This is an amazing opportunity for young writers! They are four unique exciting voices. atyp has a wonderful track record in the development of great Australian writing and this partnership positions Courthouse ARTS as a central character in the development of new dramatists in Australia. We cannot wait to start this gig!

I am really excited to have this opportunity to work closely and intensely with four new dramatic voices – to help nurture and guide them towards discovering the stories they are driven to write, and to uncovering their own powerful and important new plays. I am also really looking forward to us together discovering new ways of looking at, exploring and demystifying the tools and craft with which one strengthens and hones dramatic writing – and being on board, what feels like the start of creative process. I look forward to getting to know these writers and their own individual voices.

ROSS MUELLER In 2002 Ross Mueller was selected as the Australian playwright for the International Residency of the Royal Court Theatre in London. He won the Wal Cherry Play of the Year (2006) for The Glory, was nominated in 2008 for Best Play in the Green Room Awards for two separate works and won the 2009 New York New Dramatists Playwright exchange for his play Concussion. In March 2011, his most recent work, Zebra, starring Bryan Brown and Colin Friels and directed by Fresh Ink mentor Lee Lewis, premiered at the Sydney Theatre Company. Ross has been shortlisted for the Patrick White Award three times. He has been an affiliate of the Melbourne Theatre Company, was a founding member of Melbourne Dramatists and has been commissioned by Melbourne Theatre Company, Playbox, Canberra Youth Theatre, Hothouse and ABC Radio National. His plays are published by Currency Press, Full Dress Publications and Playlab. Ross is currently Artistic Director of the Courthouse ARTS in Geelong.

ALEXANDRA MACALISTER-BILLS Alexandra is an emerging writer currently based in Melbourne. She graduated from the University of Melbourne with both a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in Creative Writing and Cultural Studies, and a Diploma of Languages (Spanish). She is currently the Artist Liaison for literary anthology Going Down Swinging and works part-time for Arena Theatre Company. She was a participant in ATYP’s 2011 Fresh Ink National Studio and her monologue La Conversación went on to be produced and published as part of The Voices Project – The One Sure Thing. Over the past few years Alexandra has interned with PlayWriting Australia, NICA and The Substation. She also writes short-fiction, poetry and creative non-fiction, much of which is inspired by her travels. .

TREVOR MAITLAND Trevor Maitland graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2010 with Honors in Classical Voice. Whilst studying there he was made a Melbourne University Scholar for his academic results as well as being awarded the Murray Vagg and Grace Durling Scholarship for his performance results. Trevor has performed with the Victorian Opera, Orchestra Victoria, the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Opera Australia. I n 2010 Trevor premiered the role of Filbert in the world premiere of Stuart Greenbaum’s opera ‘The Parrot Factory’ at the Malthouse Theatre. In 2011 he was awarded the Freemason’s Education Bursary and the Opus 50 Trust Award. In 2012 Trevor was awarded a JUMP Mentorship and ArtStart grant by the Australia Council for the Arts. These awards allowed him to undergo a two-month mentorship at the Wiener Staatsoper with music coach, David Aronson. Trevor has written numerous plays including two operatic libretti ‘Who Killed Dustin Beaver?’ and ‘Jason’s Flood’. In 2013 Trevor’s play ‘Deliliah’ will be creatively developed by Ross Mueller at the Courthouse Youth Arts.

IZZY ROBERTS-ORR Izzy studies Literature and Professional Communications at RMIT, is a poetry editor at Voiceworks magazine and reviewer for SYN and Inpress. Her first two plays ‘NightMinds’ (2011) and ‘Twins’ (2012) met critical acclaim and sold out shows both in Melbourne and touring to Adelaide Fringe. ‘Twins’ was workshopped with MKA Theatre at MTC and featured in a season of readings at five.point.one theatre (Adelaide). Izzy’s monologue ‘Peach’ was recently published in atyp‘s anthology ‘The Voices Project: Out of Place’ after she was selected to participate in for the 2012 Fresh Ink National Studio and Izzy is also taking part in Platform@LaMama. Her poetry has been featured at Sweetalkers, Word is Out, Eltham Courthouse, overload slam finals and published as part of Seventh Gallery’s Co/Respond.

JANE BODIE Jane Bodie is an acclaimed writer for both theatre and television who in 2007 won the prestigious Louis Esson Prize for Drama awarded by the State of Victoria, Australia. Jane was nominated for the Patrick White Playwrights’ Award in 2002 and won a Green Room Award for Outstanding Writing on the Melbourne Fringe the following year for her series of monologues, Still. She was also short-listed for The Ewa Czajor Memorial Award in 2000 for her work as a theatre director. Jane is currently Head of Playwriting at the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney. She has worked extensively as a playwriting teacher, mentor and workshop leader, in universities, schools, prisons and among the community.

JULIA-ROSE LEWIS Julia-Rose Lewis is playwright and performance maker originally from regional South East Queensland. In 2010 Julia-Rose graduated with distinction from Queensland University of Technology with a Bachelor Of Fine Arts, Drama. Julia is passionate about writing for both the stage and screen. In 2012 Julia-Rose was selected to attend atyp’s National Young Writer’s Studio which saw the creation of a work titled This Feral Life, which was produced by atyp and published by Currency Press as a part of The Voices Project 2013,  Out Of Place. In addition to the stage production This Feral Life is being developed for shooting in late 2013 as a part of The Voices Project.  Julia’s other credits include; As Writer: All Smashed (Shortlisted for atyp’s Love Bytes Short Film Competition (2012),  As Performer: Elephant Gun (The Escapists & BreadBeard Collective, World Theatre Festival 2011 and 2012), As Installation Artist: The Night Of The Dead Trees (Metro Arts, Free Range, 2012), As Dramaturg: R&J >< Greater Than Less Than Ampersand Romeo And Juliet (Vena Cava Productions, 2010) Other: Associate Artistic Director (Vena Cava Productions, 2010). In 2013 Julia-Rose will work as a collaborative artist on the re-adaptation of ><R&J Greater Than Less Than Ampersand Romeo And Juliet as a part of the La Boite 2013 Independent Season. Julia-Rose has also worked for Queensland Theatre Company as their Youth Program Coordinator and Queensland Performing Arts Centre as a Project Assistant with the KITE Arts Education Program.

EMRYS QUINN Emrys is a Sydney based young writer. He has been published three times with Currency Press, twice through North Sydney Council’s ‘Page to Stage’ initiative in 2007/8, and once with atyp through the The Voices Project 2012: The One Sure Thing. He wrote and directed his first production in 2011 and in 2012 participated in initiatives with  Subtlenuance Theatre Company and Augusta Supple. He is also a practicing performance poet. Emrys’ application to the Army Reserve was recently rejected on grounds of his not playing enough team sports, leading him to believe that theatre, after all, may be more his thing.

TOM MESKER From Sydney’s Northern Beaches, Tom Mesker is an actor, writer and director. Having acted from a young age, Tom thinks this ignited his interests in theatre and film. Honing his craft in a Theatre and Media degree CSU Bathurst, Tom performed in and co-created many theatre projects and for his final work wrote and directed Portraits, a site specific theatre event. Since then he has attained a Certificate in Drama and Performing Arts, A.M.E.B, written Spinning for Melbourne’s Short and Sweet festival and performed in multiple stage plays and short films. Tom has facilitated workshops in improvisation and also tutors drama to high school students focusing on HSC performance development. In 2012 he attended atyp’s Fresh Ink National Studio and developed the monologue The Mangroves. It was then included in The Voices Project’s 2013: Out of Place production and publication and is being developed as a short film for The Voices Project.

Jessica Bellamy and Christopher Summers are two young playwrights navigating the territory from bright young things to brighter, but slightly older things. Over the next 12 months they will be charting their journey, which started in January, with Scene 1.

Welcome to Perth!

We have great things here, like a sun that sets in the west!

We have an International Arts Festival, a Writers’ Festival AND a Fringe Festival operating ALL AT THE SAME TIME!

We also have a playwriting festival going on, but you knew that.

Playwriting Australia’s National Play Festival is scheduled in the following way: most days start with a free forum on a subject of interest to playwriting nerds. After the forum, the day moves into readings of new plays by Australian (and this year, some international) playwrights. 

After the readings, everyone heads off to check out the food and drink around town, or to enjoy some of the great Perth Festival, Perth Fringe or Perth Writers’ Festival events in town. Or in my case, fall asleep at 10pm because your brain is fried.

I’ve decided to tell you guys about some of the fascinating panel discussions that I attended while in Perth, and some of the thoughts and realisations that these conversations inspired in me.

THE WEST COAST VERSUS EVERYWHERE ELSE

Did you know Perth is really far away from Sydney and Melbourne?

Of course you did, but did you think more about how this affects the audience of your work when you’re a Perth-based theatre-maker?

I went to a panel discussing just these issues, one that featured some impressive West Coast theatre-makers (Gita Bezard (RE-GEN WA playwright, The Duck House), Reg Cribb (playwright, The Return), Damon Lockwood (Literary Manager, Black Swan Theatre) and Tim Watts (playwright, Alvin Sputnik)) talking about some of the difficulties of giving their work a wider audience.

As you guys would know, it’s hard enough at the best of times to have your work programmed in Sydney, even if you’re based in Sydney to start with.

Think about the costs of touring an existing production across the country, and that’s a big undertaking, even for larger theatre companies.

The idea that “good work will get the showing it deserves” isn’t always true. Sometimes the good work needs to tour to New York or Edinburgh to get the exciting reviews that then alert Sydney and Melbourne to its awesomeness. Bummer.

But the good news? When you’re in a small theatrical community, you can make very strong connections with your peers. This is an industry like Cheers: where everybody knows your name.

And if you want to make brave and assured work, it helps to know your collaborators back to front.

BEING A WORKING PLAYWRIGHT

Day 2 means time for a new forum!

This was a great forum, because it dealt with my particular interest area, which is “how to maintain a career as a playwright while still being a human being and not some zombie word-crunching automaton?”
 It also had some cool industry advice and featured an excellent line-up of minds, who were: Van Badham (playwright + Associate Artist at Malthouse), Carson Kreitzer (U.S. playwright, Lasso of Truth), Lachlan Philpott (playwright, Silent Disco and M Rock) and Hellie Turner (playwright, The Paperbark Shoe).

Firstly, the life stuff!

Highlights included:

• If you live in a less expensive city in your country of choice, you can live in a nice house with a garden, and still spend most your time writing instead of working in non-writing bill-paying jobs!
• If you have a garden, you can also grow tomatoes, like Carson does.
• It’s good to have interests and hobbies separate to writing so you don’t lose your mind. For example: gardening. 
• You need a way to exist through the long periods where you’re not getting writing work; a period that Van calls “the gaps and silences”. This might be other paid work (teaching, etc) or other intellectual pursuits. 
• Lachlan explained that playwrights walk the tough gauntlet of being sensitive, open to the world, yet also tough and resilient at the same time. This is a hard thing to find a compromise on, so don’t beat yourself up about finding the balance a bit hard sometimes.

There was the sort of industry advice that gave me a few Oprah-esque “ah-ha” moments.

One interesting discussion was:

If you’re approaching a posh and impressive theatre company to work together, you need to know why you’re doing it. Is it because you’re drawn to the sort of work you’ve seen? Do you want to collaborate with one of their artists? Do you have the perfect story for the community they exist in?

These are all cool reasons to approach a company.

You know what’s not a cool reason to approach a company? Because they have money and prestige and you want those things.

We all want those things. It’s really about letting the work dictate where it should land, rather than a perceived trajectory of achievement meaning you deserve a look-in from a particular company.

Another good tip from Van was: “earn your cast”. You’re more likely to be staged, as an emerging writer, with a two-hander than an eleven-hander, simply because that’s how many actors are being paid.

It is a hard career to exist in. And the best way to keep getting work in this industry is, as Tim Roseman, Artistic Director of Playwriting Australia, puts it: “Be brilliant, but be lovely at being brilliant”. Companies and potential collaborators like to hear that you are a good addition to a rehearsal room, open to collaboration, respectful of other viewpoints and other perspectives, and not a slavering demonic beast when tech rehearsal runs later than you’d expect.

So that’s today’s advice: be nice!

WHAT ABOUT YOUNG AUDIENCES?

The theme of this year’s National Play Festival was writing for young audiences, and we saw some great examples of that in the works presented.

There was also a forum on the subject featuring Jane Bodie (playwright + Associate Artist at Griffin Theatre Company), Chis Kohn (director, previous AD of Arena Theatre Company), Casey Nicholls (playwright, Love Boy), and John Sheedy (Artistic Director, Barking Gecko Theatre Company).

I found this a really exciting forum, especially because I’m in the throes of writing two separate plays for young people at the moment for Canberra Youth Theatre and atyp.

Some fascinating areas of discussion included the following:

• Chris Kohn suggested that there is no static definition of a “well-made play” anymore. This changes, as we change our ways of receiving theatre. We can’t keep giving people the same material in a world where that kind of material isn’t shared the way it used to be! Rather than imposing a structure onto our work, we need to follow David Lynch’s advice – “the idea will tell you everything.”
• Jane Bodie told us that her favourite thing about theatre for young people is seeing a group of children dealing with weighty issues in a room full of other people, rather than alone in front of a screen. It reminds you that theatre is a communal act. 
• In terms of selling work to schools and parents? Kim Peter Novac piped up, “Art is art, and we can kid teachers that it is curriculum.”

It’s all just a careful dance, really. Which you all know. But it’s so good to hear people explain it to you better than you have thought about it in your head.

And that’s really the great benefit of a festival like this. Surrounded by like minds, by inspirations, and by robust conversations for four days, you end up forced into a position of self-evaluation and invigoration.

I left thinking about my own practice and ways to work harder, better, and more truthfully. Am I writing plays that only I could write? Are these plays that must be written right now?

On the final night in Perth I went to see Margaret Atwood, the amazing novelist, speak. She brought up an interesting point: she gave up becoming a professional scientist to be a novelist, but she still incorporates science into everything she writes.

What Plan B did you give up to be a playwright? Does this Plan B still excite you? Does it inform the way you see the world, the stories you choose to read, the ideas you want to write about?

If so, you need to grab that Plan B and cram it down the throat of your Plan A.

And now I’m off to write Chronicles of a Dog-Sitting Yeats Scholar. Hooroo.

Watch a an-indepth interview with playwright Lachlan Philpott, here.

Jessica talks about her short film BAT EYES, below. 

JESSICA BELLAMY Jessica Bellamy is a Sydney-based playwright. She holds a Graduate Diploma of Dramatic Art in Playwriting (NIDA) and Bachelor of Arts (Hons)(UNSW). In 2011-12 she was a Griffin Theatre Playwriting Australia Associate Playwright, working as a writer and member of the core artistic team creating Lovely Ugly (Griffin Theatre). She is the recipient of the 2013 atyp Foundation Commission, writing Compass, programmed in atyp’s 2013 season. She is under commission by Canberra Youth Theatre, writer for A View From Moving Windows (Riverside Theatre Parramatta) and Inside 130 Resident (Arena Theatre Company). Plays include Pigeon (Tamarama Rock Surfers, Bondi Feast Festival); Sprout (Old Fitzroy Theatre, winner of the Rodney Seaborn Playwrights Award 2011); A Fourth of Nature (ACT Department of Education’s School Spectacular, nominated for 2011 Canberra Area Theatre award); Celebrity Healing and Tokyo Tween Knife Brawl (You Are Here Festival, Griffringe); and short plays for NIDA Open Programme. She had a monologue included in atyp’s Tell It Like It Isn’t called Little Love, published by Currency Press, and adapted to a short film Bat Eyes (dir. Damien Power)(Top 10 finalist of YouTube Your Film competition, Venice Film Festival, Zebra Poetry Film Festival (Berlin), Tread Softly Festival (Sligo), Cockatoo Island Film Festival, Dungog Film Festival, Vimeo Staff Pick, Short of the Week). Jessica has tutored playwriting for ‘Workshops in the Arts for People with a Disability’ through Riverside Theatres, and for atyp.

THE SECOND ACT

Scene One.

Sydney. Summer. Pitt St mall, food court.

Bamboo pan-Asian flute music playing.

JESS and CHRIS sit, surrounded by hungry workers and the bright neon lights of Sumo Salad, Nandos, and HOKKA HOKKA NOODLE BAR.

Obama’s inauguration plays on a plasma somewhere affixed to the ceiling.

CHRIS sips thirstily from a bottle of juice.

CHRIS:    So what have you been doing lately? What’s a typical day in your life as a playwright, Jess?

JESS:    Well, Chris. It’s been a busy couple of weeks. I’ve been in and out of atyp holiday workshops to observe how 10-13 year olds behave in groups. This is great research for my play, Compass. I’m also in the drafting stage of a commission for Canberra Youth Theatre – finalising some character work and writing the first draft. What are you up to?

CHRIS:    Aside from drinking a ginger and carrot juice and bitching about housemate dramas with you – as I would any other day – I’ve been trying to redraft my new play, Sandstone, which was developed at STC last year through my JUMP Mentorship and have started work on my residency with Red Stitch Actors’ Theatre in Melbourne. I guess these are some of the projects that we’ll be talking about this year on The Second Act. What do you think of that title, by the way?

JESS:    I think that’s an amazing title, for the following reasons:

1) It’s very theatrical.

2) It brings up the fact that while we are still young writers, we’ve had a couple of years away from the Fresh Ink program and are entering a new, slightly different phase of our careers.

The second act for me suggests –

JESS hesitates, tries to think of something to add.

Fails.

JESS:    Do – you want to take over?

CHRIS:    I was thinking pretty much along the lines of what you said. But also, I kept thinking about plays I love where the second act is so different and surprising from the first – pretty much anything by Caryl Churchill. I think the period of our careers that we’re entering now is challenging in unexpected ways, and really, quite unpredictable. Even though we’ve both got things lined up for this next year, and we’ll be blogging about them, we also don’t know exactly where we’ll be at the end of it.

JESS:    You know what it makes me think of? Secondary school. You’re not a kid any more, and there’s consequences, like doing the HSC. You’re no longer flighty, cute, and immune to criticism. You’re starting to be seen as a real, full-grown playwright, which is extremely exciting but also quite terrifying.

CHRIS: Can’t fully-grown playwrights be cute?

JESS: Ask Lachlan Philpott.

CHRIS: He is like some kind of large, beautiful koala covered in tatts. But fully-grown playwrights aside, what are you most scared about this year?

JESS: I think, in the last few years, I’ve been fortunate to have great responses to my early work. But it feels a bit like second book syndrome. I really want my new work to get responses like the first ones did. But first of all, I have to write the new plays I’ve been commissioned for, and writing plays is hard work, it’s really… oh wow… look at those shorts, oh God, look at those shorts…

JESS points at girl’s hideous shorts as she orders a SUMO SALAD. CHRIS and JESS nod in agreement at shorts, repulsed .

Girl remains oblivious.

JESS:    What about you?

CHRIS:    I think I’m nervous about not having the safety of an institution for the first time in seven years of consecutive University study. I’m also a little apprehensive about heading overseas and going to the UK for three months – or more – where I’m planning on studying at the Royal Court Theatre, mainly because the UK theatre world is huge and so different to working as a young playwright in Australia.

JESS: It will be amazing, Chris.

CHRIS:    Have you tried British coffee?

CHRIS shudders.

JESS:    No, but I would like to add something to what I was saying – we feel we have so much we want to say and share with the world, but we have this fear that we will be unable to say it the way we want to, or that people won’t want to listen, or that a theatre won’t put it on.

CHRIS:    I think there’s two really interesting things in that, that we’ll be talking a lot about this year – firstly, the challenges that face ourselves as writers and our processes, the way in which we actually go about the day-to-day of writing. And then secondly, how we interact with companies and see our work developed, performed, criticised by many different people, who may or may not have a stake in our future as playwrights.

JESS:    The double-edged sword of theatre is the fact that it is such a collaborative form. Within that, you have to maintain your individuality.

CHRIS:    Stay true to yoself, gurl.

JESS:    Exactly, Taylor Swift. The big struggle is working out: what is different about you, and what makes you special in the ecology of theatre? I think that’s something we’ll be considering a lot this year.

CHRIS:    I think so too. And I’m excited, genuinely, about getting to chance to blog about this, and also reflect on it with you. We’ve really been doing this in our spare time anyway.

JESS:    Because we do fun things together! Like that time we rolled down the hill at 3am on the Bundanon Fresh Ink camp into a warren of wombats.CHRIS:    Oh, that wasn’t me. I had already passed out, remember?

JESS:    I do remember now.

CHRIS:    I think at about 2am I had an unhealthy obsession with your hair, though. I kept patting it –

JESS:    Yes. You kept touching my head. I hated it.

CHRIS: Well we are going to be thrown into close proximity again very soon, as we head off to the National Play Festival in Perth, next month.

JESS:    That will be a lot of fun – seeing play readings, hanging out with other artists, having some quality one on one time in our Swedish Hotel. That sounds like we’re going to have sex. That’s not what I meant.

CHRIS:    …

Tumbleweed.

CHRIS:    …but with full buffet breakfast included!

JESS:    We wouldn’t have it any other way. I’ll also be blogging from the script development of Compass, and we’ll both blog from the You Are Here (Centenary of Canberra) Festival in March, which we’re both performing at.
 
CHRIS:    I’ll also be taking the blogging global as I travel through the UK, and hopefully to theatre in Europe as well, in the second half of the year.

JESS: Wow. So, we’ve both got big, exciting plans for 2013, but what do you find most exciting about this stage of your career?

CHRIS: Hmm. I’m excited about the way I feel my writing has developed and the professionals I’m getting the opportunity to work with. I’m really looking forward to the mentorship and experience of others and their associated companies. What about you?

JESS: What I love about this stage of our careers is being able to walk into a foyer knowing that I have a lot of genuine social and artistic connections – these people are my colleagues, and I’m part of a community.

CHRIS: I remember not that long ago neither of us really felt like that, but now I think we both do.

JESS: I also like the sense of relief of knowing that I’m going to be in the industry for a long time. I don’t feel rushed into achieving things at a particular rate – I’ve got the rest of my life to do that now.

CHRIS: Zen. Loves it. So what else do you think The Second Act should be about? What kinds of things are you planning on blogging?

JESS: Lifestyle and Inner Health Tips for Emerging Playwrights.

CHRIS: That sounds terrible.

JESS: By Inner Health, I mean psychological and physical wellbeing.

CHRIS: I guess that’s… erm… useful…

CHRIS takes a large bite out of a slice of cheese pizza.

JESS: What else?

CHRIS: I think interviews, little snippets of thoughts or ideas that we are obsessing about, reflections on developments and rehearsal room processes, and maybe even stuff about how we’re building for 2014 and beyond

JESS: By the end of the year, those of you who follow The Second Act will know us so well, it’ll be like – we’re – long – married – spouses – of yours.

CHRIS: In some kind of polyamorous relationship.

JESS: So, see you next time, vast disembodied ocean of e-spouses!

CHRIS: Next, we’ll be checking in from the other side of the Nullabor – the great Western city of Perth. And if you’ve got any questions or ideas, feel free to comment us on the blog or send us an email.

JESS:    Yeah!

CHRIS:    And we’re out!

Neon lights strobe.

Bamboo pan-flutes morph into hardcore dubstep.

JESS and CHRIS lip sync to Taylor Swift’s ‘I Knew You Were Trouble’, then dance, poorly, up the escalator, into the natural light.

CHRIS SUMMERS Chris Summers graduated from NIDA in 2012 with a Grad Dip in Dramatic Arts (Playwriting), and is currently Affiliate Writer with Griffin Theatre Company and Writer in Residence at Red Stitch Actors’ Theatre. He has won the Sydney Theatre Company Young Playwrights Award, St Martins National Playwriting Award, the Union House Theatre Script Development Award, shortlisted for the R.E. Ross Trust Award and highly commended for the Max Afford Playwrights Award. Commissioned plays include No Place Like (Union House Theatre, 2011), Crossed (La Mama, 2011), which was also included in Playwriting Australia’s National Play Festival, and Burnt (atyp, 2011), a monologue published by Currency Press. Rat had a sell-out season at La Mama in March 2012 and his new play, Sandstone, developed through a JUMP Mentorship with Tom Holloway, had a workshop at the Sydney Theatre Company in December 2012. In 2013, Chris will be participating in Canberra’s You Are Here festival with a self-performed piece, Not About You, and Tamarama Rock Surfers’ Bondi Feast at the Bondi Pavilion, as well as travelling to the UK on an Australia Council ArtStart grant. Chris also holds a Bachelor of Creative Arts (Honours) / Bachelor of Laws from the University of Melbourne.

JESSICA BELLAMY Jessica Bellamy is a Sydney-based playwright. She holds a Graduate Diploma of Dramatic Art in Playwriting (NIDA) and Bachelor of Arts (Hons)(UNSW). In 2011-12 she was a Griffin Theatre Playwriting Australia Associate Playwright, working as a writer and member of the core artistic team creating Lovely Ugly (Griffin Theatre). She is the recipient of the 2013 atyp Foundation Commission, writing Compass, programmed in atyp’s 2013 season. She is under commission by Canberra Youth Theatre, writer for A View From Moving Windows (Riverside Theatre Parramatta) and Inside 130 Resident (Arena Theatre Company). Plays include Pigeon (Tamarama Rock Surfers, Bondi Feast Festival); Sprout (Old Fitzroy Theatre, winner of the Rodney Seaborn Playwrights Award 2011); A Fourth of Nature (ACT Department of Education’s School Spectacular, nominated for 2011 Canberra Area Theatre award); Celebrity Healing and Tokyo Tween Knife Brawl (You Are Here Festival, Griffringe); and short plays for NIDA Open Programme. She had a monologue included in atyp’s Tell It Like It Isn’t called Little Love, published by Currency Press, and adapted to a short film Bat Eyes (dir. Damien Power)(Top 10 finalist of YouTube Your Film competition, Venice Film Festival, Zebra Poetry Film Festival (Berlin), Tread Softly Festival (Sligo), Cockatoo Island Film Festival, Dungog Film Festival, Vimeo Staff Pick, Short of the Week). Jessica has tutored playwriting for ‘Workshops in the Arts for People with a Disability’ through Riverside Theatres, and for atyp.

“It’s a great privilege to be working with Tommy. You’d think that such an accomplished writer need not be so generous and lovely, but he is. I’m very, very excited to be developing a monologue with him! …Kim

“I am delighted to be Kim Ho’s writing mentor as he develops his short film. atyp is an inspiring company that engages young people in the performing arts in increasingly diverse and imaginative ways. It is exciting to be a part of that” Tommy Murphy

Yesterday was the screening of the Top 10 finalists of the YouTube Your Film Competition at the Venice Film Festival on Lido island. 

 It was a 2.30pm showing, where we got to tread the red carpet, get clapped at by some film obsessives camped out by the barricades, and then sit and watch all ten of the finalist films before the winner was announced.

It was fascinating to see what sort of stories are being told around the world. It was great to think about the things that all of humanity have in common, but also to see films very neatly contextualised within a culture I had never experienced before – like gang warfare in the streets of Brazil, or what happens inside a flight navigational tower. My favourites (after BAT EYES of course) were LA CULPA (Director: David Victori, Spain) and NORTH ATLANTIC (Director:  Bernardo Nascimento, Britain and Portugal) and I recommend checking them out on YouTube

After the screening, Michael Fassbender got up to announce the winner, who was the very talented David Victori, director of LA CULPA . While it was slightly sad not to win, the whole team felt that David’s film was utterly deserving of the grant.

And as much as there is the cliche of “it was an honour just to be nominated” – it really was a HUGE honour just to be included in this Top 10 of emerging storytellers.

So the mantle was lifted!

No more begging our loved ones to vote every day!

No more working out what the hell to wear on the red carpet!

NO MORE HIGH HEELS, EVER! 

And we went to the afterparty.

And Michael Fassbender led the team to the afterparty, and every teenager within 100km came running after him, actually abandoning bicycles in the middle of the road, screaming and guttural-heaving, to enter the party that we were about to go to.

We had a few photos with Michael, hung out and chatted to other filmmakers and watched the sunset flash and shine off the tiles on the Excelsior Hotel, and brave bikini babes swim in Lido beach.

And drank prosecco and ate hunks of cheese til they kicked us out. 

What an adventure it has been. 

Read more of Jessica’s travels in Verona and Dublin, here. 

Venice (Part 1)

I’ve been working out how to even start this travel blog for several days now, because how on earth do you describe Venice?

If you were to describe it to someone who’d never heard of it, would it even sound real? Would it sound possible? 
On the very long plane ride to Dubai, I was reading a book Fresh Ink Manager Dan Prichard gave me before I left, Italo Calvino’s Impossible Cities. In the book, explorer Marco Polo (after whom Venice’s airport is named!) sits and converses with Kublai Khan. Marco Polo has been given the task of exploring the Emperor’s huge empire, and reporting back on each of the nooks and crannies he is in charge of.

We hear about cities where the air citizens breathe is densely packed mud.

Where humans multiply, quickly and clone-like, until hundreds of bodies are crammed into each room of a house, standing on each others’ shoulders.

And a town that hangs upside down from one long string, challenging gravity, living on knifes’ edge at all times.

I won’t ruin the book by telling you how these are connected – but I will mention one last thing about it – are any of these concepts weirder, more exotic, or more fantastical than the Venice that truly exists?
Venice is a city of improbability and optimism. It is seriously a bunch of floating barges packed with palaces, spritz aperol, and artwork. Scaffolding work is carried out on every corner, all the time. It is a community of people who are aware of the expiry date of a city made on water, but who soldier on nonetheless to continue living here.

Because living here is awesome.

Venice is full of tourists, which is part of the fun of it. It really is like a weird Disneyland where everything exists to make you delighted. The first time it rained I was taken aback because I didn’t think it rained in paradise.

Also, everything just works here. A public transport system of ferries is bang on time, which amazes me when Sydney can’t even get buses to work.

Everything is so walkable, so close to everything else. I realised last night I could walk 10 minutes down one lane and be in St Marco Square, walk 10 minutes another way and be at Rialto, and then 10 minutes to check out Venice’s oldest theatre (where each patron’s bottom has its own air conditioning vent under the chair), and 10 minutes back to be at my front door.

Yes, you walk everywhere. And yes my feet are killing me.

Venice is exhausting, but the only way to survive this is to make sure your body is constantly fuelled. By which I mean: it’s time to go find that shop that made soft serve coffee ice-cream and eat 17 more of them.

But before I go: a little story about the first event for the Your Film Festival.

Last night was a ‘meet the press and sponsors’ event for the Your Film Festival, so the whole Bat Eyes team got frocked up to go and party. It was held at the stunning Excelsior Hotel in Lido, just 100 metres from the red carpet. 

Somewhere amongst chatting to important people, we heard loud, animalistic screams coming from the red carpet, because Zac Efron had arrived.

And there we were, networking like idiots when obviously we should have been all up in Efron’s grill like the High School Musical fans we all are. Right?
But it wasn’t all searing regret and heartbreak.

We got some great feedback from fellow filmmakers and sponsors about the film, and how they were touched by it, which was lovely.

I realised just how excitingly global this contest really was – and I can’t wait to see the top 10 films of this team of filmmakers on Sunday afternoon.

Until then, time to go get some coffee ice-cream and hook it right into my veins.

JESSICA BELLAMY Jessica Bellamy is a Sydney-based playwright. She holds a Graduate Diploma of Dramatic Art in Playwriting (NIDA). In 2011 she presented Celebrity Healing at Canberra’s You Are Here Festival and Griffin Theatre’s Griffringe, had an excerpt of Endless Light and Endless Sound shown at the National Play Festival, and wrote A Fourth of Nature, a play for 18 young performers, for the ACT Department of Education’s School Spectacular.  Jessica’s play Sprout won her the 2011 Rodney Seaborn Playwrights Award, while Little Love, her monologue for The Voices Project 2011: Tell It Like It Isn’t, was adapted by Jessica and director Damien Power for the film Bat Eyes as part of The Voices Project. Read an interview with Jessica about her work, here.