Category: Behind the Curtain

Something about it wouldn’t leave me alone.

A week on from seeing SCO’s Aphrodite, I was still thinking about it. Not because I was moved, but because I wasn’t. The work left me emotionally untouched, yet it triggered a cascade of conflicting thoughts I’ve been wrestling with ever since.

Perhaps it’s the NIDA course I’ve just finished and my brain is wired to notice things like tone, structure, and narrative payoff. Or maybe I’ve just grown suspicious of surfaces, especially when they’re too slick. Or I was simply triggered—which, in its own way, is a perfectly valid (and arguably the most productive) reaction to art.

What lingered wasn’t one specific flaw, but a tangle of tensions—and above all, a sense that the work was deeply in love with its own shine. And yes, perhaps that was the whole point.

Art often falls for its own cleverness. It’s seductive to chase the beautiful line, the high-concept idea, the thematic frame that sounds important. But the hard part is erasing a pretty phrase when it turns out not to be true. And by true, I don’t mean factual—I mean resonant. Recognisable in the hidden corners of our own experience. By the time you’re over forty-five (as most theatre audiences are), you’ve lived through enough complexity to sense when something’s just skimming.

Beauty, especially in performance, can be a slippery accomplice. Even with the best intentions and the sharpest collaborators, it’s easy to start following the shine: the elegant structure, the seductive image, the clever delivery. But the challenge is staying with the grit—the contradictions, discomforts, and unspoken truths that give a work its spine. Beauty can work like sleight of hand: a clever distraction, too smooth to catch. Personally, I like a wrinkle. Otherwise, it’s all just moisturiser and metaphor.

Maybe that’s the real Aphrodite Complex—our tendency, in art and life, to worship beauty even as it distracts us from what lies beneath.

And maybe that’s the question I keep returning to: how do we talk critically about beauty using beautiful bodies, beautiful voices, beautiful design—without any relief from, well, beauty?

And the beauty I trust the least is the neat bow at the end of things—the lure of the Insta-ending. Aphrodite‘s Taryn Brumfitt-style finale—close your eyes and delight in your other senses—felt overly polite. And politeness, like beauty, often slips in just when things are about to get interesting. I don’t want my art to tie things up. I want it to resist that temptation. To leave us unsettled, curious, still reaching.

If the ultimate goal was not to move me but to get me thinking—it worked. I’m still turning it over. And that might be its own kind of success. While it showed no wrinkles, it left me with one.

And to continue the litany of beauty: there were some very pretty clarinet lines.

Or maybe this is just a pretty thought.

Yesterday was my first Arts On Tour Salon. If I’m honest, I expected to feel a bit out of place. But instead, I made a new friend in the first five minutes—a playwright with a background in computer science, an insatiable curiosity, and a brilliant mind.

Meeting him reminded me of my NIDA writing class, and what real diversity in storytelling looks like—not just cultural background, but lived experience. Different careers, different questions, different reasons for making work. When we talk about “diverse voices,” these are also the people I think of. Not to diminish my own voice, but to acknowledge the risk of making work within an industry, for the industry. Not for people.

One thing that stayed with me: the pitches I connected with weren’t just about skills and talents that wow you for five minutes. They were about the presence of a person in the space with you. Someone whose artistry holds your attention.

Of course skill matters—but for me skills wear thin fast if they’re not anchored in something deeper: the live body holding a real question at the heart of the work. Even in puppetry—something inherently magical—it’s the artist behind the puppet that makes it sing. You could strip everything else away and still want to spend time with the person on stage.

Which leads me to a question I keep circling: what does it take to get an idea across? To hold attention and tell a story that lands?

I come from a multidisciplinary background—dance, like English, ingests other forms: theatre, text, projection, music. And when making live work, you’re constantly asking which of those elements will carry the moment best. What will deepen the experience? It’s not about using every tool but choosing the right one or combination—at the right time—to stay connected to the heartbeat of the work.

And always, it comes back to presence. That’s the glue that holds the whole thing together.

This Salon also reminded me: I’m not late. I’d worried An Ambivalent Woman of 37 had taken too long to finish—but most of the works pitched started pre-Covid. Many have toured once or twice and are looking for another window, another lifeline.

And they all have value. Because they exist.

And for a work to exist in this industry—to have made it to a stage, even once—it’s already achieved the impossible.

It means a creative team has jumped through countless hoops, held the doubt, spent the money they didn’t have, kept going without knowing if anyone would ever clap, come, or care. It’s thankless work. Often unpaid, uncertain, and built on faith.

So, if a show has made it that far, it’s already something extraordinary. The real question isn’t whether it’s worthy. It’s whether it can find an audience—that’s what presenters are grappling with.

One presenter said audiences have “long Covid.” I disagree. I think they have Streaming. They have bills. And not enough reason to take a risk.

Which brings me to something I’ve been thinking about more and more: art is an outing first. It has to be a moment, a date, an event. When I put on AAWO37 in Nashville in 2023, I framed the night so that friends could gather, drink, hear live music, and talk about something real, personal, complicated. It felt warm and generous. It wasn’t just a show—it was a shared experience.

Too often, theatre feels isolating. You show up alone or with one friend, buy a drink in the foyer, take your seat, watch in silence, and leave. That foyer drink isn’t connection—it’s a transaction. You spend more, the venue makes more. But where’s the real invitation?—The feeling that you’re part of something warm, shared, human?

So how do we bring the warmth?

Not necessarily by making audiences “participate” (I personally hate participating!) but by designing a night that’s generous from a heart place. A night that’s more than the work on stage and one that makes you feel like you’re part of something. Maybe it’s not just a handshake between producer and presenter—it’s a triangle. Perhaps a flexible, adaptable scalene triangle.
Artist. Presenter. Audience.

Presenters are the link. They live in the community. Artists dip in and out. So if connection is the goal, what can happen sooner?

It does start at places like Salon with early conversations. Not just what the show is/could be, but why it matters—who it’s for, what it offers. When artists and presenters talk early and honestly, it builds trust. And that trust helps presenters take risks, and audiences feel invited.

That’s the pipeline I’m interested in. Not just a product at the end—but a relationship from the start.

Which brings me back to the Salon. As thoughtfully run and beautifully curated as it was, I did miss one thing: the chance to properly meet presenters. I wished there’d been some structured opportunity—speed dating, table rounds, a visible handshake—between artists and presenters. Because while schilling yourself is part of the job, it’s a lot to ask in a crowded foyer over a cup of Nescafé. Be great to build that handshake into the room.

That said—hats off to the Arts On Tour team for a beautiful day. Full of heart, clarity, and connection. I left inspired.

NSW—you are making. You are presenting. I saw it. And I’m honoured to be part of it. Let’s keep building.

I just finished the Tour Producer Training course run by PAC Australia—designed to help new producers wrap their heads around the logistics of regional touring. I started it because I have a show I want to tour: An Ambivalent Woman of 37. A two-hander. Minimal set. A few props. You’d think: light. Easy. A show made to move.

But not so.

It might look light on its feet, but there’s a heavy lift in getting it across Australia—especially when simplicity is actually the result of precision. That makes bump-in and show-on-the-same-day unrealistic. And that, in turn, means more cost. Presenters see “two-hander” and expect it to land in a certain budget bracket. Go over that number and you’re encroaching on ensemble territory—so they’d rather book a proper ensemble and a cheaper solo show. It’s all about smart and diverse programming. Budgets. Math.

And that’s just one helpful lesson.

I also learned that just because you’ve made a thing, doesn’t mean there’s a place for it. Or rather not a ready-made one. You have to work—hard—to create that space. To convince presenters, funders, and audiences that it’s worth showing up for.

Not to mention the broader questions: Is your work sustainable to produce and tour? Who gets left out when you take it on the road? Access, energy use, regional viability—it all adds up. And it all matters.

This course ran alongside my studies in Arts Marketing and Management at Deakin, and the two couldn’t have been more complementary. Together they’ve grown my passion for thinking about the pipeline: from idea to product to audience.

I remember starting to mull over this back in 2010 when I was making new work in WA. But it feels more urgent now. Audiences are harder to draw. Dollars are harder to part with. Why go out when you’ve got streaming and a good dinner?

As a creative producer, I feel the responsibility to make something worth leaving the house for and ultimately to grow audiences. But selling yourself while you’re in the midst of the creative weeds—full of doubt about what you’re making—takes cojones… and maybe even a drop of crazy. That’s the dilemma.

And part of this is bigger than me.
Where are the performing arts headed?
Will theatres survive the next twenty years?
Will they be full—and with whom?
Are we now in a cycle where only the loudest, most commercial acts can fill seats? And does that even matter?

No answers.
Just some pressing, fascinating conundrums.