Clarke says it took 19 months of negotiation with the VCA to pull FLIGHT together. “VCA was excited,” he recalls. “They wanted to come on board. It’s great! All of the work is new work coming out of VCA, it’s a program focused entirely on new writers having a season at Theatre Works.”
Not surprisingly, Clarke says, course leader Raimondo Cortese, of Ranters Theatre, is thrilled about the new partnership. “We’re very, very excited,” he continues. “All the works are quite different from each other thematically; they’ve been developed over time. I’ve seen changes since they started rehearsal; the plays have been worked on over a long period of time.”
All but one of the five plays will be staged at Theatre Works – the Footscray Community Arts Centre is the venue for The Dead Twin by Chi Vu. “It is a site specific work,” continues Clarke. “The Dead Twin involves the audience moving around the venue, it goes downstairs and in and around the Community Arts Centre. There’s a lot of surprises so I can’t talk too much about it; it’s a text-based work and the genre is horror which is different, unusual in such circumstances. Deborah Leiser-Moore is the director – she is very integral to the development of the work. She is also performing in this very physical work. Footscray have been supportive of Chi’s work in same way as we are with the Theatre Works shows. We’re working together, making sure everyone feels supported.”
How did Clarke decide which plays to include? “They pitched to us and I selected the writers and the scripts. They are all graduates of the course, from a few years ago. This program is ‘of the writer’ – our directive is to support the writer. Apart from the season here, there is the potential to tour. As with all of our productions at Theatre Works we support them by inviting in producers and presenters.”
Have the works come to FLIGHT program as complete packages, or have Theatre Works and the Footscray Community Arts Centre had to pull them all together? It varies, according to Clarke. “Two of them have had interstate seasons –Yours the Face by Fleur Kilpatrick has had two seasons interstate and this is the Melbourne premiere. The director, Sarah Walker, is actually a photographer, moving into theatre direction. Some of the works come funded, some not, some are more resourced than others. Patrick McCarthy is writing and directing his own work, Grief and Lullaby. Morgan Rose got a director from Brisbane to come and direct her play Virgins & Cowboys. Two directors are working on Kindness by Bridget Mackey, which is unusual; I think one of them is about to have a baby so they are co-directing,” continues Clarke. “My first experience as a director was as a co-director. It was all fine until tech week! So I know from my first show what it’s like.”
One popular feature of Melbourne theatre festivals is the inclusion of post-show discussions about the works and the process of creating them, as well talks as about current trends in theatre in general. FLIGHT is happily pursuing this trend. “We’ve got panel discussions happening over several weeks,” continues Clarke. “The FLIGHT artists want to talk about their practice, they said ‘let’s make this happen’ so the writers put it together – they wanted to talk about the relationship between training and the main stage, about that ecology, and there’s also a talk about the status of text- based theatre; the talks feature theatres like the MKA, the MTC, and theatre makers like Patricia, Emma Valente, as well as Chi Vu.”
Clarke says the biggest challenge in pulling FLIGHT together involves logistics – which is to be expected. “The technical staff say to me ‘Dan, you’ve given us 15 minutes to change over!’ There are 70 artists involved across the project – so it involves a challenge. It’s a big one for working around clock, with five shows about to open! We’re presenting two shows a night at Theatre Works.”
BY LIZA DEZFOULI
