Sunday Arts Magazine

27 Mar 2016

Velvet, ART-Town Chapel St, Her Maj, Little Wise, Comedy Fest

Arts, Comedy, Music, Performing Arts, Visual Arts

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Velvet, ART-Town Chapel St, Her Maj, Little Wise, Comedy Fest

Happy Easter from David and Brendan! They talk about Velvet which they both saw. It started out at Adelaide Fringe Festival, went to Edinburgh, then did the rounds in Australia and is now in Melbourne at the Comedy Festival until 17 April at The Malthouse. Brendan describes it as a disco extravaganza and it has Marcia Hines in it which pinged his gaydar. The webpage description says it’s a ‘…fusion of disco, dance, burlesque and circus’. There is no talking; everything is sung. The sound quality and singing is excellent, the costumes are very sparkly and the ‘flying’ is spectacular. The lead guy, Brendan MacLean is a big talent–in acting, singing, playing the ukulele. The plot is essentially a coming out story for the lead guy’s character. David thought the whole show was very uplifting and fun. Brendan loved the hool-a-hoop guy!

Special guests today are:

12:22 to 35:13 mins–Margaret Kernich –Producer at ART- Town is here to talk about the ART-Town Street Art in Chapel St Precinct on 2 – 3 and 9 – 10April AND the ART-Town Exhibition 26 April– 14 May at Chapel Off Chapel Gallery.Originally from Adelaide, Margaret studied Visual arts at Monash and Public art & Space at RMIT. She and David discuss arts in Adelaide and its accessibility as compared to larger cities. Margaret prefers to work in the ‘visual area’ and she is also a freelance Photographic Stylist– mainly for advertising shoots. She also has a strong background in events. ART- Town is in its 7^th year and is a live art event that takes place throughout Chapel St Precinct & Greville St. Over two weekends in April, artists are creating art in the streets (mostly), gardens, and some retailers & galleries. The public watch the art being created and the artists get feedback and test themselves in a completely different situation. Margaret quotes some accomplished artists to illustrate how artists and observers can experience this. ART-Town is actually an award with $5000 as first prize. It’s open to every kind of visual art and medium and the artist must use Chapel St Precinct in some way. 4 judges look at the artwork. 2 weeks after the street event, all the art is shown in an exhibition at Chapel off Chapel Gallery.

35:48 to 1:02:05 mins–Mark Rowe is the General Manager of Her Majesty’s Theatre–a Melbourne icon. Mark was always interested in theatre despite growing up in country SA which had limited theatre activities at school but he did like performing. Once he went to uni in Adelaide and then to Sydney he realised that backstage would be fun too AND easier. He has a great admiration for performers. A friend offered Mark a job as an assistant stage manager and later got to be the Sydney Theatre Co’s stage manager for 4 years until he moved to the better-paid commercial world of musicals. This he did in Australia (mostly) for the next 30 years and worked on most of the big musicals and with most of the producers. He talks about his experience of being a stage manager and a company manager and also when Mike Walsh unexpectedly offered him the job of GM at Her Maj. He and our hosts talk about The Maj, its beauty and its history, and also about promoting The Maj and others as part of an East End Theatre District. They also discuss shows at The Maj including Wicked, Georgie Girl (which has just finished), the Victorian Opera doing Lucia di Lammermoor with the exceptional Jessica Pratt (12 to 21 April) Kinky Boots (starting in October), Singing In The Rain (from 7 May), Avenue Q in August and a Michael Jackson tribute in July. Mark would like to increase the amount of ballet shown at The Maj starting with the Queensland Ballet.

1:03:25 to 1:20:01 mins–Songwriter and performer Sophie Klein leads alt-country folk indie outfit– Little Wise. She learnt piano at primary school and later guitar and listened to a lot of folk music and other. Music is not her sole career as she is also a social/community worker, but she likes the variety of having both careers as it brings an interesting perspective to both realms. Sophie is not a trained singer but all her experience singing live and recording has taught her good vocal habits and allowed her to form a particular style of her own. Sophie has done a couple of almost-national tours playing in a variety of venues. Tours come in waves and are often folk festivals. Sophie has learnt to be her own agent and has been doing it since 2012. She has released 2 Eps and is currently recording a Long Play album working with longtime collaborator and bandmember Megan Bernard and experienced Producer Kalju Tonuma. The songs include old and new material and involve her mum’s passing away, other personal issues, as well as songs inspired when travelling. She talks about the songwriting and recording process, and the songs being a means of catharsis for her and her family. The album is due in October with singles out before that. Her next live show is at the Mount Beauty Music Festival at the end of April. She announced she’d reached her target on her crowdfunding campaign for the recording.

Brendan and David discuss the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and Comedy/Comedians in general. Brendan saw 3 previews. Firstly Nate Valvo: Tongue in Cheek (a gay performer) which Brendan had a ball with; next was Dolly Diamond- Alive Intimate And Up Late which was hilarious and a bit raunchy with a different mystery guest in each performance AND Thomas Jaspers is a Kitten Killer (another gay performer) a versatile and very funny performance which includes talking about his cats.