05.04.23
Dear Grif-friend,
I’m typing to you with an uncommon quantity of spring in my fingers, having simply returned from three weeks of vacation (my first time taking depart since I began at Griffin… it’s simpler to do when there’s much less of a worldwide pandemic to fret about.) And really, this little break couldn’t have come at a greater time after the wild experience that was helming Nicholas Brown’s Sex Magick as co-director. This present was one of many largest Griffin has ever tried, wrangling Indian classical dance, video projection, and two-and-a-half hours of a daring, chaotic, fast-moving globe-trotting play—and it requested a lot of its extraordinary forged to drag it off each night time. I’m very grateful for all their laborious work. I’m grateful to the audiences who turned out in droves and delivered us a sell-out season as a part of Sydney WorldPride. And I’m very, very grateful to the waiters who shovelled cocktails into my face subsequent to a pool for 3 weeks as a part of my… umm… ‘recovery’?
If you noticed Sex Magick you’d have marvelled on the video design of Solomon Thomas, who one way or the other found out a option to venture video onto smoke with little greater than PVC pipe, a fog machine, and the 2 projectors which might be the whole of Griffin’s AV division. Solomon’s ingenuity rolls into our subsequent present—UFO—which he and Kirby Medway have co-created with re:group efficiency collective as the primary providing of Griffin Lookout in 2023. Griffin Lookout is our platform for Sydney’s most distinctive impartial theatre artists to take free rein of the SBW Stables Theatre and create a brand new work with assist from the crew right here at Griffin. For my cash, Solomon and re:group are making a number of the most imaginative, stunning theatre in Australia proper now. If you’ll be able to think about a chunk of theatre with the extent of technical complexity of Sydney Theatre Company’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, however with a microscopic funds—that’s what re:group pull off with each present. They hack collectively video cameras, Nintendo Wii remotes and PCs to create complicated, heartfelt, comedic and endlessly playful work. Check out this video to see Solomon and his ensemble creating this beautiful 1:8 miniature world to venture onto the SBW Stables stage, and get your tickets stat.
But, naturally, that’s not all that’s taking place right here at Griffin. Next week is the kick-off of rehearsals for Eloise Snape’s Pony, which arrives on the SBW Stables stage in simply 5 weeks time… And on the again of a triumphant, sold-out season at Melbourne Theatre Company, our manufacturing of Suzie Miller’s Prima Facie takes the magnificent Sheridan Harbridge on the primary leg of a whirlwind tour throughout the east coast of Australia. This week the residents of Tasmania might be feeling further particular, with Suzie’s play having simply taken out one of many world’s most prestigious prizes for theatre—the Olivier Award. The workforce at Griffin couldn’t be extra ecstatic for this world recognition of one thing we in Australia already knew… That Suzie is, really, one of the vital ferociously gifted, fearless and curious writers practising on the earth right now, and we’re pinching ourselves that now we have the privilege of presenting Jailbaby (Suzie’s fourth premiere with Griffin!) later this yr.
Much love and see you within the theatre quickly,
Declan x
Declan Greene
Artistic Director