King of Pop Dead at 12

All praise to The Onion for getting it right. Again.

London lunchtime show June 24 to 28 - World At One

Very happy about this one, and if you're in London you can come and see it.

Signs of Rust is a short play being directed by Dan Coleman, performed by Simon Darwen and Victoria Bavister, at the King's Head Theatre, Upper Street, Islington; it's one of three short plays (15-20 mins each) being put on at lunchtime as part of Zeitgeist Theatre's World At One series.

Here's dem details.

World at One

in association with King's Head Theatre

June 24 - 28th @ 1pm

In a time when Jordan’s love life is the only war-zone people want to read about, gossip mags swamp the newsagent shelves and PR guru’s make the millions, we stage three short plays on the theme ‘SELLEBRITY’.

Griff Phillips writes about comebacks, secrets and lies, Fleur Brooklin Smith on how far celeb-wannabies will go and Ben Ellis looks at who holds the puppet strings.

World at One is a regular series that stages three interesting and entertaining twenty minute plays on one set theme. Showcasing the best of London’s up and coming talent, World at One tackles contemporary issues and challenges modern times.

@ Kings Head Theatre 115 Upper Street, Islington N1 1NQ

Duration: One hour

Tickets: £7/5 conc.

Box Office: 0844 209 0326

Book online at: www.kingsheadtheatre.org

Horrific Acts for Charity, Sydney, July 22-25

Happy to say, particularly for friends or strangers in Sydney, that New Theatre is premiering one of my plays, Horrific Acts for Charity, as part of this year's New Directions season. James Beach directs. Starts July 22 - limited run.

Let me continue to bang the drum for Poet #7 in Melbourne, too. Preview is June 11; opens June 12. Daniel Schlusser directs. (And one of the cast, Georgina Capper - I was reminded today by a journalist - has been in four productions that I've been involved in as either playwright or co-playwright. I am a very lucky playwright or co-playwright.)

London-wise, I've got news about a short play happening soon. Details for that get announced next week.

Off-topic: the Swiss vote to include "complementary medicine"

Nothing to do with theatre - yet. The Swiss electorate has voted to recognise complementary and alternative "medicine" in their constitution. That's right, memory of water and all that absolute bullshit (and I don't mind who I offend in saying that) is now to be funded within their health system. Read the Le Monde article about it. Perhaps it's a good thing, if CAM is suddenly subject to double-blind trials and other scientific processes that this snake-oil industry rejects (read Ben Goldacre's Bad Science for more details) - but CAM makes its billions selling without such regulations; we won't expect CAM spruikers to be keen to give up their money for such apparent scientific trifles. Reading the article more closely, the new constitutional article giving CAMs power is worded vaguely enough to allow such 'therapies' funding without scientific verification of their claims nevermind warrantability.

Those who think that public referenda are a good idea might want to reconsider in light of this result. This is a vote for public mediaevalism. This is a vote against Enlightenment.

And back to the theatre - to what extent do we surrender the processes in our art to a kind of mysticism rather than to a sense of agency? To a determinism rather to a delineation of conscious choice? Is to crave for the sublime in art in fact a practised stupidity?

Poster Post for Poet #7, Melbourne

I'd recommend buying tickets at/through the Arts Centre (to avoid the Tick-master sur-fees).

Reflections on a rehearsal room from the dark side of the planet

It's a busy week. It's the kind of week you wish for when you've gone through a period of nothing else on.

Poet #7 started rehearsals in Melbourne on Monday. Meanwhile here in London, Eighty-Eight is being workshopped all week for a presentation this coming Monday night at RADA. Later this week, I'm going to a music festival for the weekend in Somerset - one of those things you plan to go for months out in advance (it's The Breeders curating All Tomorrow's Parties).

This is the routine. I get up early. Check my emails and try to respond: this is when the end-of-day stuff comes from Melbourne. While I've been dreaming, they've been trying to work out how my words can play; I try to attend to the questions and requests. Breakfast, maybe fit in a quick run, definitely fit in a few cups of coffee, and try to switch gears to get to the rehearsal room at RADA. On a combination of train and tube, I try to find a seat so I can write in my lap. I've had the chance to hear Eighty-Eight out loud now, so now I can speculate on changes to lines or removing whole scenes. Only thing is, that this writing takes actual work and time in front of my desk at home. So we continue to test out the playing, I keep taking notes in my lap, I do the rush hour home, get there, cook then write until I'm ready to sleep. (Cooking-wise, I recommend legumes. From cans.) Dream about rehearsal rooms, tape marking out floors, disembodied heads - some of these things are in the script. Awake.

Would I rather be doing anything else right now? No.

Meanwhile, check out what Fin's been up to, lately. Brave and necessary stuff, like his writing.

Poet #7, Melbourne, directed by Daniel Schlusser

It's coming home...

Buy your tickets through here.

If anybody's still reading this, I'll blog a bit more soon.

Things to blog about

Now that I'm working a full-time job alongside the writing, I'm finding it difficult not so much to find the time to blog here, but certainly to will myself the time. I think I wrote this time last year that social sites like facebook had replaced some of the functions this blog had for me, and that still applies. (On the other hand, that ought to allow for some more detailed or deeper writing about things I care about.) Another difficulty is that I find myself wanting to erect a facade between this, a public self, and whatever my private self happens to be. As much as I want sometimes to express excitement or disappointment, I am reminded that this is very much a public site, not my notebook (which really is my Bluebeard's door - don't go there, darling). Also, I am now an employee of the National Theatre, working front of house in its bookshop. I haven't asked for any policy from my employer as to how I may or may not blog about the previews I get tix for, but in a way I'm glad I've not (at least to my knowledge) willed myself to do so. To be sure, I'm VERY glad to be earning a stable wage, while on the other hand I've never taken a penny from any post and I doubt that I would earn very many pennies if I ever did enable AdSense.

But. I am missing the opportunity for a kind of open reflection, and the opportunity to ask questions, make hypotheses and have others interrogate my assumptions. The difficulty with which I'm negotiating here is boundaries. With that in mind, here are the areas I'm thinking of blogging about over the coming months:-

1. News of upcoming productions and publications of my work - of course. For example, the website australianplays.org features some of my work for (paid) download. Come on. Buy one of my scripts. You get to read one of my best plays; I get to buy some paperclips.

2. Thoughts on features of different plays' structures. This stuff really fascinates me, the interplay between plot and design. Other people get turned on by character: this is either my weakness or strength as a playwright - I get turned by what characters do as a result of this interplay between plot and design and what this represents rather than being led by character to a plot. Plot, design and language lead me to character. What Foucauldian baggage, huh?

3. My imaginary perfect playwriting class. That is, the kind that I'd teach if given ten weeks. Obviously, there wouldn't be a lot on character. But you'd learn about von Horvath, Deutsch, Vian and Buchner... maybe.

4. Almost an adjunct to 3, this. Playwriting exercises. Love 'em. Use 'em. Need more of 'em. Would want to discuss how using them might actually relate to putting together a script, too.

5. The relationship between other art forms and the act of playwriting. Ever since discovering Gerhard Richter's newspaper paintings for myself, I've taken an interest in the parallels and divergences between how a playwright might assemble his or her material from a subject and how a painter does. A lot of what I learned I used for writing These People. This stuff all comes before the question of what a director and actors do with it, but that's fine because it's usually the playwright who has to come up with it first. I'll assume a willingness on all involved to attempt the impossible, or at least play with the possibility of the impossible. Anyway, I think that the divergences are as important as the parallels and I'd like to talk a bit more about why.

6. How any or all of this poses challenges in production. (Suppress giggle/weeping.)

There we go. That sounds like a reasonable self-imposed remit.

And all while I type this, my thoughts are with those killed and affected by the fires in my home state of Victoria. To those who are trying to get a sense of the scale of these fires, imagine if half of your country's yearly road deaths occurred on the one day.

Thanks to those who have asked after the wellbeing of my family: they're okay, thank luck.

You can help the fire victims who have lost their homes, and who will need services to help them survive the trauma of losing loved ones by going to the Australian Red Cross appeal here.

Peter Brook is leaving Bouffes du Nord

Yep. That's right. He's told Le Monde that he and his co-artistic-director are handing over the reins. In 2010. Here's the link. (If you're not a French reader, I'm sorry but I'm a bit too tired to translate this evening.)

50 Ways at Christmas reviews

Well, we re-wrote it and now it's re-reviewed: 4 stars in the Evening Standard. Interesting one over at WhatsOnStage.com, too.

Bleeding 'eck

Theatre really is the 'living' art form:

Actor slits his own throat as knife switch turns fiction into reality

So. Read the article and then tell me, what disturbs you more: the mistake or the audience's response? Why?

August, the Game?!

*UPDATE 11Dec: George Hunka responds to the game in a typically thoughtful post here.

The National Theatre microsite for August: Osage County has produced a fun, if slightly derivative game based on the play by Tracy Letts, or at least upon the character of Violet. Play it here.