and let you escape into a world of extraordinary possibility. If that sounds like what you need then make sure you come to First Love Is the Revolution. You only have one week more to experience the joy of Rita Kalnejais’s writing, the gorgeous performances and the beautiful designs. Don’t take my word for it… read the reviews, ask your friends… and squeeze in a show in the midst of your pre-Christmas chaos.
Aaah yes Christmas… see what I did there? You knew I was going to get to the reminder that tickets to the theatre make a perfect gift for family, friends, staff members, favourite teachers, babysitters, writers, dentists, architects… and the Griffin office will be open until 2pm on Christmas Eve in case you leave it all to the last minute.
What you don’t want to do is leave your entry into the Griffin Award up to the last minute. Deadline for entries is midnight, 31 December, but you can send them in now!
The other thing you can do is send in your application to be a Griffin Ambassador (if you are in year 10, 11, or 12 next year). The Robertson Foundation supports this extraordinary program which gives you free tickets to every Main Season show in the year. You come to see the show on a Saturday matinee and you meet the cast and sometimes the playwright. We do workshops and Q&As, and it’s a chance for you to meet people from other schools who also love theatre, and to see a year full of great new Australian plays. If you are 16 reading this, you should be an Ambassador! If you have finished high school you should be jealous (but know that our Under 35 Subscription is the best deal in town!)
The first of those plays next year is David Williamson’s Family Values. Rehearsals start next week! Ready or not, next year is coming. Sort your subscription out if it is still sitting on your to-do list, and join us for David’s final new play of his extraordinary 50 years of play writing. While it was tempting to revive one of his classics to celebrate his career, Family Values has so much to say right now it must be on the stage—his last great statement, if you will, before he retires.
I’m writing this on the train on the way home. The sky looks like a sunset in Delhi, the man across from me has a face mask on and the woman next to him is offering eucalyptus drops to everyone. My mind is going back to the ending of Stephen Carleton’s The Turquoise Elephant… farcical then, now shockingly prescient. Stay safe. And thank you to all the people working in fire departments. You can make a donation to the NSW Rural Fire Service here.
Love,
Lee
Lee Lewis
Artistic Director
