13.10.16
A love letter to actors
There are a lot of elaborate costumes in The Turquoise Elephant. There is not a lot of space in the Griffin dressing room. We don’t have assistant stage managers or dressers. And summer is coming. So thank you in advance to the beautiful Maggie Dence and the glorious Belinda Giblin for all of the ridiculous uncomfortable costume changes you are going to wrestle through in the next few weeks.
Thank you to the marvelous cast of Gloria – all seven of them plus chaperone who huddled back there – quiet, focussed, intense. Marta I don’t know how you did it every night, getting ready to go on, standing there in the toilet waiting for your entrance… It’s the glamour, right? That’s what keeps you going?
Thank you to all the amazing actors on Cleverman who are having more and more hair stuck to them… And summer is coming. It’s the glamour, right?
Across the country our great actors are giving their talents to create new stories. It is not an easy process, it is not glamorous or luxurious and most of the time it doesn’t pay that well. The process is difficult, scary and under resourced: the outcome is uncertain, the personal sacrifice is great. So why do they do it?
I think great actors are up for the challenge of new plays because they care deeply about their audiences – about giving them new experiences that have never been seen before. I think great Australian actors care deeply about giving life to great new Australian plays so that the voices of this generation are recorded. They make their mark on our time with their original work. I see the look of excitement on their faces at the end of a show when the audience has experienced the adventure of a new play through them. There is nothing to beat that feeling, that accomplishment.
So thank you in advance to The Turquoise Elephant actors for the work of the next few weeks. Thank you to all the actors who are already committed to working on new plays next year and all the actors who will come on board. Thank you for your vision, your courage, your imagination, your pain, your skills, your joy, your patience, your understanding and your love of new Australian plays. You are changing our world for the better, one play at a time.
See, and I didn’t tell you all to subscribe to our 2017 season once!
Love,
Lee
