The Helpmanns and helping ourselves.

What’s that? There was a big theatre awards ceremony this week? Surely as a blog that presents itself as a place for theatre commentary, “The Perf” should be writing about it (I hear you say). Well guess what, we are! Sort of.

First off, I know most theatre commentators have already discussed this topic, but I feel the need to get something off my chest…

Things that make me happy: The ABC news covering a live performance awards night - did not expect that.

Things that make me unhappy: Half of that coverage being “OMG I can’t BELEEV CATE BLACNHET wasn’t EVEN NOMINANTED>>>>WTFBBQ”. (They seriously talked like that. I could tell they were making spelling mistakes from their tone).

I expect this crap from News Corp, but seriously ABC, if you’re going to cover the thing, which like I said, I was excited you did, then cover the event! Not a meaningless story that was created by the media as an excuse to talk about Cate Blanchett. (I feel I should at this point clarify that I am a massive Cate fan. She is an incredible actor and deserves to be discussed in the media, just not in this ridiculous context). Props on the interview with Ewen Leslie though.

Other than that I really don’t have that much to say about the Helpmanns. There were no big surprises for me, and as I said when the nominations were announced, the most frustrating thing for me is the constant reminder that I missed MTC’s Richard III. Sydney Festival planners, if you’re reading, please bring Richard III to this year’s Sydney Festival. The winner I was most excited about was Version 1.0 who won Best Visual or Physical Theatre Production for their show “This Kind Of Ruckus”. If you read this blog at all last year you’ll know that we’re kind of big fans. Hopefully they will now be commissioned to create new works at all the major theatres. I was also happy that Ewen Leslie won, because I’m also a fan of him (looking forward to The Trial), and that Neil Armfield is as well received in the opera world as he is in the theatre world.

In other exciting theatre news the Sydney Fringe Festival has begun! This is very exciting for a few reasons namely, the three project that we here at the Perf are involved in:

Appleloft
Nathan and myself are in this one! It’s going to be an awesome night of baked goods and short performance works culminating in a festive dance. Good times will be had.

Zetland

Rip Whitening’s Synchrodestiny Experience
These two are Jenni’s festival babies. The first she assistant directed, and she has produced both of them. Very exciting times for every so please get along to them. In case you haven’t realised, the titles are links to the Fringe page which has times, dates and ticket details.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this short bit of self-promotion. You should be getting a review of the Trial sometime next week, so keep checking back for that. Also, there’ll be more self-promotion in a couple of weeks as Applespiel heads to the This Is Not Art in Newcastle straight after the Fringe. Stay with us.

- Simon