Sunday Arts Magazine

16 Aug 2015

Rally, MIFF, Nice Work If You Can Get It, MSO 2016, Detroit

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Both Brendan and David were at the well-attended Marriage Equality rally yesterday (15th August) and one of the speakers was Maya Newell, director of Gayby Baby (which played at MIFF) who spoke about same-sex parented families.

MIFF finished last night and our hosts do a postmortem. Queer films were prominent this year and at least two of them– Holding the Man and Downriver — will get a general release. Brendan’s last MIFF film was Me and Earl and the Dying Girl which he thought was often hilarious, despite the subject matter.

David attended a musical theatre production—Gershwin’s Nice Work If You Can Get It –which is on from 13th to 23rd August at the State Theatre. This is a new production where writers chose old songs of Gershwin and turned it into a new play based on a 1920s play called OK. It has been put on by The Production Company and is the first time it has played outside the USA. David loved everything about it including the cast, the chorus, the orchestra and the way the music and songs fit perfectly with the plot. He gave it 5 out of 5.

Special guests today are:

Dale Barltrop is in his 2nd year as Concertmaster for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (MSO) and as of next year will also be joining the Australian String Quartet. His love of music and musical instruments started in Brisbane when he was a 3rd grader and at 18 he went to North America and spent 17 years there in various orchestras. He talks about the upcoming 2016 season for the MSO and believes there’s something for everybody in the program including Straus and Mahler symphonies, Shakespeare related works, soundtracks from Hitchcock films and The Godfather and free concerts at the Myer Music Bowl.

Brett Cousins is a founding ensemble member from Red Stitch Actor’s Theatre. He talks about his theatre background and then describes how Red Stitch works—finding and staging the best plays from around the world e.g. the West End or Broadway that perhaps aren’t being done here, as well as staging new works from Australian writers. They also run actors’ classes and nurture new and established writers. Brett and our hosts then discuss the uncertain funding situation.
Red Stitch’s new play is called Detroit on from 28th August to 26th September. It is about 2 couples—an established pair who are conventional, rule-abiding and well-off and a pair of recovering drug addicts who move in next door. Both couples need each other and an unlikely friendship develops. It covers themes like the gap between rich and poor getting wider and challenging the perception of a middle class family.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 43:01 — 39.4MB)

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