10.07.25
Dear Grif-friends,
My title’s Julian Larnach, I’m the Literary Associate at Griffin and in simply over per week, after twelve and a half years on the firm I’m ending up.
My first expertise with Griffin was in 2012, the place as a postgraduate playwriting pupil I used to be invited to participate in a 24-hour playwriting problem as a part of the Festival of New Writing. It concerned sculling generic purple-coloured vitality drinks and taking energy naps within the workplace I now a few years later have a desk in and a few really questionable drafts of what would technically be referred to as “playwriting”. The subsequent morning, pupil administrators picked up these drafts and that evening I noticed my ten-minute riff on William Blake’s The Tyger carried out on the Griffin kite, I received an award offered by Artistic Director Sam Strong for ‘the best line clearly written at three A.M.’ (the road was “The windows are the windows to the house”) and I fell in love with this kooky little stage in an outdated stables.
In 2013, I used to be invited by newly minted Artistic Director Lee Lewis and Associate Artist Jane Bodie to return on as one in all two Affiliate Writers—this system was rapidly disassembled after we accomplished our tenure which implies it both went actually rather well or actually actually badly. It was additionally throughout this time I started my actual theatrical schooling within the type of working as a Front of House informal on the SBW Stables Theatre. Surrounded by a gun workforce of Bar Supervisors, Ticketing Managers and wonderful volunteers I poured wines, had limitless chats and realized a lesson from the late nice bar volunteer David Latham that I nonetheless maintain true to at the present time: “a show is only good if people are still talking about it by the time they reach the bottom of the Griffin stairs”. I’ve used this metric for each present I’ve seen at each theatre I’ve ever been to.
In 2020, when present Artistic Director Declan Greene took the reins of the corporate, I stepped out from behind the bar and have become a member of the Artistic workforce as Literary Associate. This has meant I’ve helped run our Creative Programs (the Griffin Award, Griffin Studio, Griffin Ambassadors, Griffin Lookout and the Suzie Miller Award), helped put collectively our seasons of labor annually, and browse performs. Lots and many performs. During this time, with a eager give attention to rising writers I’ve met with over 250 writers (I ought to have saved receipts for not less than a type of coffees I purchased) and browse over 1,200 performs. Two of these performs have been Michelle Lim Davidson’s Koreaboo and Iolanthe’s SISTREN.
I bear in mind Michelle got here in for her interview for the Griffin Studio program with binders of chilly arduous knowledge about how Korean exports act as mushy energy. When she entered this system, I used to be honoured to change into her mentor and because the play progressed to manufacturing, her Dramaturg. Witnessing Michelle utilise her experience to dive into her personal expertise to create a humorous and filigree fiction. Creating a piece that might bear witness to a private historical past in such acute element while talking to a wider political second with such grace, all whereas being effortlessly bi-lingual and together with eisteddfod dances—phwoar. An actual spotlight of my profession.
I bear in mind when SISTREN arrived in our inbox from Australian Plays Transform, it introduced a voice totally shaped and a mission able to be achieved. I bear in mind tearing by the pages excited to see what Isla and Violet did subsequent, stated subsequent, what construction they dismantled in articulate rage subsequent. In awe after studying by it in a single sitting, I learn Io’s author’s assertion describing a second the place her and her finest pal Janet scoured the library for “juicy scenes with a black girl and trans girl” and never succeeding. She was scripting this so the subsequent era of finest associates would have one thing to select up. Script—wow. Mission—double wow.
Both these reveals offered out their seasons this week and each these reveals reinforce for me a reasonably large concept. Theatre—like a bridge, a faculty, a hospital—is a public good. A theatre’s job is to bridge gaps for us, educate us and heal us. At the core of this most historic and civic enterprise are playwrights like Michelle and Iolanthe, and like our engineers, academics, medical doctors and nurses, we ask the world from them. We ship them away for years at a time on expeditions into their ideas and feelings, then request they push these fathoms onto a web page. After writing, rewriting, structuring and restructuring, increasing and distilling till they lastly share a blueprint with a workforce of artists who carry it to life. A prism in entrance of a prism in entrance of a prism—every refraction aligning to light up a reality that set the playwrights out on their journey to start with. Playwrights do that to thrill us, to make us chuckle, to scare us into motion. They do that as a result of if everybody did it, the world would grind to a halt. That’s why it’s so vital that there’s a theatre devoted to them as a result of they deserve it. But none of this might occur with out you, the viewers, and none of my time at Griffin would have been as wonderful, irritating, enlightening with out you. It’s been an honour to name this place “work” for the final twelve and half years and I’m excited for the subsequent twelve and half as a part of your ranks.
See you within the theatre,
Julian Larnach
Literary Associate (outgoing)
Griffin Theatre Audience Member (incoming)