I had never heard of the play The School for Scandal before, on now at the New Theatre in Newtown, until the 30th of May, but I was bursting to see it nonetheless. Not because I’m a broke-ass student who was offered a free ticket. Not because eating lethal amounts of chocolate had been my only…
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From the newly emerged Sydney Chamber Opera comes Fly Away Peter, an opera inspired by Australian writer David Malouf’s novel of the same name. Elliott Gyger and Pierce Wilcox, the composer and librettist respectively, took inspiration from Malouf’s poetic and stirring words about the landscape of peace and war, of nature and of transcendence, transforming…
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I declared myself a nerd when I was only young, discovering the wonders of sci-fi, the exhilarating breathlessness of awesome adventures, but also the heartbreak of discrimination within nerd culture. So when I heard about a one woman show focusing on the feminist fight of us nerds, of course I was interested. Feminerd: The Cabaret,…
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As part of the Sydney Comedy Festival, I was privileged to catch Canadian-American comedy act DeAnne Smith for her one-off Sydney show, Get Into It, on Thursday night. It’s a shame that she’s already come and gone from Sydney, considering she clearly belongs here. DeAnne is a lesbian and let the audience know this from…
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Luisa Omielan, hailing from the UK, has brought her stand-up show, What Would Beyoncé Do? to Australia. Starting at the Adelaide Fringe, then Melbourne International Comedy Festival, and now in Sydney from the 22nd April until the 26th, the show is critically acclaimed. If you’re after an upbeat evening and are looking for the answers to…
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Rose Callaghan and her mates Kelly Fastuca and Will Sylvince took to the stage at Hugs and Kisses nightclub to deliver some choice anecdotes about dating, fame, living the creative life and ‘rooting.’ Hugs and Kisses is a mysterious venue. Even by Melbourne standards of laneway obscurity, Hugs and Kisses is tricky to find. A…
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Lady Sings It Better is an impressive cabaret group of four women, who are performing in Melbourne as part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, that deliver a clever mix of musical talent and entertainment, with underlying feminist themes and hard-hitting pop culture critiques. The ladies, Maeve Marsden, Libby Wood, Annaliese Szota, and Fiona Pearson,…
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The award-winning duo Sparrow-Folk is performing their new show SuBIRDia at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, the Sydney Comedy Festival, and the Wagga Wagga Comedy festival. The pair began their career in musical comedy under a Hills hoist, in true Aussie style. I caught up with them in the lead-up to their Melbourne debut and…
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As part of Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Rose Callaghan (comedian, MC, internet troll) is returning to the stage in Rose Callaghan and Mates 2: Return of the Mates. After a fantastic set of sold-out shows for her collaborative performance of Rose Callaghan and Mates at lasts year’s MICF, Rose is back with more fresh jokes…
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The words ‘DANGER WANK’ are firmly on repeat in my head and I can definitely blame EastEnd Cabaret for that. Their new show Perverts, part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, offers many such couplings of filthy thoughts and deeds which perhaps never should have gone together, but thanks to these two smutty songstresses, it’s…
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As part of a joint project between the Sydney Theatre Company and the Melbourne Theatre Company comes Jumpy, a witty British play starring Jane Turner (of Kath & Kim fame) that’s all about midlife crises, motherhood, and upholding feminist ideals decades after feminism became a thing. Written by playwright April De Angelis and directed by…
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My current thesis was once described by a kindly reviewer as like ‘watching somebody psycho-analysing themselves,’ and I would call that a pretty accurate observation of my mode of research. It is an intense picking apart of ‘me-ness,’ that is the well-trodden reflexive testing ground of the mentally askew. My research considers ways that trauma…
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To have revealing photos uploaded onto social media without consent is a fear of many women and a nightmarish reality for more than you would imagine. This is the premise for Handle It, a one-woman play that showed at The Street Theatre from March 13-16. Kelsey, a ‘naïve’ first year university student wakes up after a big…
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Smashing stereotypes about fat bodies, Nothing to Lose is the critically acclaimed dance production by Force Majeure that opens at Melbourne’s Malthouse Theatre next week after a sold out premiere season at the Sydney Festival. Artistic Director of Force Majeure, Kate Champion says: ‘My interest in working with bigger bodied, fat dancers has been in…
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