fortyfivedownstairs.com

Herald Sun article by Sally Bennett
Sunday February 03, 2012

See the article in its original context here.

WHEN friends of Melbourne photographer Morganna Magee started having babies, it opened her eyes to parts of life she had previously not seen.

Not the anticipated world of feeding, nappies and sleep deprivation – the unexpected ways in which motherhood has become a “commercial entity”.

“Advertising really plays on being a mother now,” she said. “My friends were feeling a lot of pressure and guilt about whether they were doing the right things.”

So Magee decided to do something about it, picked up her camera and created an exhibition celebrating everyday mums doing a “pretty amazing job”.

Her third solo exhibition, Motherhood, opening at fortyfivedownstairs on Tuesday, aims to give mums back a little of their power.

Magee has beautifully captured women from a range of cultural and social backgrounds in different stages of motherhood.

Among them is a woman pregnant with her first child, a single mother of four girls, and an older woman with an adult son who has Down syndrome.

“Once you look at them and read about them, any pre-conceived notions and judgments fade away,” Magee said.
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MOTHERHOOD, fortyfivedownstairs, Flinders Lane, city, February 7-18.

The Age
Robin Usher
31/01/2012

The Age interviews Dan Giovannoni – see the article in its original context here.

PLAYWRIGHT Dan Giovannoni is suspicious of the tolerance afforded minorities in contemporary Australia, even though he is a member of generation Y that he acknowledges has little direct experience of prejudice.

”I could live my whole life quite happily in a lefty bubble having a great time with friends and family,” he says.

Giovannoni shared in last year’s fringe festival award for best emerging writer for the comedy Cut Snake and won the the Malcolm Robertson Prize for his new play, Two by Two, which is at fortyfivedownstairs next month.

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Twenty artists are in the running for prizes totaling more than $50,000 as part of the Victorian Government’s 2012 Victorian Indigenous Art Awards.

The awards, now in their seventh year, profile the diversity of Indigenous arts practice in Victoria and showcase the uniqueness of south-east Australian Aboriginal art.

Premier and Minister for the Arts Ted Baillieu said the Victorian Indigenous Art Awards played an important role in celebrating and promoting the work of the State’s Indigenous artists and our unique Koorie culture.

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Time Out Melbourne
25/01/2012

Time Out Melbourne interviews Zoey Dawson – see the article in its original context here.

Actor and director Zoey Dawson presents an all-female production of Romeo and Juliet at fortyfivedownstairs, sharing the space with an all male production of Henry IV.

How did you come to this play?
I’d never seen a production that was really concerned with Juliet herself. Romeo and Juliet usually come as a couple. I wanted to yank them apart and just look at what happens to her. The fact that she meets a boy at a party and four days later she kills herself. What is that?

This production emerged out of an honours year project, is that right?
That was in 2010. I’m calling it an extensive development period. Before then I wasn’t so keen on it, really. But after I was assigned to it at university, and read it through, I was like, shit, this is a 13-year-old girl, and yet it’s part of this great romantic mythology.

I thought, OK, so my cousin is 13, and she’s obsessed with Twilight. I look at her, and other 13-year-olds, and I think: she is a child. How did this romantic mythology build up around a child? That was where it started, when I realised Juliet was 13.

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MCV
Andrew Shaw
25/01/2012

MCV interviews Dan Giovannoni – see the article in its original context here.

Two by Two is a modern take on the classic bible tale Noah’s Ark but with a gay twist. Playwright Dan Giovannoni talks about the play’s plot, issues and themes.

Dan, what’s the story behind Two by Two?
It’s set in a futuristic Melbourne, during a great flood. An ark has been built and parts of the city are being evacuated. Carl and Jack don’t qualify for passage on the boat because they don’t meet the requirements of a ‘family’ – they’re gay, they have no kids, and they can’t procreate with each other. The play follows them in their struggle to find a way to get on board. Their home is gatecrashed by Duckie, who for her own reasons is also looking for a way to get on the boat, but has something they all want and need – a ticket, which comes in the form of a baby.

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Aleksia Barron reviews In Vogue: Songs By Madonna for ArtsHub. See the review in its original context here.

The subterranean haven of fortyfivedownstairs is the perfect place to settle down with a champagne and suspend one’s disbelief at a man, sans costume and makeup, announcing that he is, in fact, Madonna. So does Michael Griffiths, who doesn’t bat an eyelid when declaring that he is, in fact, Madge herself, before merrily launching into a night of musical and comedic repartee.

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Cameron Woodhead reviews In Vogue: Songs By Madonna for the Age. See the review in its original context here.

Dean Bryant’s pop-inspired cabaret continues to delight audiences: Christie Whelan returns in Britney over at Chapel off Chapel, and at fortyfivedownstairs, Michael Griffiths is camping out as Madonna.

In Vogue doesn’t reach for humane impersonation in the way the Britney show does, but it shares one quality that makes it unusually engaging as entertainment. By salvaging Madonna’s tunes from the tinny iterations of 80s pop, and twisting them into intricate arrangements for the baby grand, the show gives a lively sense of how good the songs really are.

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Kate Herbert reviews In Vogue: Songs By Madonna for the Herald Sun.  See the review in its original context here.

Stars:****

WHO CAN EXPLAIN why pop divas such as Madonna, Bette Midler and Kylie are gay icons – they just are.

Singer-pianist, Michael Griffiths, directed by Dean Bryant, performs Madonna’s hit songs, speaking in first person as Madonna but without any drag-queen costuming, accent or attempted impersonation of that feisty, Italo-American pop idol.

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Vito Matarelli reviews In Vogue: Songs By Madonna for Australian Stage.  See the review in its original context here.

With Melbourne’s Midsumma now in full swing and pop royalty spreading their cabaret wings (Britney is currently performing south of the Yarra), it seems quite natural that the Queen of Pop should seek to re-invent herself yet again. The Queen of them all – Madonna!
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Australian Stage
by Paul Andrew
20/01/12

Paul Andrews interviews Dean Bryant – see the article in its original context here.

Prolific writer/director and musical theatre prodigy, Dean Bryant, returns to the 2012 Midsumma festival with a new work celebrating the life and art of a pop culture icon – In Vogue: Songs By Madonna. He speaks to Australian Stage’s Paul Andrew.

It seems you have been rather busy Dean?
The last twelve months have been crazy, actually, and the busiest of my life – and it’s not letting up any time soon – the year started with a revival of Prodigal, the first musical I wrote – with Britney MD Matty Frank) and Liza (on an E) – both of which were huge hits for Midsumma Festival. I went to NYC to put up the Broadway premiere of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert – which is still pulling in crowds and is a popular hit. Then my directing debut at Melbourne Theatre Company with Next to Normal, my opera directing debut with Hansel and Gretel for OzOpera and my Production Company directing debut with Anything Goes, co-directed with Andy Hallsworth.

I wrote two new shows for the Adelaide Cabaret Festival – Josie in the Bathhouse – which is playing the Spiegeltent at the Arts Centre in March and In Vogue: Songs by Madonna. Then I flew round the world casting Priscilla in Brazil, Milan and recasting NYC and finally moved to Milan for two months to direct the production in Italian – quite the experience, brilliant cast, very rocky tech period, but another big success. Now, it’s quite a relief to be staging two single actor shows for Midsumma.
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Check out this interview with the team behind the upcoming Leggings Are Not Pants – a great look behind the scenes of what promises to be a captivating circus-theatre show.

a premier event of the 2012 Midsumma Festival.

Cabaret Confessional
by Lena Nobuhara
7/01/2012

Interview: Michael Griffiths salutes Madonna – see the article in its original context here.

Adelaide born, WAAPA trained, Sydney based performer Michael Griffiths made a sensational cabaret debut at the 2011 Adelaide Cabaret Festival with In Vogue: Songs by Madonna. He premiered the show to sold-out crowds and pulled off a compelling performance as the pop diva – without wigs, costumes or an accent. The show was such a success that he is about to take it to Melbourne, New York and Sydney. As Michael gets ready for the tour, he chats to Cabaret Confessional about his hit show he calls “Madge Unplugged”, his collaboration with a cabaret wunderkind Dean Bryant and his thoughts on cabaret.

Michael will be starting a tour diary just before he kicks off the 2012 Midsumma Festival season in Melbourne. Watch this space and follow his adventures as he gives us an insider look at the In Vogue: Songs by Madonna Tour!

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Time Out
By Andrew Fuhrmann
10/12/2011

Mary Lou Jelbart on 10 Years Downstairs – see the article in its original context here.

Former ABC arts reporter and current fortyfivedownstairs artistic director Mary Lou Jelbart is overseeing the tenth birthday celebrations of the creative hub in February 2012.

“The original impetus was more toward chamber music and exhibitions,” says Mary Lou Jelbart, who together with Julian Burnside, famous collector of dictionaries, founded the venue in 2002. “But it quickly changed.”

After hosting a series of critically applauded works by Ariette Taylor and Daniel Keene, Jelbart saw the light. “I suddenly recognised how important it was to have a theatre for new work.”

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Samuel Condon – Dream City

Angela Grant with Officer Primary School – Images of Home

Exhibitions run until Sunday 18 December.

The Age
Written by Michael Dwyer
December 5, 2011

Collision course to creativity – see the original article here.

Taking an individual approach while participating on a team effort works well for Collider, writes Michael Dwyer.

MUSIC is a lot like life. You can talk about it until you’re as old as Socrates, insist on structure and meaning and higher purpose, or you can just plug in and wing it until it feels good.

Classical tends towards the former, rock the latter. Jazz lays a heavy bet each way.

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Mike Hewson UNDER STANDING LOSS

Dayne Trower SLOW DECLINE

Exhibitions run until Saturday 10 December.

The Press
Written by Keith Lynch
November 25, 2011

Cathedral’s collapse immortalised – see the original article here.

A Christchurch man caught the moment when the Christ Church Cathedral crumbled on February 22.

Andrew Hewson, 24, was in an art studio he shared with his brother, Michael, and other artists on the sixth floor of the Tower Building in Cathedral Square when the earthquake struck.

He grabbed his camera and took pictures of dust clouds engulfing the Square and police kiosk.

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There is a week to  go until the deadline for entries in the Victorian Indigenous Art Awards 2012 – 5pm, 28 October.

Now is the time to start your application, find more information on the blog, indigenousartawards.com.au, or go directly to the entry form at www.arts.vic.gov.au/viaaentry

The countdown is on!

Review by Alison Croggon for Theatre Notes on 14 October. See here in it’s full context.

La beauté, “Beauty is difficult, Yeats” said Aubrey Beardsley
when Yeats asked why he drew horrors
or at least not Burne-Jones
and Beardsley knew he was dying and had to
make his hit quickly

Hence no more B-J in his product.

So very difficult, Yeats, beauty so difficult.

- Ezra Pound, Cantos

I left Whiteley’s Incredible Blue last night with Pound’s verse circling around my head. Barry Dickins’s new play, subtitled “an hallucination”, is almost an essay on the proposition of the difficulty and necessity of beauty, through the medium of the enfant terrible of Australian art, Brett Whiteley.
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