Adelaide Festival Writers' Week wrap-up
The Women's Memorial Garden of Writers' Week has become a sylvan venue.
The tents are gone. Not only does it look so much nicer as a broad jigsaw of pleasant blue shade cloths, but it accommodates so many more people and it never feels too crowded.
Breezes flow freely and the greenery of the garden tree scape prevails.
The glory of stick designs backing the stages and welcoming arrivals from King William Road are reiterated. They were much admired last year and they add an art element which is interesting to the eye.
There are still a few tents, of course. Those twig artworks adorn the central roof spaces like chandeliers in the book tent which, long and airy, has its trestles so laid out that browsing space is entirely amenable.
There is another tent for caterers and the service area, some compounds working as loo blocks and the Green Room and some very special areas devoted to children.
Children swarming around the place are the new weekend face of Writers' Week.
As one sat in the morning sessions, listening to writers and pondering the fruits of thought, the eye was caught by periodic parades of vivid little ones - happy children flapping huge multi-coloured silken wings or dragging silken dragon tails. They have their own imagination corner, their own storyland, and their own book sections. Tomorrow's literary market is learning to love the word and rubbing little shoulders with some of the influential authors of our time.
It is just so beautiful and so right.
Meanwhile, those influential authors were pleasing their public no end.
People arrive really early at Writers' Week to ensure the best seats in the mornings. The first session is at 9.30am, the last at 5.30pm. Tables and chairs for dining, sipping coffee and wine away from the two stages make it quite possible to hang out for the whole day and many, luxuriously, did so.
Laura Kroetsch and the Writers' Week advisory mob spread the net wide for 2014 so throughout the week, there were delectable offerings for every literary appetite and an ample flow of unhurried people. However big the drawcard, there were always places to sit and hear, even if it meant filching a chair or two from the other stage.
Margaret Drabble was the superstar opener event. Seasoned, prolific and immensely admired, she packed 'em out.
Her rival later in the day was American Elizabeth Gilbert of ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ fame. She has written a very different work, this time fiction with an historical background called The Signature of all Things Gilbert. The readers were keen to know of both incarnations of her writing and she turned out to be a vivacious and engaging performer.
Early in the piece, it was Gabrielle Carey, one-time partner with Kathy Lette in ‘Puberty Blues’ and the ‘Salami Sisters’, who drew the morning crowds to the Western Stage. Her latest book is a memoir called ‘Moving Among Strangers’ and it extrapolates upon her family's associations with the great Australian novelist and poet Randolph Stow. So, her session had not only star quality but an intriguing altruism, for Carey is a powerful advocate for the country to re-discover Stow and to recognise that he is up there with Patrick White, if not aloft. UQP has reissued some Stow works and they, along with Carey's gentle and thoughtful works, sold fast in the book tent.
Not everything was about higher thought, however.
There was one shit writer. Vet and scientist David Walter-Toews held forth on Poop - Past Present and Future as he talked to Chair Paul Willis about his book, ‘The Origin of Feces - What Excrement Tells Us About Evolution, Ecology and a Sustainable Society’. The subject attracted much interest among gardeners and cooks as well as scientists and all those interested in sustainability. Some later described the session as "hot shit". Unusual terminology at Writers' Week, but forgiven in the context.
War remained a strong theme and, here came yet another demographic. Even the Governor, Rear Admiral Kevin Scarce, was seen to have popped in from next door to listen to sessions on war history - notably that of Paul Ham, one of the world's leading authors of popular war history books. His session became just a bit edgy when he targeted the arrogance of academic war historians in their attitude to his genre. His chair, Clare Wright, just happened to be an academic engaged in war history.
Many people had not heard of American novelist Rachel Kushner. Unprepared for a hot Adelaide day, she turned up in black boots and long frock for her session beneath the dappled sun shades. All she had to do was to read an extract from her latest book, ‘The Flame Throwers’ and people started planning a dash to the book tent. She was the "discovery" of Writers' Week for many.
The word went out on Twitter. Before each session, the chairs reminded audiences that the Twitter hashtag was #adlWW. Phones were turned to silent, but they were busy and a fine record of the week's event was broadcast.
Mandy Sayer provoked a few lively Tweets when she expounded on her life, subjugated and increasingly psychologically disturbed, as ‘The Poet's Wife’. Her memoir pulls few punches and the audience was fascinated by its potential legal minefield. Sayer assured all it had been well legalled. She also pointed out that "The Poet" was an American and her first husband. Her current husband, Australian author and playwright Louis Nowra, is entirely dissimilar.
Among the poets this year, it was Geoff Page who won hearts and minds. He is a Canberra-based poet with a bent for jazz music. Many had not heard of him but, on hearing his poetry read aloud, rushed off to buy the books.
Politics and love, crime and religion all took their place in the line-up. One could not cover it all. But the choices were there.
There were no notable scandals or misadventures, no last-minute cancellations, no great dramas to hit the gossip grapevine - unless it be that Gabrielle Carey forgot to bring her own book to the event and rushed into the book tent and paid full price for a new copy.
It was a joyful event. A great success. Very Adelaide.
Samela Harris
Photography by Martin Christmas
Adelaide offers an abundance of festivals which used to centre predominantly around the Fringe, Festival and Womadelaide, but over the past few years this great southern state has been expanding its repertoire. One festival that was added to the calendar in 2011 was the Cellar Door Wine Festival. It celebrates everything that South Australia has to offer throughout its amazing wine regions, its fantastic produce and its growing craft beer and cider market.
Having been to the Cellar Door Wine Festival in past years, I was beside myself to receive an invite to join the Social Media team as an Ambassador in 2014. Knowing that this would be an opportunity not to pass up, I jumped at the chance to join key South Australian social media magnates in helping raise awareness of what has now become a multiple award winning and nationally recognised event.
Given the responsibility to promote, post, tweet and photograph various elements of the festival otherwise known as #CDWF, I relished the task of engaging people through various functions, networks and social media platforms to help entice people to what is now South Australia’s biggest and best wine event.
Boasting a list of 160+ wineries from 15 wine regions scattered throughout the state, visitors will have the chance to sample over 800 different wines across the 3 days of the festival. Add to that a list of craft beer and cider breweries along with some iconic and relatively new boutique food producers in the PIRSA Tastes of SA area, and you have the perfect recipe for a gourmet journey of the senses.
Starting on Friday 14th February (Valentine’s Day) and continuing over the weekend, up to nine thousand people will muster through the doors of the centrally and stunningly located Convention Centre situated between North Terrace and the River Torrens. For those looking to spoil their loved ones on Valentine’s Day, or any other day for that matter, there are 8 different Master classes to choose from. Starting on the Friday, Masterchef Marion Grasby offers a food and wine extravaganza, while cheese expert and importer Valerie Henbest will have you salivating with a range of indulgent cheese and matching wines.
Being a self-confessed food geek and lover of quality, premium wine and craft beer, my journey through the four Social Media Ambassador functions has only strengthened my appreciation and anticipation for the 2014 event. With a single day, general admission ticket setting you back a mere $30, it not only provides and amazing social setting but is also an opportunity to savour some of our state’s best wines. This is an ideal event to tantalise your tastebuds and set about planning an epic encounter to a wine region that may otherwise have been perceived as a trip too far to travel.
You’re only a few clicks away from attending what’s is SA’s premier wine event. For further information, masterclass session times and ticket pricing and sales, check out the website at cellardoorfestival.com.
Darren Richards
Matt Byrne Media has won the rights to the hit musical 'The Addams Family', and recently underwent the process of auditioning for the South Australian cast.
The local premiere will hit stages in Adelaide's CBD and Northern suburbs in July.
The musical, like the multiple reincarnations on television and in films, is based on a group of fictional characters created by American cartoonist, Charles Addams. The characters are a satirical inversion of the ideal American family; an eccentric, wealthy clan who delight in the macabre and are unaware that people find them bizarre and frightening.
The musical, which is the first stage show based on the family and which takes its characters likenesses from the cartoons rather than the television series, was developed in 2007. With music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa and book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, the production was first produced by Elephant Eye Theatricals for Broadway in 2010.
Since then the show has toured throughout the US, parts of South America, Sydney Australia, Finland and Asia.
Byrne has completed his casting, who auditioned during an Adelaide heat wave, and will open the South Australian premiere on the 2nd of July 2014, at the Arts Theatre. Shortly thereafter the show will move out to the Shedley Theatre in Elizabeth, where it will run from the 17th to the 26th of July.
Paul Rodda
South Australian cast:
Gomez - Michael Coumi
Mortica - Emma Bargery
Wednesday - Sophie Hamilton
Lucas - Jonathon Shilling
Fester - Jamie Hornsby
Grandma - Chris Bussey
Lurch - Frank Cwertniak
Pugsley - Dylan Richardson
Alice - Fiona Aitken
Mal - James McCluskey-Garcia
Thing - Hans
Cousin Itt - :)
Female Ancestors
Sarah Williams
Roxie Giovannucci
Tahlia Fantone
Sarah Wildy
Alex Cornish
Emma Hamilton
Nadine Wood
Niki Yiannoullou
Male Ancestors
Gavin Cianci
Gus Smith
Riki DeJesus
Bobby Goudie
Ron Abelita
Gil Costas
Callum Byrne
Michael Williams
When: 2 to 12 July
Where: The Arts Theatre
When: 17 to 26 July
Where: The Shedley Theatre
If making it into an International Festival of Arts program is a big deal, then the Adelaide-based theatre company, Windmill, has hit it big, bigger, biggest. It has not one but three shows included in the 2014 Adelaide Festival program.
Wildest and bravest aspect of this is that the shows target the hardest of all theatre audiences - teens.
Windmill's artistic director Rosemary Myers credits Festival director David Sefton with the courage and, indeed, some of the impetus which has made this happen.
"David Sefton saw ‘School Dance’ when it premiered in Adelaide and when we said we saw it as part of a trilogy, he said 'do it'," she reports. Now, on the eve of the Festival, the third play of the set is finishing rehearsals and having its first runs. It is called ‘Girl Asleep’.
"We wanted the third instalment to be more of a girl's story," says Myers.
"It's more beautiful. It has a different dynamic to the others.
"But it is just as hilarious and inventive."
Already the first play in the set has been an award winner. Critical acclaim for ‘School Dance’ was followed by two Helpmann Awards and a Best Production for Young People gong at the Sydney Theatre Awards. ‘Fugitive’ was the next story to be told in the series which describe adolescent rites of passage.
Since she came to Windmill, director Rosemary Myers has shown that she does not shirk from the sensitive issues, the raw realities of growing up, and hence her productions can be quite confronting. Her ‘The Wizard of Oz’ was quite an eyebrow-raiser in 2009.
Hallmark of her shows in the older genre is that they may be loud, wild, movie-like and, most importantly, wickedly funny. They burst across genres, referencing pop culture and movies. They are not quite like any other theatre that is out there.
‘School Dance’ depicts young people in just that - the nerve-racking predicament of the school dance, the ‘who likes’ and ‘who doesn'ts’ and the fragile egos and edgy tempers.
It had and has a powerful and tight professional cast of Amber McMahon, Jonathon Oxlade, Luke Smiles and Matthew Whittet with Whittet also behind the writing, Oxlade on the design, Smiles on the soundtrack and Myers directing.
Those creatives turned out to be the stuff good chemistry is made from - and they have continued to work together to create the rest of the trilogy.
Myers sees the team refining its work as it progresses, getting bolder and learning from the responses of audiences just how far the company can go to bring this difficult teen demographic into the theatres.
‘Fugitive’, is darker than ‘School Dance’. It is futuristic, somewhere out there off the edge of a hip hopper world. It's a very lateral take on Robin Hood. Myers describes it as "Manga-esque", meaning it draws on the idiom of Japanese comics. For ‘School Dance’, on the other hand, she references the spirit of the John Hughes films of the 80s. He's the ‘Ferris Buella’ man, ‘National Lampoon’, ‘Breakfast Club’... Hence the plays have filmic elements as well as graphic ingredients - among the many things.
"We also have made them in different periods," says Myers.
"Fugitive is set in the 90s and School Dance in the 80s.
"This last one, ‘Sleeping Girl’, is 70s - flares and hotpants. Lots of costume changes, Lots of wigs. Shudders of excitement."
It might be a modern take on ‘Sleeping Beauty’ but, like the other plays, it leaps to unexpected heights.
"We do outrageous things on stage," laughs Myers.
"There are fantastical creations. For instance a paper crane turns into a Finnish penpal."
While it is all very well devising plays for teens, Windmill has been very conscious that theatre also is a family thing. Just as its plays for juniors, the likes of its last children's hit, ‘Grug’, must also have elements to engage the parents, with these plays directed at teens, it has nodded at adult interest.
"The plays are foremost for teens but there is so much fun and drama, so much popular culture that they draw in a wider audience," says Myers. "We play to a young audience but appeal to an old one as well."
School Dance
March 12 - 16
Space Theatre
Fugitive
March 1 - 9
Space Theatre
Girl Asleep
February 28 - March 1
Space Theatre
Bookings from Bass.net.au or 131 246
Samela Harris