On the cancellation of the 2020 Rob Guest Endowment and the events that led to it;

No one likes getting criticised, especially when they are attempting to do good work.  I certainly don’t.  But if you are serious about wanting to grow, to live as full a life as you have the potential to, you need to listen to criticism – especially when  the exact same message is coming from a

Carrying a Torch for Ben

Torch the Place is a play that filled my mind for a couple of years. When I started at Melbourne Theatre Company as Associate Director in 2016, the company was just about to launch Next Stage, it’s most ambitious commissioning program for new plays. The artistic team lobbed in ideas for writers that were either

2017

2017 has been a massive year of change and growth. There were milestones, there were shows and then there were the few things I took on that changed who I was. I’m on a plane now – flying from Phoenix to Orlando for a working holiday (but much more holiday than work for once) –

Things I Did, Things I Saw

  Rehearsals started yesterday on the first 2016 show of the year – Little Shop of Horrors. Started with a meet and greet, and then a design meeting – which I found slightly hard to take seriously after satirising the process in my last show of 2015, Jerry’s Girls. Having talked about and stared at

Blondes Might Have More Fun, But Who Cares?

The process of creating a new show for a Festival can be a tricky one. Festivals tend to plan their brochures many months in advance, and if you’re making a world premiere the show you plan to do may not exist at all at the point you’re required to title, summarise and photograph it. Which

A Year In the Theatre

2014 was easily the biggest year in theatre I’ve had, the one I wish I could point out to my mid-20s self to say “yeah, keep going, it seems like it’s impossible now but one day you’ll put Todd McKenney in a clam dress to improvise oyster jokes”. Every one of the nine shows I

The Particular Pleasures of a One-Person Play

Having done a ton of highly populated and hugely technical musicals, the challenges of I’ll Eat You Last: A Chat with Sue Mengers weren’t necessarily apparent on a first read. In rehearsals I’m used to there never being enough time and having to push forward constantly to even be ready by tech (where the set,

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Korea?

Priscilla shouldn’t have worked in Seoul. When we auditioned we really struggled to find the sort of actors that we need to do this show – diverse, sexy and unique performers who aren’t afraid to be all things. We also figured out, during auditions, that Korea doesn’t really talk about homosexuality – they don’t judge

3 months, 3 shows, 3 cities

Someone says in Into The Woods “Opportunity is not a lengthy visitor” – I’m hazarding a guess with Jack’s mother.  That piece of Lapine wisdom has always stuck with me and led me to pretty much say yes to anything that looks exciting career-wise, in case it doesn’t pass me by again.  During the visit

2013 – The Firsts

Rather than give in to the delicious temptation of outlining everything fantastic that occurred this year, I thought I’d focus on the firsts. The first time you do anything is scary, for the obvious reason that you haven’t been down the path before and have no way of knowing if you’ll make it safely to