A Note from Declan, 18 April

18.04.24

Dear Grif-friend, 

As I write this, the countdown to the final performance at the SBW Stables Theatre is well and truly on and the vibes in the Griffin office are… strangely peaceful? I can’t tell if it’s the calm before the (celebratory) storm of the final weekend, the usual stoic trudge toward the end of a production’s season, or both or neither. Maybe all the Griffin staff are repressing their emotional attachment to our beloved home… or maybe we’ve processed everything already!

There are just four more performance dates for our season of The Lewis Trilogy, but eight more plays if you tally all the performances up. And every single one of them is sold out! Thank you for your overwhelming response to our final epic production of three of Louis Nowra’s finest Australian plays—it has truly been so special to welcome audiences into the Stables for the final time before our redevelopment. I’ve been getting a kick out of reading everyone’s scrawled notes on a couple of the orange walls of the theatre foyer, too. All the memories remind me that the impact of this place—its history—is so much bigger, so much more complex and sprawling, than me, or any one person, could ever conceive. 

But enough genuine reflective sentiment! Yuck! You definitely won’t find me sobbing into the orange cushions in the nook after Sunday night’s final bows, so don’t bother looking! Chapters end—new ones begin. And the future of Griffin is looking f**king exciting. 

There’s our redevelopment, of course, but the rest of our compact little 2024 Season is shaping up to be a real treat. One of the most beautiful plays I’ve read in recent memory is coming up in July at Carriageworks: swim by the lauded poet (and now playwright) Ellen van Neerven. Associate Artistic Director Andrea James has been working hard with Ellen and the creative team to develop the work up on Yugambeh Country over the past couple of years and from the sound of things, the show is going to be a magical, monumental ode to water, home and queer love.

I’ve also had the utterly ridiculous joy of being in a creative development ahead of our season of Flat Earthers: The Musical by Jean Tong, Lou Wall & James Gales, which premieres as a co-production with our friends down the road at Hayes Theatre Co. A Griffin musical is a rare and precious thing, but I can guarantee that this production will have all the fun-yet-deeply–weird risk-taking that Griffin loves to showcase on our stages.

I might catch you on the weekend—and if not, see you somewhere that is NOT the SBW Stables Theatre (😭) soon. 

Much love,
Declan 

Declan Greene
Artistic Director & co-CEO