heart will travel - Before Boston and Back

15th November 2010

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Before Boston and Back

so I’ve been attempting to write this epic life changing poetic blog about my year.. but i’m just not feeling very poetic. I’m feeling very matter of fact so.. this is it.

I just got back from america.. I went there to work on Cabaret with the American Repertory Theatre (i refuse to spell it theater when i’m in this country.. sorry).

Cabaret was amazing. The cast were incredible. The creatives were inspiring. The stage management were some of the best i’ve ever worked with and the crew were great. I had a ball doing it. I had to perform for a week in it too.. which was terrifying. and I looked like a she-beast.

While there, I also started teaching at Harvard/ART/MAT - and I feel in love with the students and had an amazing time.. I wish I had the chance to work with them for longer - hopefully I shall return.

I also worked on a show called “Once in Hell” I co-directed with Allegra Libonati - working with a lot of institute students and two of the fabulous actors from Cabaret.. it was a 10 course dinner journey through Dante’s Inferno.. It was at a club called “Oberon” (also the space Cabaret was in) and Oberon became somewhat of a second home/family for me when I was in Boston.. Not only because it served booze and was literally right next to my apartment but because it was full of amazing people and great artists were there all the time and I very much enjoyed myself in that building in the presence of those people.

I was sitting with waiting for my parents to come and catch up with me over coffee the other day.. and I was sitting there in my purple shiney shoes, my oversized shirt, torn off black jeans (just longer than my shirt), my hat and completely-functionless-hipster glasses and was wondering how much I’d changed in the time I was away.. I feel different. I’m not sure how. I can’t articulate it. it’s not just that I pretend to be a hipster sometimes when i dress now. 2 shows, a heap of teaching, a few lovers, a chunk of pretty heavy down time, a glorious amount of new friends, 4.5 months, a lot of alone time and two very long flights has changed me.

I feel it’s important for me to take stock of how fucking fortunate I feel to be able to live the life I live. To be able to do the work I do.. and above all to be afforded the opportunity to connect with the people I connect with. So many of the people I met and worked with or trained were beautiful beautiful people. Thank you to those people for embracing me, challenging me, drinking with me, dancing with me, arguing with me, listening to music with me, singing with me, sleeping with me, allowing me to throw wine at you when i was far too drunk, allowing me to cry at you when i was far too drunk, allowing me to be all the sides of me that came out at unexpected times while alone in a strange city and thank you for bringing out the best in me also. I love you and am changed by you.

it’s been a big year for me.. before Cabaret started was the Orchard Project - another intense crazy art/wine fuelled week which again threw me in the midst of crazy beautiful talented people.. before that was Pennies and Beggars in the street in Brisbane, before the In God We Trust - which was a beautiful and challenging work which changed my life completely. Prompted me to start a youth theatre company with my long time collaborators and partners in crime Simon Tate, Katrina Cornwell and Chris Beckey.. and further fortified the amazing recently re-ignited collaboration with Kath Quigley (who is my manager and friend on all ventures).. In God We Trust itself was for me an opera sized theatre piece with 30 young actors 15-17 and they blew my mind. I was so proud of the work and it made me realise that young people need to opportunity to create theatre that isn’t patronising for an audience or to themselves as much as “adult” actors do.. so if I was in a position to create that opportunity why wouldn’t I?

Before that was Adelaide Fringe.. fucking epic. We ran a performance space in a venue with 7 different shows programmed in it.. one of which was my own (The Hamlet Apocalypse) and all the others were filled with inspiring artists doing their own thing. Fringe festivals are kind of like schoolies on art crack or drama camp fuelled by cheap wine and random hook ups.. all of those things aside it’s an amazing place to see great work and meet great people and I’d highly recommend it to anyone..

—-

upon returning to australia.. i walked straight into rehearsals for Vanguard’s first show.. which was a part of the Two High Festival at the Powerhouse.. I came back to a lovely house full of family feeling energy, a rehearsal room full of actors, creatives, crew and management that inspired me and then on the second night here.. i ran heart first into some wonderful friends from melbourne.. which made me very happy. The first stage of the show came together really well and I’m excited for the future - the writing is stunning. ( I’m fairly sure I will conclude this blog thing with an excerpt from the show). Then tonight, the real icing on the cake was taking my first training session for Vanguard.. since I launched the company Tatey has been running all the training.. but now i’m back and we are sharing and it filled me with life. We had some of our “adult” actor friends come in and play with the Vanguard members tonight and it was a glorious time.

I am stilled by the fact that for me, when I am on the right path.. things just feel right. I am filled with energy and clarity and things seem simple. I am running at the future with the weight of my past behind me, everyone I have met, every time I have loved, everywhere I have been and everything that I have done and I am feeling - unstoppable.

thank you.

ps. I love you, most likely.

“we will take the hits

the kicks

the humiliations

We will endure

We will mourn our dead

and nurse our wounds

and we will smile

We are young

We will heal

and the world

our world

will grow anew

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