Menu
From opera to musical theatre and drama classic and contemporary, I’m genre agnostic when it comes to picking the best theatrical experiences of 2018. The standout Sydney stage shows spoke to the moment in distinctive ways, from #metoo to race relations, mental health, environmentalism … and the pitfalls of bricking yourself into a pyramid. In
Read More
Playwright Joanna Murray-Smith pays tribute to the gift of an actor. The actor is her uncle John Bluthal who died on November 15 north of Sydney, aged 89. Bluthal was born in Poland, raised and educated in Australia and worked as an actor for stage and screen for seven decades, mostly in London. His career included lead roles in West
Read More
“The gift of time in reflection has provided some clarity …” It reads as the opening words of a philosopher, sitting in a bower, contemplating life and offering to the trees and sky an essence of what he or she now would utter on something important, something of a distilled universal nature. But no, not
Read More
Andrew McGahan’s first book, the disturbingly comic Praise, defined him as a Queensland writer, and that stuck. Even though he has written books set in Sydney and Canberra, even though he has lived in Melbourne for decades, the sultry indolence of Brisbane in that Vogel-Award winner back in 1992 perfectly matched the tone and delivery
Read More
Last week, the global citizenry seemed to be in shock as they watched the American president explain that the Saud family’s current dictator will not be sanctioned for having one of his former advisors hacked to death in Turkey. The reason, said Trump, was because America needs control over Saudi oil and loves the billions
Read More
Immigration is what Australia has been built on and there is no indication that it will change soon regardless of recent dog whistling, writes Fotis Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced the “fair dinkum” reduction of the migration ceiling from 190,000 permanent migrants to 160,000, last week. This announcement was cynical and far from ‘fair dinkum’,
Read More
Russell Anderson the head of the National Ethnic and Multicultural Broadcasters Council is thrilled about the new role of independent ethnic broadcasting and digital convergence on the even of the 2018 NEMBC Conference. Next weekend, the National Ethnic and Multicultural Broadcasters Council, (NEMBC), is bringing together over a 150 ethnic and multicultural broadcasters at its annual
Read More
Terror comes in waves. The first is the bullet, knife or bomb. Then, the maiming or the death. Then there is the grief. The third drops into lives like a large stone dropped into a lake; it radiates out, slams into those directly affected and touches others with fainter ripples. Sometimes, it drowns those over
Read More
Last week I attended the Melbourne chapter of the Australia Council’s national consultation on the strengthening and enhancement of the Major Performing Arts Framework. I came away with a mix of emotions that a week later settled into unease then dread. I’m going to try to unpack that feeling through this essay. I believe the
Read More
The race that stopped the nation stopped the horse. So death becomes us, becomes even more part of our culture, but not in a way that grasps us by the throat and sends us into gasps of grief. No, we say it’s tragic and move on. Culture’s collateral damage really. It’s not as if a
Read More
