MERRIGONGX 2024 Brochure

MERRIGONGX is our annual artists’ program. It focuses on supporting artists to take creative risks.

MERRIGONGX places artists and their practice at the centre of our community. From in-house creative developments to full-blown public presentations of new work, and everything in between, MERRIGONGX provides independent artists with financial, technical, marketing and artistic resources.

CONTENTS

MERRIGONGX PRODUCTIONS 2 - 7

• A Place in the Sultan's Kitchen or How to Make the Perfect One-Pot Chicken Curry

• Birdsong of Tomorrow

• The Cardinal Rules

OTHER SUPPORTED ARTISTS .......................... 8 - 12

• Bobby Aazami

• Alana Valentine

• Catherine McKinnon and Aunty Barbara Nicholson

• Tegan Ware

• Lucy Heffer nan

RESERVE YOUR SPOT FOR FREE

We want to make it easier to experience new works, so for events and showings in this brochure, there is no set ticket price. Instead, you simply reserve a spot, show up, then Pay What You Feel the performance is worth afterwards. Find out more on page 16.

• Leah Herbert

• Karen Cummings, Linda Luke and Benjamin Cauduro

• The Corinthian Food Store

• Lachlan Grogan

• Vaguely Adjacent

• Siobhán Doran-Chaston

................

Cover illustration: Karla Hayes

ABOUT Joshua Hinton

Joshua Hinton is an aspiring Wollongong-based actor, singer-songwriter and theatre-maker. For Merrigong Theatre Company he is the coordinator and head tutor of Merrigong’s Creativity Camp, their regular holiday program. In 2021, he received Wollongong City Council funding to record several of his original songs with his duo, Dom and Josh, for the Jam ‘n Bread NewGen Global Project. As a student, Josh was involved in numerous productions at Wollongong High School of the Performing Arts and the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA), as well as a role as Assistant Director of Blood Bothers at Townshend International School in the Czech Republic.

“I've always been a bit confused about my cultural identity. I am an Iranian/Sri Lankan/ English/Jewish boy who grew up in a very white town (Wollongong), surrounded by white friends. Growing up, I never felt particularly rooted in any of my different cultural backgrounds, in fact most of the time I would completely forget about them. Not until my adult years did I really understand that this confusion wasn't something normal.

As I tell the story of two of my grandparents’ formative experiences... this work explores how these experiences shaped my grandparents, and in turn made me who I am, charting a journey of discovery which is both uniquely personal, but universal too.”

A Place in the Sultan’s Kitchen

or How to Make the Perfect One-Pot Chicken Curry

By Joshua Hinton

Theatre-maker and singer-songwriter, Josh Hinton, weaves together childhood memories and family folklore passed down the generations, exploring how they’ve shaped his adult view of himself, and how we are all made of memories and stories.

A Place in the Sultan’s Kitchen fills the theatre with exotic smells as Josh attempts to make his grandmother’s chicken curry live on stage, while telling stories of his grandparents’ formative experiences, transporting the audience from the backstreets of Sri Lanka to a bustling city in India, from a schoolyard in Iran to a South African farm, and finally to Wollongong.

8 – 10 Aug 7.30pm

Bruce Gordon Theatre

Approx. 1 hr (no interval)

Recommended for ages 12+

Reserve your spot at merrigong.com.au/merrigongx

Photo by Children of the Revolution

ABOUT Nathan Harrison, Emma McManus, Tom Hogan and Solomon Thomas

Nathan Harrison (Writer/Performer) is a performer, writer and game-maker. A part of collectives Applespiel and Boho Interactive, Nathan makes theatre and games that explore complex ideas in playful, personal contexts. Nathan creates work about systems science, ecology and popular culture.

Emma McManus (Director) is an interdisciplinary artist and producer. A founding member of performance collective Applespiel and Too Rude (with Maria White), Emma makes works that are experimental and collaborative. Recent work examines urban adaptation, gentrification, the brush turkey, gravitational waves science and unearthing invisible queer histories.

Tom Hogan (Composer/Sound Designer) is a performer, composer and theatre-maker, writing songs and shows obsessed with myth, and authenticity. He has composed and designed over 100 productions and installations nationally.

Solomon Thomas (Video Designer) is a theatre-maker and performer currently situated in Sydney. He explores the intersection between the physical and digital in theatre, experimenting with how theatre and film can co-exist in a live context. He works as a performer, puppeteer, theatre-maker and video designer and is driven by how these practices meet formally.

“The starting point for Birdsong of Tomorrow was a morning sometime in 2020, watching a magpie sit on a fence and sing. I was entranced by his warbling, and then overwhelmed by this enormous sense of time. Birds have been around for so long, and witnessed so much change in the world, and it’s all in song. This sound I hear every day suddenly felt strange. It felt like a way to zoom out and see myself in something much bigger.

I wanted to make a space that captured that feeling - where something as familiar as a bird could feel unfamiliar, where you could get lost and find a new way to think about the world around us. Somewhere we could recognise birds as creatures with culture and memory, see the way they have adapted to the modern world, and use that to challenge ideas of human exceptionalism.

Since starting to work on this show my life has changed a lot, and this project has changed with it. But birds have provided a frame for thinking about change, along with community, memory and grief. I’m lucky to have surrounded myself with some of my favourite people, creating a personal and playful space filled with hand-manipulated projection and live sound."

Nathan Harrison

Birdsong of Tomorrow

By Nathan Harrison

Every day in our gardens and streets, birds sing. They sing songs, passed down through generations, of a world that’s changing. Birds fill the planet with melody and colour... and a lot of them are chickens.

Birdsong of Tomorrow is a playful and heartfelt look at the birds around us, and what they might sing when we’re gone. A nature documentary for the end of the world, this blend of science, storytelling, music and projection is from a MERRIGONGX all-star team of Nathan Harrison and Emma McManus (Sorry Sorry Sorry), Tom Hogan (Mount Hopeless) and Solomon Thomas (UFO, COIL).

22 – 24 Aug

7.30pm

Bruce Gordon Theatre

Approx. 1 hr (no interval)

Recommended for ages 14+

Reserve your spot at merrigong.com.au/merrigongx

Photo by Children of the Revolution

ABOUT

Rose Maher and Hurrah Hurrah

Rose Maher (she/her) is an actor, clown, theatre-maker and puppeteer. In 2023, Rose joined Hurrah Hurrah as Associate Artist. Rose’s other professional credits include A Midsummer Nights Dream (2023), Coil (national tour 2023), Arc (2022), Erth’s Prehistoric Picnic (2021), Let Me Know When You Get Home (2021), Quiet Faith (national tour 2018), Grace Under Pressure (2017). Rose grew up in Ngunnawal (Canberra) and graduated with honours in Creative Arts from the University of Wollongong, Dharawal. She continued her training with Shakespeare & Company (Massachusetts) and at École Philipe Gaulier (France). Rose works as a therapeutic clown with The Humour Foundation and is a proud member of the MEAA. Hurrah Hurrah creates works exploring contradictory wonders in the world that exist in unexpected places. Founded by Alison Bennett in 2013, Hurrah Hurrah has created the new works TRADE, Roomba Nation and Introducing Aunty Jude as well as the text-based works Frenzy for Two by Eugene Ionesco and The Seagull by Anton Chekhov. Having welcomed Rose and General Manager, Alex Travers in 2023, The Cardinal Rules is the first show for the newly configured company. It marks the start of a fresh and exciting era for Hurrah Hurrah.

“The Cardinal Rules is an ambitious innovation of theatrical form and content. It tackles the corrupt culture of the Catholic Church and the long tentacles of this formidable institution. It explores the destructive value system which has infiltrated our personal and political lives for millennia. The Cardinal Rules is a genre-bending new work, suspended between deeply personal storytelling and a (frankly ridiculous) grotesque political romp.”

The Cardinal Rules

By Rose Maher, with Hurrah Hurrah

A eulogy to the parochial parishioner; a nostalgic work of storytelling and a reckoning with an upbringing in the Australian Catholic Church circa 1990. Be transported into a suburban Canberra parish through the eyes of our dedicated eleven-year-old parishioner. She questions, queries, and quite innocently mocks the church’s theatrical rituals with her child’s play. Rose Maher leads an ambitious team, interrogating the broader question of the individual’s complicity in the proliferation of the power structures that dominate our lives.

31 Oct – 2 Nov 7.30pm

Bruce Gordon Theatre

Illawarra Performing Arts Centre

Approx. 1 hr (no interval)

Recommended for ages 16+

Contains strong language and adult themes

Reserve your spot at merrigong.com.au/merrigongx

Photo by Clare Hawley

Other Supported Artists

A range of artists will be working in our venues throughout 2024. Here's a sample of the projects they are working on from a variety of arts disciplines.

Bobby Aazami

Bobby Aazami is an Iranian-American photographer, advocate, writer, and storyteller. He is the founder of Will Not Rest, which has the aim of raising awareness towards child sexual abuse prevention and empowering survivors. The Six Million Dollar Kid is an autobiographical traumedy that depicts one man’s 30-year attempt to find the superhero inside.

Alana Valentine

Alana Valentine is a librettist, playwright and director with a solid track record for making works about tragic public events in an evocative, dignified and deeply moving way. Her previously commissioned works for Merrigong were Dead Man Brake (2013) and Letters to Lindy (2016), which won the Drover Award for best touring production. WATERSHED: The Death of Dr Duncan (co-written with Christos Tsiolkas) is nominated for a 2024 AWGIE award and will play the Sydney Opera House in June 2024. Her 2023 stage play Wayside Bride is also AWGIE nominated and in June Pantera Press will publish Wed By the Wayside, a memoir and non-fiction book about couples married at the Wayside Chapel. Her current work in development with MERRIGONGX, My Beautiful Man is a tender, moving play with songs based on the 2014 Lindt Café siege and the lives impacted by the tragic loss of café manager, Tori Johnson.

Catherine McKinnon and Aunty Barbara Nicholson

Catherine McKinnon is an award-winning writer of novels and plays. Her novel Storyland was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award. She teaches creative writing at the University of Wollongong. Storyland: the play, (co-written with Aunty Barbara Nicholson) explores the deep and abiding need humans have to find connection with each other and the land we live on. Barbara Nicholson is a senior Wadi Wadi woman from the Illawarra. She is a poet and a published academic. Barbara is active across the spectrum of Aboriginal disadvantage: education, criminal justice, land rights and the Stolen Generation. She was awarded the Doctor of Laws (Honoris Causa) from UOW in 2014. Recently Barbara has won the First Nations Australia Writers’ Network Lifetime Achievement Award, South Coast Writers’ Centre Life Member Award, and Wollongong City Citizen of the Year Award.

Tegan Ware

Tegan Ware is an aspiring filmmaker, theatre director and writer based in the Illawarra and Sydney regions of Australia. The stories that she captures are inspired by the heart and soul of people; their struggles and triumphs in life. Her work Cicada is a gothic, non-linear theatrical piece that chronicles the rise and fall of a young artist.

Lucy Heffernan

Lucy is an award-winning actor, singer-songwriter and theatre-maker. All her theatrical works incorporate original music including Tender (Shopfront Arts Co-Op) and Party Girl (winner of the Weekly Award for Best Theatre/Physical Theatre at the 2023 Adelaide Fringe, first developed at MERRIGONGX.) Her acting credits include Luna Gale (Ensemble Theatre), Lost Boys (Merrigong Theatre Company), Single Asian Female (Belvoir St/La Boite) and many more. Her latest play with music, Dog People, explores the nature of love, death and dogs, and promises to be a moving musical for every dog person.

Leah Herbert Leah is a recent graduate of University of Wollongong and is a core member of the mixed-media ensemble Crush Collective. Leah's experiences in these works has allowed her to remain continuously engaged in new works of experimental theatre and feel ready to make her first solo work. Fat Girl is a transformative one-woman show that uses personal storytelling, humour, and social commentary to address the challenges and triumphs of living in a larger body. Fat Girl is ultimately a celebration of fat, queer, joy and all the trials that come along with that.

The Corinthian Food Store

Karen Cummings, Linda Luke and Benjamin Cauduro

Karen Cummings is a singer and composer who has performed, broadcast and recorded new music. Linda Luke is a performer, choreographer and director who has produced numerous works for the stage. Ben Cauduro (Benjamino) is a multi-instrumentalist, producer and performer.

OUR HEARTS BEAT

From the dark a community is birthed A poetic performance paying homage to coal mining communities in the Illawarra.

OUR HEARTS BEAT is a collaboration with a group of talented emerging and professional artists based in the Illawarra.

Formed in 2012, The Corinthian Food Store is a collective dedicated to creating new work about the experience of living in Australia today. The team includes writers Amy Fairall and Desmond Edwards, director Duncan Ragg and actor Anna Phillips. Written to be performed in libraries across Australia, Public Access is a play about the role of public spaces in our ever-privatised society. It looks at our shifting harbours of knowledge and power, and the places we go to be seen and heard.

Lachlan Grogan

Lachlan is a Wollongong based actor and dancer. Recent credits include ensemble in Romeo and Juliet (The Australian Ballet), dancing on The Masked Singer (2021), and extra work in Heart Break High and Pieces of Her (Netflix). His work, Service, is born from years of experience in the hospitality industry. Every night in restaurants around the Illawarra, milestones, birthday parties, first dates (and breakups) all happen. The aim is to create a bold and experimental piece of movement/mime/dance theatre that captures the essence of these moments in the full gamut of their joy, humour, grief, and community.

Vaguely Adjacent

Vaguely Adjacent is a new performance-based collective led by Nick Vagne, Frank Dwyer, Sophie Florence Ward, Luke Standish, Lana Filies, Maddison Chippendale and Ali Gordon. Squatch Watch: LIVE is a comedy inviting the audience into the world of podcasters united by their obsessive fascination of sasquatch legends. The show pierces through the tongue-incheek, dubiously authentic world of the podcasters with a sincere excitement for the fantastical, the unknown, the niche and the weird.

The Strangeways Ensemble is Merrigong’s permanent company of professional actors who are perceived to have intellectual disabilities and Wollongong’s only professional theatre ensemble.

“We explore universal themes from our unique perspectives and aim to find the fantastical in the mundane. We make work which is evocative and challenging, but also poetic and funny. We like to make people think and laugh.”

Siobhán Doran-Chaston

A former journalist for the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Sunday Life and the Sunday Telegraph – and scholarship recipient at the Academy Drama School in London – Siobhán Doran-Chaston appeared on Ben Elton's BBC sitcom Blessed, and in numerous UK productions. Since moving to Thirroul, Siobhán has focused her efforts on raising her family, running her copywriting business Thread Publishing, coaching children and young adults for drama auditions, and editing a monthly digital magazine in the allied health sector. Most recently, Siobhán has been working on her play Two Weeks - as a participant of the 2023 SCWC and Merrigong Theatre Playwrights Program. Two Weeks is an experimental play about the final two weeks in anyone's life, when (chances are) we don't realise the biggest countdown of our lives is furiously ticking away. Within this uncomfortable grey area lies the staggering truth, beauty, humour and irrelevance of all our lives.

The Ensemble’s last shows have been Something That Happened Cabaret... they’re currently working on their new show and sharing their skills through workshops.

SCWC / MERRIGONG PLAYWRIGHTS PROGRAM

Merrigong Theatre Company has a long history of developing and producing new work by Australian playwrights. Merrigong Theatre Company and the South Coast Writers Centre (SCWC) are both dedicated to leading from the regions and nurturing the next generation of creative writers and artists. For this reason, Merrigong and the SCWC have formed a partnership to invest in the next generation of theatre storytellers via a long-term development program for those with an interest in writing for the stage.

The 2024 SCWC / Merrigong Playwrights Program aims to create a space where writers are encouraged to develop their writing projects among a safe and supportive group of peers. Capped at 10 participants, this is a 10-month program that will run from February - November 2024. The group will meet monthly on Saturdays at Coledale Community Hall or one of Merrigong’s venues to workshop the participants’ plays in development. Over the course of the

program, participants will also see and discuss five Merrigong shows and will learn from guest industry teachers. The program will conclude with an evening of readings from the works in development.

The group will be convened by Tom Peach, the ex-president of Stanwell Park Arts Theatre and an alumni of the Merrigong Playwrights Program. This program is open to anyone aged 18 and above. We encourage applications from Indigenous Australians, people with disability, people from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds, mature age workers and LGBQTI people. Participants will need to be members of the SCWC. We are committed to providing an inclusive culture and program where all our artists are valued and recognised for their unique qualities, ideas and perspectives.

For more information, visit southcoastwriters.org/playwrights-program

HOW TO ENGAGE MERRIGONGX

Merrigong is committed to supporting the development and presentation of the work of independent artists through new and established performance platforms and development opportunities.

Opportunities for independent artists/groups include:

• Presentation: funded and in-kind support for the production of new works with a presentation season.

• Creative Development: funded and/or in-kind support for the development of new works with no immediate public outcome.

• Development Showings: funded and in-kind support for the development of new works with a ‘work-in-progress’ public outcome.

• Made From Scratch:

our experimental scratch night of new work and new artists. A callout for interested artists for our 2024 Made from Scratch series will be made throughout the year.

Artists and Companies with a connection to the Illawarra are encouraged to make an Expression of Interest through the MERRIGONGX application process. After consultation with the artists/groups, works are selected and curated by Merrigong’s artistic team, with the assistance of an external industry professional. Applications take place on an annual basis from August of the previous year, with successful applicants informed in October.

Stay in the loop with all things MERRIGONGX by subscribing to our new Substack newsletter. Visit merrigongx.substack.com/

SHOW UP AND SUPPORT ARTISTS

There is no set ticket price at MERRIGONGX events. Instead, you simply reserve a spot, show up, then pay what you feel the performance is worth afterwards.

RESERVE YOUR SPOT FOR FREE

Register and reserve your spot online.

A 1 cent card authorisation fee applies.

Acknowledgement of Country

Our company’s name ‘Merrigong’ reflects the Dharawal word for the Illawarra region’s distinctive escarpment, a landmark of supreme cultural importance. This name serves as a constant reminder that our venues rest on unceded First Nations land.

In all that we do, Merrigong Theatre Company seeks to acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the land, seas and skies, and to show respect to all First Nations people who call our region home.

Venues

Illawarra Performing Arts Centre, 32 Burelli Street, Wollongong

Wollongong Town Hall, Corner of Crown and Kembla Streets, Wollongong

COME SEE THE SHOW

You know how this works…

PAY WHAT YOU FEEL

After the show, we'll send you an email asking how much you want to pay. You choose the amount based on your experience and your circumstances. There is no minimum or maximum amount.

Thank you

Merrigong Theatre Company's major funding partners

If you don’t show up on the night, please be aware that you will be charged a $20 no show fee per seat. This ensures the artists don’t miss out for their work!

Other Supporters of Works and Artists

Birdsong of Tomorrow

Cover Art by Karla Hayes

Karla Hayes is a Wollongong based multi-disciplinary artist living and working on Dharawal land. Across a range of mediums, Karla creates whimsical artworks inspired by the diversity of Australian landscapes. Passionate about creating art in public spaces, Karla enjoys interrupting harsh, grey infrastructure with splashes of colour, encouraging thoughtful engagement with flora and fauna in her murals, illustrations, fine art, animations, live art and community art workshops.

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