Possum Passes Through and Asylum comes and go

With more than 1500 patrons for our three performances of Possum Magic last week the staff thought they were in for a breather on Wednesday but it was not to be,

Possum Magic lived up to the expectations we have for Garry Ginvan's attractions and the kids and adults loved it.
we has just over 1200 school kids and their teachers in for the two performances.

It was interesting watching the gdistinct group dynamics between the two shows. In the morning session, everyone wasup on their feet to dance the Billabong Bounce with Hush and her friends. At the second session things were a little bit more subdued and only a few brave souls remained dancing. It seemed to be a matter that if everybody isn't getting up then I'm not getting up either.

But everybody loved the show. The evening show had quite good attendances with just on 250 people attending with a number of unaccompanied adults. It just goes to show how populat Mem fox's delightful work is. There are no double entrendre's or adult asides in this show. It is purely for the kids and it proved that simple concepts well constructed and presented can be winners.


As we waved good-bye to the Possum team every one of whom we have the greatest respect for, it was time to get ready for the weekend with Asylum at the Mechanics Institute, a chool assembly, a funeral for an Olympian and the opening ceremony of the Victorian Maori Festival.

This blog is about our performing arts festival but there are a couple of points about the weekend that have some interest.
The Olympic Flag and its uses.

On Friday the ceremony for the Olumpian was held with around 400 people attending. During the ceremony An Olympic Committee representation paid tribute to a much loved hurdler. The coffin in front of the stage was draped with the Olympic Flag. We were told that only recently had the decision been made to allow the flag to be used for this purpose. and this time was only the third time permisson had been granted in Victoria. That makes two out of three for the town hall. We are unsure if that is a good statistic or a bad statistic.
The Victorian Maori Festival and ways of Welcome

Straight after the Funeral ceremony and whilst half the team raised down to the Mechanics institute to open the doors for the Asylum Audience the rest of the team were busy turning the hall from a "Chapel" to a Marae for the Powhiri that evening.

Whilst around 400 people gathered outside to Welcome the King and his party with a traditional Smoking Ceremony inside another 300 people were preparing for the welcome inside. It was carried out with all due ceremony as the king entered the hall at the front of a huge procession. At the right time almost all the 300 voices begaun the familiar tones of the Haka. It was a moving moment witnessing the honour paid at that moment and to feel the hall was part of what was happening.

Meanwhile, at the Mechanics, the company were busy performing to just on 25 people. They worked hard and the final 20 minutes which we managed to catch helped reinforce the reasons we had chosen this play as part of the performihg arts season. It's just a pity we didn't get the audience the play deserved. Hopefully there was a better turn up at Warburton on Saturday.


Hobsons Voice

The next perormance in the itinerary is the Hobsons Voice choral festival in late July. The seven schools now involved have all been working double hard on the songs both from Kobya and from our own Doug Heywood.

We know we have set the Primary School Students and their Teachers a real Challenge this year witih a number of songs some in a different language. What happens at the end will be also challenging but for this show we don't ask for a highly polished performance, we just ask that the kids sing and enjoy the experience of being part of many voices. We are also planning a small dance party for them all at the end rather than as before finishing the concert and waving farewell at the door.

Doug Heywood has been out and about visiting the schools, listening and helping pull things together and Kobya has been busy with repertoire. Now that's an interesting thing about the changing nature of the web and google. Last year when we decided to embark on this exercise a google for Kobya revealed almost nothing about the man and his band. We managed to find a small reference to him on another venue's web site. Today a google of th name give you instant hits to his own site and a number of other links to him. That's a big change in anybody's reputation.

If you can't catch him at Hobsons Voice then try to catch one of his other concerts. You can also check him out at his MySpace page

Sue Ingleton

From the joys of youth to the Angst about Aging, we cant get much further away than Sue Ingleton and her pair of misfits Bill Rawlins and Edith Wise. Coming to one of our venues at the end of July the question on our lips is will we survey the walking frame from hell, probably not and we are sure Edith will let us know all about how tough things are. If Edith was a bikie, we'd be really scared.

Don't forget to get your tickets at hobsonsbaytickets.com or she will probably ring you and give you a good piece of what's left of her mind. Or worse still you might get a visit from Bill.

Shows and Fetes and Fairs and things

What a hectic couple of weeks it has been for the team.
We are in the middle of it now with the Way We Wear Fair happening at the Town Hall, Rod Quantock at the Mechanics Institute and the Altona City Theatre in full rehearsal mode with Cats.

CATS
If you go for nothing else for this show then please go to experience the stage floor. We were in there just after the painting was completed and before the set construction began. It is the most intricate piece that will divert the eye completely. The performers will have to really be at their absolute best to outshine the floor. And we are all sure they will be.

We are hearing great things about the way the performance is coming together down the road so cant wait to see it.
The Altona City Theatre site is at www.altonacitytheatre.com.au
production dates are from 4th July to 26th July.
The production team is:
Director Steven McTaggart; Musical Director Dan Heskett; Choreographer Steven McTaggart

Way Out West

In between coping with our normal roles and helping the organisers and stall holders set up for the Way We wear Fair we were dropping down to the Mechanics Institute to help Rod Quantock get set up for his Way Out West Show which opened last night. It runs for two more nights. Our tech loves working with Comedians/ Social Commentators like Rod. Sound check consists of walking on stage, asking if the microphone works and saying see you tonight.

We liked working with Rod as we caught up on some Old memories like trying to remember the line up of the Original Whittles and how many people were in love with Tammy Whittle and he helped us get the seats organised and the reserved signs sticking on the pre-sold seats.

Now how many other "artists" these days could you ask that of.

Possum Magic
Mem Foxes Possum Magic production arrives at the venue on Monday for its three Tuesday performances. Around 150 tickets have been sold for the evening performance. We set the performance time for6pm thinking it was early enough for a very young audience to get home for tea and bed. We have been told it's too late or too early. We know a few working parent will miss out and we know it still might be too late for some littlies but finding the right time is always a challenge. Hopefully those attending think the time isn't too wrong.




Asylum

Tickets are selling very slowly. How come you can get a VCE group to take the time to drive from Phillip Island to Williamstown yet you cant get a school 300 metres from the venue to organise a group. We have a lot of development work to do locally.

We know the show is a hard sell because it is just not one simple message and you don't sell shows by using the word confronting and challenging in your marketing material.

The issues may be heavy but the way Kit Lazaroo has handled and written it makes it understandable and entertaining without taking anything away from the importance of the underlying theme. Tickets are still available at Hobsons bay tickets so we would love to see a few more VCE students there on the night. Remember Friday 20th June at 8pm.


Coming event

Once we say goodbye to the Asylum team it will be a month before our next productions although work doesn't stop at any of the venues.

Next weekend there is a big Maori festival at the Williamstown Town Hall. The singing is always fantastic. the spirit of welcome is so strong that it's a meal in itself but fortunately it isn't so filling that there isn't room for a hangi. And there will be hangi, deep fried mussels and handcrafts aplenty in the carpark fair when there is a break in the music.

The production team meanwhile will be working on the Hobsons Voice choral festival and on Sue Ingleton's production of The First Step on the Tram is Hell. You can find Sue's mentor on youtube or at Kick the bucket.

Talk with you soon

Busy Month for shows

TICKETS
The new ticketing sytem is starting to find its uses around the municipality. It is really great to know that at last we can provide a better way for patrons to access our shows. One of the problems in the past has been the cost of getting events on sale with the arcane inside nd outside ticket price and issues over how much the promoter makes as compared with the ticketing agency.

We want to finda model that works for us and for our customers. after much number crunching and believe us it has taken a considerable amount of crunching we have settled on a chcost of producing a ticket. The cheapest way to buy a ticket will be online. which we believe is as it should be. after all you do all the work including printing off the ticket so why not gain the benefit. Our aim will be that the price advertised as the ticket price will bethe price you pay for an online transaction including all charges. f you want to make a phone booking or purchase over the counter ( if we had a counter ) then there will be a transaction fee.

Hopefully we have the figures right so that we can provide a product to you at a reasonable price. And as this great service relationship with Seat adviser grow and we start looking for possible retail outlets we can offer the outlets a fee that makes it worth their while offering the service. It would be great if we could have three of four outlets for retail transactions around the municipality. But that is all very much for the future. Small steps and better service fromour end comes first.

Possum Magic.

Word is getting around about our Family Show for Possum magic. So we are starting to sell a few tickets on line. We have set up a family ticket price which we think is a fair thing and there is considerable interest in that. We know a few working parent will probably miss the show but the idea has always beento get everyone on the road and home at a reasonable hour so 6pm seemed to be the best time for that. If it works then all to the good and we will be offering a family friendly time Ballet performance in August. We will be listening out for feedback andifthe time needs to be a little later then that's where we will head. We will also be putting people at tables for that performace so they can bring along a snack and a drink for during the show.

Asylum

As mentioned before we were very excited about having Kit Lazaroos' Asylum as part of the performance season and we are working on th eplans for both a 1pm and and 8pm performance on 20th June. Although the show is onthe VCE reading list, we aren't getting a lot of VCE interest. Talking with one of the local Drama teachers, I was told he was pushing the show at every opportunity. We have since found out that the actors want to do a post performance discussion so we will be flogging that around the schools in the next week in the hope of a better number of ticket sales. Reading this Age review should give you some idea of why we chose the play.


Last Year we presented Jackie French's Hitler's Daughter as our secondary school production. We did two performances and the show was great bur we struggled and worked the phones to attract a local school audience but for the same show we had a school traveling from Geelong with its entire year 10 class to experience the show. From conversations we have had in the past there is a bit of snobbery attached to this in that professional theatre is only presented in the Arts Precinct of Southbank. Oh how I dream of us finally reaching the level of theatre that exists in the where professional theatre is alive and living in the regions and shows start their development out of town and spiral in towards the "Big City " Theatres or they start in town and then do the big tour. Maybe we just need to double our population to hit the critical mass.


So why the busy month?

I blame Rod Quontock. We started out with a busy week, moving production from Possum Magic into Asylum and having to set up in two venues when we got a great three night booking from The worlds greatest living rubber chicken owner. Rod and Paddy Garrety are doing the publicity and a quick Google will give you plenty of links to information and to buy tickets you can visit Hobsons Bay Tickets.

I canstill remember my first encounter with Mr Quontock It was long long long ago in a building somewhere on the Melbourne University Campus. Many years before the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, there was this strange and glorious event called Humourversity. It was cheap, it was usually funny, you never knew what you were going to have thrown at you next , and often, neither did the comedians until it hit them. And Rod stands out as one of the truly memorable acts. I have no memory of any body else I saw that night.

Rod is coming Way Out West on 13th, 14th and 15th of June at the Mechanics Institute. So the box office, the tech crew and the front of house guys are all having to work a little harder - hold on, all of those people are us. At the same time the Way We Wear Fair is coming to Williamstown as is the Victorian Maori Festival. We can do it, we have no choice!

So we hope to see you at one of our shows. And I hope to hear from you here.

Possum Magic Family Show

Possum magic is part of an Australian Children's Literature triumphirate.
The Magic Pudding, Snugglepot and Cuddlepie and Possum Maic are all etched into our memories.

So when Contacted by Garry Ginivan productions about presenting a 25th Anniversary performance of this delightful show, how could we resist.
http://www.memfox.net/possum-magic.html

We sold out two school's shows within days of it being announced. Last Year with My Grandma lived in Gooligulch we had hoped to present a Family show but lacked the resources. With a great team behind us this year we are forging ahead and are even able to offer both a Family friendly time of a 6pm performance with a special family friendly price of four tickets for $60

Tickets for this event on 20th June are available at Hobsons Bay's ticket site

We love this show and we are sure the children who attend will find it as delightful. Our thoughts have been on Lamingtons, Pavlova and Vegemite Sandwiches for months now. If it's good enough for an invisible possum then it's good enough for us. And we can't get enough of those delicious Anzac biscuits.

We are waiting eagerly also to see soem of the colouring in from the kids from the schools who will be attending during the day. Getting a few dozen buses organised and getting several hundred excited kids seated in 15 minutes presents a great challenge but it is worth it when you stand in the audience and hear the sound of raw enthusiasm.

The quandary is what to present next year. We know it has to be something just as special.

Shows out west

So begins our conversation and discussion about performing arts around the Westerns side of Port Phillip Bay.

It is quite a busy time for us as we get serious with our 2008 Theatre Season and start working out what shows to bring to the west in 2009 and 2010.

Hopefully this will give us the chance to talk with you about what are good shows for this side of town and what our patrons might like to see.

The season so far
We started the year with a presentation of Mantalk at the Williamstown Mechanics Institute. The show was great but the audience was very disappointing. Part of this is due to the difficulty we had in getting the message out there and in the way we managed ticket sales. We had hoped to have our own online ticket service up and running before that show but it wasn't to be.

Still we did have an audience in the end and everybody who attended loved the scatological journey they were taken on by Neil Thomas and David Wells.

This is a constantly evolving show and if you do have the opportunity to catch it somewhere as it grows and tours please make the attempt.
Otherwise catch them on Youtube at www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcOxpps_3vA

Our ticketing service finally got online in Mid April just in time for Shirley Valentine with Glenda Linscott. Produced by Chrissy Harris's HIT productions, the show was a great success with an almost capacity house.

Online ticket sales accounted for almost a quarter of all sales which we all believe is pretty impressive.

The foyer hubbub at interval and after the show was fantastic and it was wonderful to hear the laughter in the auditorium from the foyer.

Our nest production is a more challenging work by Kit Lazaroo Asylum which came out of a sell-out season from La Mama. It is a challenging satire. When we select shows for the season we only get a 10 minute snap shot at a showcase, unless we are lucky enough to be able to attend a production. The selling point for us what that we wanted to know what happened next. We were so intrigued by the story that not knowing how it ended was almost criminal. We thought if we felt that way then our audience would too.

So we are looking forward to how you respond.

Into the Future

We have spent the past weekend at the showcase for next year's product. After a while all the shows start to blend in and it is difficult at the end of the two days to remember everything we have seen. That being said there have been some stand outs. Amongst the presentations that the team liked were Tasdance's new work. We haven't offered contemporary dance in the season before but Tasdance could break that drought.

The Grimstones from Asphyxia were riveting and we would love to present that to someof our school children. From the moment the set was placed on the stage we were won over. http://www.asphyxia.com.au/

We are also considering having Fiona Scott-Norman for a three day season.
The Needle and the Damage Done is a wonderfully dry piece that will have you looking at Vinyl 33s in a way you never thought possible.

In the days to come we will keep you posted on what else we have for 2008 and where else we want to take you in 2009.

in the meantime, visit http://www.hobsonsbaytickets.com.au/ and come to a show in the West. we would love to see you in Altona or Williamstown or Laverton.