Beat's Guide to Melbourne Fringe Festival 2016

Beat’s Guide To

Melbourne

FR IN GE Festival

2016

Sept 15 — Oct 2

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Beat Magazine’s Melbourne Fringe Festival 2016 Guide

Contents: pg.6: • Fringe Furniture 30: Redesign • Bellbird • A Case of You: The Music of Joni Mitchell • Babelism: Love & Memory pg.8: • Breadcrumbs • Cosmonaut • Fleur and Alexandra Save The World! pg.10: • Girl in the Wood • Gold, Greed and Ghosts • Him • Judith Shakespeare’s Theatre Company • She Dances pg.12: • - Love Letters to Fuckbois • Spring Clean • Momento pg.14: • Sammy J: Hero Complex • Notorious Strumpet & Dangerous Girl • Dancing with Dark Goddesses pg. 16: • Maps pg.18: • The Astruds: Rent (is due) • Bobby Deez - Losing the Plot • Electric Shorts • Stupid and Contagious pg. 20: • The Loneliest Number • The Queen of Broken Hearts • The Virtual Reality Fringe • Tudor Roses pg.22: • Sediment • Ben McCarthy: I Have Issues • 5 Lesbians Eating A Quiche pg.23: • Woolly: The Morose Merino • Dear Delphine: Letters to a Dead Voodoo Queen • The Boy Who Was Born With a Moustache • The Curiosity Experiment pg.24:

Welcome To The 2016 Melbourne Fringe Festival A CHAT WITH CREATIVE DIRECTOR AND CEO SIMON ABRAHAMS

BY MEG CRAWFORD

Want to see something brilliant, bold, innovative, potentially kooky or curious every night of the week for the average price of $20 a pop? During Melbourne Fringe, you can do exactly that. Simon Abrahams, Fringe’s CEO and Creative Director for the second year running, succinctly nails Fringe’s unique value. “Fringe to me is about discovery,” Abrahams says. “It’s about discovering new voices and new artists. It’s also about discovering the city in a way that you haven’t seen or experienced it before. Because it’s about that sense of adventure and putting yourself outside your comfort zone, it’s ultimately about discovering yourself. It’s so easy to go through life with patterns we know and are comfortable with, but by taking an adventure and stepping outside what you’d ordinarily do, we learn so much more about ourselves and the world around us and for me, that’s the point of art. If we’re not doing those things, what’s the point?”

• Sky Light ­ • Polish Tennis Dad • The Guilts: Hearts pg.25: • The Adventures of T-Bone and Sea Bass • No Blank Stares • Body & Blood • Bombshells pg.26: • Accomplished-ish • 4 + 4 + 4 • Ceremony of the Innocent pg.28: • Bomb Collar • Full Tilt Janis • Game Boys: Free to Play • Tangled Adulthood • Terror Australis • Manfül pg.29: • Belleville • Butterfly Club • Festival Fortune Teller • Wick Studios pg.30: • More Fringe Goodness

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Abrahams is particularly interested in the intersection of citizenship and art, a concept which Fringe embodies in its truly egalitarian program, which covers art forms of every flavour from comedy to circus, theatre and dance.

“Everyone has the right to contribute to the cultural life of their city,” Abrahams says.

Being an open access festival, there’s no curation and nothing is excluded from Fringe, which means that if you take a punt on a show, you’re guaranteed to catch something on a scale of amazing to bizarre. Plus, in a time where Federal funding to the arts is slashed, it’s one of the remaining opportunities to catch work from emerging artists and outsider art.

That said, this year’s program is more ambitious than ever.

“It’s the biggest program in the history

of Fringe,” Abrahams explains. “You can see from the big public art works that we’ve created, we’ve really gone for experimental, large scale, high impact artwork that is incredibly bold.

We’re trying to demonstrate locally, federally and internationally the extraordinary impact and vision that the small to medium arts sectors can have.” While last year’s Fringe was all about emerging artists in secret places and hidden spaces across Melbourne, this year’s focus is on artists at the top of their game in high profile public spaces, without compromising the goal of supporting emerging artists. “We’re really trying to capture the public’s imagination,” Abrahams reflects.

This year also marks a renewed focus on quality kids’ programming, which will be as entertaining for adults as children For instance, glittery cabaret

queen Yana Alana is running Rainbow Cactus, a super-fun, queer-friendly family event with tunes, stories and plenty of colour, while comedian and DJ Andrew McClelland is playing host to Staring School. Starting School is the equivalent of his club night Finishing School but for children, introducing kids to important musical gems from the ilk of Prince and The Smiths.

Another genius feature for this year’s Fringe is Abrahams’ brainchild, the Festival Fortune Teller. “I’d had so many people tell me that the festival is so big they don’t know where to start,” he says. “Sometimes too much choice can be paralysing, so we wanted to help people navigate their way through the festival by coming to the Fortune Teller. It comes up with the Melbourne Fringe event that the audience member is destined to see. It’s about getting inside their personality and through that, helping them navigate the festival.

Sometimes you just need a little bit of help.”

When pressed for discernible trends, Abrahams notes that the festival is playing with a lot of light, which makes sense because Melburnians are obsessed with light and projections.

“We’ve got two light sculptures, Skylight and White Beam opening and closing out the festival,” he explains. “They’re real highlights for me, particularly in terms of imagining how we want people to engage with their city.”

Urging us to abandon our goddamn phones and look up, White Beam takes Fringe to Prahan. Featuring a horizontal, pulsing white beam that goes nuts with

an electronic backbeat for 15 minutes every hour. White Beam is all about connection and shared experience in public spaces. In Skylight, giant beams of laser light will connect rooftops along the CBD’s skyline, underscored by a soundtrack that you can download from Fringe’s website and listen to as you navigate your way through the city, tripping the light fantastic. The project also features four sound stations en route along the Yarra River bank – Abrahams urges onlookers to gather at these on the half hour for a sound and light performance.

“I was interested in creating a work that activated some of our most famous civic spaces but in ways that make us see some of them differently,” Abrahams explains of the work’s origins.

“That was the key directive. I literally wrote down a list of my favourite artists and one of them was Robin Fox. I didn’t know Robin. We had no history of working together, but I knew someone who knew someone who gave me his email. We kind of hit it off straight away and together with a team of people we started to imagine the city through light. For us, it was about looking up and optimism. Looking to the skies and seeing a whole new perspective.

Nothing could be more Melbourne Fringe than that.”

THE MELBOURNE FRINGE FESTIVAL runs from Thursday September 15 - Sunday October 2.

Top images - from left to right: Robin Fox - Sky Light, Nxt Lvl Infinity, Not Another Indie Caberet, La Petite Merde, The Thick Of It, The Practice 2.0, Laura Davis: Marco. Polo., Dion.

3 NEWTON STREET RICHMOND, VICTORIA 3121 Phone: (03) 9428 3600 Fax: (03) 9428 3611 email: info@beat.com.au beat.com.au

Editor: James Di Fabrizio Advertising: Tom Brand, Cara Williams, Patrick Carr Sub-Editors: Matilda Edwards Meg Crawford Design & Art Direction: Michael Cusack Contributors: l David James Young,

Beat Magazine’s Melbourne Fringe Festival 2016 Guide

Hannah Joyner, Meg Crawford, Matilda Edwards, Asheda Weekes, Joanne Brookfield, Stevie Zipper Cover Image: Sediment Published by Furst Media © 2016 Furst Media Pty Ltd.

Bellbird

BY MEG CRAWFORD Venue: ArtPlay, Birarrung Marr Dates: September 22 - September 25 | Times: 10am - 12pm, 1.30pm - 3.30pm (entry ever 20 minutes) Tickets: Free

From an adult’s perspective, kids’ entertainment can be so twee that it makes you want to stick knitting needles in your eyes. On the other hand, quality kids’ theatre will engage an audience irrespective of age. Polyglot, which was commissioned to create a work specifically for Melbourne Fringe, falls into the latter camp.

Fringe Furniture 30: Redesign

BY MEG CRAWFORD Venue: Abbotsford Convent - Oratory and Ironing Rooms Dates: September 15 - October 2 (Wednesday to Sunday) | Times: 11am - 5pm | Tickets: Free

Thirty years ago Bruce Filley, Fringe Furniture’s founder, wandered into the HQ of Melbourne Fringe (called Spoletto at the time), declaring that furniture deserved a place in the program. The Spoletto crew agreed, but told him that he could organise it – a rude shock given that Filley just wanted to show his works. Harkening back to that first year, Filley’s recollection is that the exhibition was patchy, but times have changed. This year, to celebrate its diamond anniversary, Fringe Furniture incorporates everything from tables through to ceramics and lighting from emerging designers as well as established makers who want to try their hand at something new, as expected the quality is uniformly primo.

In terms of theme, this year’s Fringe Furniture is guided by the concept of redesign and the works exhibited represent a mix of on-theme pieces, as well as “market ready” furniture.

Vanessa Wright, Fringe Furniture’s Associate Producer for the second year running, is pleased that this year’s participants have embraced the experimental nature of the exhibition’s history. “We are really trying to show that furniture isn’t always a practical and functional object,” Wright says. “It can be a sculptural form in its own way as well.”

While this year’s Fringe Furniture has fewer works than last, the catalogue is sufficiently jam-packed. So much so that the exhibition has overflow space in shipping containers at both the Abbotsford Convent, the site of the exhibition, as well as at a satellite venue in Federation Square for the first time.

Although Wright isn’t a maker herself, she has an abiding love of furniture.

“I’ve always loved arts and, by extension, design,” she explains. “So, furniture appeals to me in that way – it’s a beautiful object, it’s something

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beautiful that you can look at and display, but it’s also an object. It’s an interesting way to bring art into your house or life. You can have a piece that’s really special to you, that you love to look at, but it’s also the table that you sit at for meals every day. I like the idea of being able to use the things you value and them having a purpose.”

Although tables and chairs are probably not the first thing you think of when Melbourne Fringe comes to mind, Fringe Furniture is actually the longest running event in the festival’s history.

“It’s an odd one in a way,” Wright muses.

“Mostly, you think of performance and comedy or music when it comes to Fringe, but art and design are so linked, even though we often think of them quite separately. It’s really important for a festival which is open access to include all aspects of art. Fringe Furniture really encapsulates that – it brings art and design perspectives.

Furniture can have a functional purpose, but it can also be theatrical and make a statement about who you are and who you want people to think you are.”

Now over 30 years old, Polyglot has evolved from puppetry-based company into Australia’s bastion of participatory family theatre. In Polyglot’s hands children’s theatre is daring, bold and an opportunity for play where nothing is dumbed down. Sue Giles, who has been at Polyglot’s helm for nigh on 16 years as its Artistic Director, steered it in that direction.

Giles, who has been involved with children’s participatory theatre since leaving drama school in the ’80s, is passionate about it as an art form. “That children’s audience is undervalued,” she says. “It’s not challenged a super

amount. But the more I hang out with kids and the more that I can see their responses to particular works that are created, the more exciting and art-form changing it is.”

Giles has firm views about what makes for good children’s theatre. “It has to take into account the breadth of individual response,” she explains.

“There’s no one way to do it. We tend to lump kids together into a homogenous blob, according to age group usually.

The stuff that really resonates has really strong concepts at the base of it.

It doesn’t have to be something with a message, but it has to be deliberately

A Case of You: The Music of Joni Mitchell

BY JOANNE BROOKFIELD Venue: The Butterfly Club Date: September 27 - October 2 | Time: 5.30pm Tickets: $25 - $32

Sometimes a show connects with the audience in a way the performer doesn’t expect. This was certainly the case for Deborah Brennan in Edinburgh last month. “I had one man come up to me after a show and he couldn’t speak for a good minute because he was in tears, so he just hugged me and when he finally got his voice he thanked me and then sang Amelia for me and asked if we could include it next time. It was just beautiful,” she says.

While Brennan is no stranger to the stage, having studied music at the University of Adelaide’s Elder Conservatorium majoring in classical piano and being on the Fringe scene as a piano accompanist for the last four years, this is her first time being centre stage as the star of the show.

Joining Brennan on stage are Max Garcia-Underwood and Chris Neale.

The trio first performed A Case of You: The Music of Joni Mitchell at this year’s Adelaide Fringe festival. “We were still receiving quite a bit of interest

in the show after Fringe ended so we decided to do a short return season at the Adelaide Cabaret Fringe Festival before taking it over to Edinburgh where, again, we had some really great audience responses and had a very successful run – especially for a selfmanaged debut act,” she says.

Brennan first discovered Joni Mitchell, the influential Canadian who is considered one of the greatest songwriters of all time due to her string of hits in the 1960s and 1970s, when she was in her early twenties. A decade

Beat Magazine’s Melbourne Fringe Festival 2016 Guide

created so that transformation is possible.”

Polyglot has been ahead of the curve with this type of theatre. “The trend now is for participation and audiences having ownership over the works they engage in,” Giles notes. “It’s a really interesting trend and one that’s being led most inventively from Australia.

When I think about what’s happening over the world, there is a lot of really beautiful text-based work, but the participatory and interactive works are for very early age groups, whereas Australia is exploring what it means for older children, younger people and adults.”

Polyglot’s piece for Fringe, Bellbird, is half installation, half adventure under the banner of children’s theatre. Albeit, all ages are of course welcome. The concept involves a 15 by 10 metre space in which 360 bells are suspended from the roof so that audience members will touch or make them chime everywhere they move in the space. Participants will be blindfolded upon entry and invited to gently and quietly navigate their way through the space. The actors in the work play host as well as guide for the fifteen-minute journey, ensuring that there are no major stacks and no one freaks out.

A tiny version of Bellbird was trialled in the Melbourne Recital Centre’s foyer spaces and proved a massive hit, prompting Polyglot to have another bash on a grander scale. While staircases where bubble wrapped and whoopee cushions tucked discretely around the space, they also set up a mini bell room. “That’s where we learned about the power of the blind fold experience,” Giles says. “It’s a really nice leveller between adults and kids.”

later, she was inspired to write the show – which is an hour-long intimate cabaret with live music – because of the gender imbalance she had witnessed in the music scene. “My first intentions when I wrote the show was purely to showcase and preserve the legacy of an important female contributor to the music industry who, I believe, has been forgotten over the years. However, in presenting and developing this show something interesting and completely humbling has been revealed to me: my target audience is being given a piece of nostalgia. I have now had several audience members approach me after the show to tell me how listening to us perform has brought back memories so strongly it overwhelms them. As a performer, this is a powerful response, and it shows just how much Joni’s music means to people,” says Brennan.

In A Case Of You, Brennan isn’t impersonating Mitchell but rather paying homage with thoughtful interpretations. “I think we capture the spirit and the vocal nuances of her sound but without trying to be her,” she says. “We form a trio of keys, guitar, cajon and percussion. Plus we all sing, so it’s quite a full but gentle sound.” In the show, Brennan details where she was at in her life when she heard a particular song, and where Joni was in hers when she wrote it.

While Brennan says it’s not important to be a Joni Mitchell fan to enjoy the show, if you are one, you can expect to hear a lot of the earlier works from her folk era. “We have a couple of tracks each from Clouds, Ladies of the Canyon, and Court and Spark but I don’t mind saying that Blue is my favourite album.”

Babelism: Love & Memory

Breadcrumbs

Venue: Metanoia at The Mechanics Institute, Black Box Dates: September 28 - October 2 | Times: 7pm, 7.45pm, 8.30pm, 9.15pm, 10.00pm | Tickets: $22

How does your show challenge audience members?

This is a show about the individual audience members. Our intention is to let them focus solely on themselves without being judged by anyone. Without the pressure of themselves, nor the society. The challenge lies within themselves.

on ourselves sometimes gets enormous. It’s a place where emotions are seen as weak, and independence as a strength. We all want to be seen as perfect and carefree so we stop asking ourselves how we really are. Through this show we wish to create a moment for the audience to be with themselves and listen to their inner truth.

What was the rehearsal process like?

We have devised the show together by experimenting with movements and feelings.

The rehearsal process consisted mainly of improvised movements, hours of walking with direction, letting our impulses take us to the next step in the development. The music, lyrics and soundscape helped us to shape and structure the movements into a form that takes the audience on an inner journey. It has been created purely through vocal samples and spoken word, with elements of body percussion, to keep it as organic and human as possible.

How does your show explore Fringe’s theme of stepping into the light?

Babelism: Love & Memory is about the individual.

The purpose of this performance piece, and the purpose of engaging and involving the audience in the way that we do is the hope that we have asked the right questions to make people feel empowered within themselves, to step into the light of their individual importance. That is why only 12 people will be in the space during each performance. Our show is all about stepping into the light of self.

What is your show about?

Breadcrumbs is the show where I will be performing through a subconscious state in order to create a dream-like experience for the audience. I’ll be working within the metaphor of everyone in the space being part of a collective subconscious, a term coined by Carl Jung to describe synchronistic or coincidental events occurring in our dreams and our waking life. Each of the six shows will be unique, just as no two dreams are exactly alike.

How does your show push the envelope in terms of creativity and convention?

It’s solo on-the-spot dream theatre. Effectively, I’m going up there empty, script-less and open, and leaving it, hopefully, with a fun show. Convention demands a polishing and processing of a product prior to public consumption. While I have been practicing and polishing the state of mind I need to occupy on stage, the product itself will be consumed raw.

What was the process of putting your show together?

These past few months I’ve been exploring being on stage in a state of complete vulnerability and abandon through the platform of self-induced exorcism. These times on stage have been quite illuminating in what dwells inside me. Breadcrumbs is going to be less of an expulsion of the subconscious and more of a discovery of that place beneath the surface.

Why should someone come to your show?

Well, if you like the absurd, if you talk about dreams, if you dwell on the hidden stuff that makes up our daily experience of this third-dimensional existence, then Breadcrumbs is for you.

How does your show explore Fringe’s theme of stepping into the light?

The exposure of the subconscious through my performance is pretty revealing. There is a lot of darkness in secret hidden places. It’s time to shine a light on those areas.

What part of contemporary Australian culture does your show engage with?

We live in a modern society where the pressure

How does your show challenge audience members?

Breadcrumbs will challenge the audience to remember to dream even when we think we’re awake.

Cosmonaut

Fleur and Alexandra Save The World!

Venue: Fringe Hub: Arts House - Meeting Room Dates: September 16 - October 1 (except Mondays) | Time: 8pm (Sundays 7pm) | Tickets: $20 - $25

What is your show about?

Cosmonaut is my journey to try to find the worst sex tip ever written by Cosmopolitan magazine.

Additionally I used the material in that magazine to mine my own perceptions of feminism, gender, and sex to make this show.

What was the process of putting your show together?

At the beginning I wanted to write a heartbreaking song so epic it would get back a lost love. But I’m rubbish at guitar and keep crying.

So instead, I read (most of) every issue of Cosmopolitan. All of them. I started cataloguing the sex tips and looking at them over generations.

I discovered an interesting evolution and devolution within the decades of material.

What sets your show apart from others at Fringe?

Besides my gaudy American accent? I think this show is different from some of the other comedy shows because it’s a story and a journey that we are going on together. I’m not the guy who’s going to tell you joke after joke after joke. But I am the one who’s going to try to make you laugh

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Venue: Belleville Melbourne Date: September 26 - October 1 | Time: 7.15pm | Tickets: $12 - $15

with a combination of heightened language, prop dildos, and spaceman outfits.

How will your show involve audiences?

At the end of every show, I provide a list of the 30 worst sex tips I discovered in my research. I then ask them to go home and try one out with a partner, friend, or enthusiastically willing stranger and then record their thoughts on it afterwards. Any recording I get will be put into an audio cue in the show. So, dear reader, your pervy experience can be a part of our cacophony of naked emotions from all over the world.

How does your show challenge audience members?

I hope this show pushes some boundaries for people they might not have thought about before. I’m a fairly ordinary looking white male in his thirties. But I’m also bisexual, polyamorous, and the parent of an infant. So hopefully my deceptively unique psuedo-weirdo world view leaves people looking at the their own world and relationships a little differently.

Venue: Collingwood Underground Car Park Dates: September 14 - September 24 (except Sunday, Monday & Tuesday) | Time: 7.30pm | Tickets: $16 - $20

What was the process of putting your show together?

It sort of developed out of a bunch of absurdist ideas of stuff that might be funny. The whole process has been the two of us including props and costumes with helping friends when needed.

It’s theatre of the absurd, so there are a few things that you just have to accept as truth in the world of the show. It’s a little bit rude, a little bit sexy, there’s quite a few fabric genitals. They should also expect incredibly ham acting from Fleur. She’s pretty over the top.

What are you asking the audience to think about with your show?

We’re both informed by feminist ideas and we are concerned about the conservative trajectory that Australian politics seems to have taken recently. We also want people to think about the absurdity of life and really take a journey with us.

How does your show explore Fringe’s theme of stepping into the light?

Our show looks at stepping into the light in the frame of fulfilling your potential in spite of societal pressures and nay-saying. Fleur and Alexandra save the world in our show despite many, admittedly ridiculous, obstacles and in the end the world is lighter for their journey.

What aspect of your show are you proudest of?

We’re a low budget production, and most of the work has been done by ourselves so we think our ability to problem solve is something we’re proud of. We’re also pretty proud of the teamwork that’s gone into it – the writing process has been a joy and pre-show nerves notwithstanding, the production process has too.

What should a punter expect from your show?

Beat Magazine’s Melbourne Fringe Festival 2016 Guide

What are the key influences that informed your show?

Fleur finds Greek and Roman mythology really fascinating and also bizarre, so getting some of those slightly weirder myths into the show was something she was very pleased with. Alexandra is very much influenced by absurdist comedy and word play and so these things combined are really the crux of the show.

Internationally acclaimed poet, dancer, singer and performance artist Irinushka (Irina Kuzminsky) brings her one woman dance and poetry fusion show to Dancehouse as part of the Melbourne Fringe.

Inspired by Pavlova, Duncan and poetry, Irinushka’s show is "an incredible dance-recital tour de force" and "a performance of complete commitment, passion and technical brilliance"

"Irina is absolutely a voice for our time, a voice in which the feminine is exquisitely and burningly present in rage, depth, eroticism and tenderness."

JAY RAMSAY (POET, AUTHOR)

(MISTLETOE, ROSES AND THORNS; BARD ON A BIKE)

29 September - 1 October Dancehouse - Upstairs Studio 8:30pm, 150 Princes Street, Carlton North, A Dancehouse YOUR WAY Open Season Cost: $25 Full | $20 Concession | $15 Dancehouse member For bookings and info visit dancehouse.com.au or call 03 9347 2860 OR go to melbournefringe.com.au or call 03 9660 9666 A3 Spring Clean posterHR.pdf

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31/08/2016

11:03 AM

& RAW collective

present

Spring Clean Meet Rowena, emerging from brain fog...

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CM

MY

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CMY

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...ready to spring clean her life!

SEPT 22 – 25 WICK STUDIOS 23-25 Leslie Street Brunswick THU 22 8pm I FRI 23 6pm I SAT 24 5pm I SUN 25 5pm & 8pm TICKETS: $25 FULL I $20 CONC I Accessible Venue BOOKINGS: melbournefringe.com.au 03 9660 9666 INFO: rawcollective.com.au Supported by

Beat Magazine’s Melbourne Fringe Festival 2016 Guide

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Girl in the Wood

Gold, Greed and Ghosts

Venue: Fringe Hub: Arts House - Rehearsal Room Dates: Friday September 16 - Friday September 23 (except Monday) | Times: 6.30pm (Sunday 5.30pm) | Tickets: $10 - $20

What is your show about?

Girl in the Wood is a frightening forest fairytale about a young girl, Peggy, who journeys into the woods to save her older brother from the beast that’s taken him. An eternally lost cowboy, merciless bandits and hunger demons stand between Peggy and her brother. It’s Spirited Away meets Brothers Grimm meets Adventure Time. It’s also heaps of fun.

What motivated you to put this show on?

Kids make great audience members. They listen and respond and engage with theatre in really interesting and unique ways. I wanted to write a show that kids could enjoy and get a lot out of, but also doesn’t talk down to them and treats them with a certain amount of respect. Also, kids are awesome and deserve cool things.

What sets your show apart from others at Fringe?

I have very fond memories of being scared as a child. Reading books like Roald Dahl’s The Witches or the Goosebumps series. In making this show we very purposefully wanted to make a show for young people that’s a little bit scary

at times. The show is really fun and hilarious throughout, but we’re also not afraid to give your kids a bit of a scare along the way.

What are you asking the audience to think about with your show?

When Peggy’s brother Chuck is taken by this beast she’s faced with this choice between staying at home with her Dad, or helping to save Chuck. I think we’re all faced with times in our lives when we’re forced to choose between the joy and folly of youth, and the responsibility and wisdom of growing up.

What was the rehearsal process like?

This show was a walk in the woods. A moment I’ll always remember was when our sound designer Robert Woods brought in his design for the first time and the room just came alive. Our show glows with the positivity and generosity of our team.

Him

What was the process of putting your show together?

For my honours degree, I had no idea what I wanted to write, and thought I had nothing much to say. But the pressure of study forced me to put something together. So with a bottle of vodka I wrote until my keyboard broke and out it came. A dozen or so pieces of writing put together ready to be a show.

What does your show say about contemporary society?

It’s part indictment, part defense of contemporary society. Simultaneously it protests the apathy and ill-deserved security of the modern world, the hesitation to take up a fight against injustice, or

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What is your show about?

Lantern Ghost Tours are once again exposing the dark side of the capital on their special Melbourne Fringe Festival ghost tours. The Gold, Greed and Ghosts Tour takes guests on a journey back to the 19th century Gold Rush; a time of lust, greed and betrayal. Discover the infamous Lola Montez, gold mine disasters and the Chinese Museum after dark.

How does your show challenge audience members?

Be incarcerated in a lunatic asylum, visit an abandoned morgue or be a ghost hunter for the night. Lantern Ghost Tours run multi-award winning ghost tours of Australia’s most haunted properties, putting your fear tolerance to the test.

instant hit. Staff at the dancer’s old haunts have felt feminine hands wrap around them only to discover there’s no one there.

What are the key influences that informed your show?

The life and times of Lola Montez. When Montez lifted her skirt up it was clear to the audience she was wearing no knickers. The Argus stated her performance was ‘utterly subversive to all ideas of public morality’. Lola hasn’t fully left the CBD and her sprit still causes goosebumps and mischief today.

What are you asking the audience to think about with your show?

The dark side of the capital. Irish-born Lola Montez: she rebranded herself as Spanish and performed the erotic Spider Dance at the Theatre Royal, Melbourne. When kicked out of Melbourne, she took her dance to the gold mines and was an

Judith Shakespeare’s Theatre Company

Venue: Club Voltaire Dates: September 15 - September 17 | Time: 6.45pm | Tickets: $19 -$22

What is your show about?

Him is about reaching your mid-twenties and realising how far behind you are, second-guessing everything you’ve been secure in, and fighting against your own laziness, your apathy, and the world that’s made you that way. It’s a series of loosely connected vignettes and rants, with a bit of politics, bitchiness and pop culture thrown in.

Venue: Federation Square Dates: September 15 - September 30 (Thursdays and Fridays, bar September 16) | Time: 8.30pm | Tickets: $34

Venue: Abbotsford Convent Dates: September 17, September 18 & October 1 | Time: 12pm | Tickets: Free

to confront prejudice like the marriage plebiscite and homophobia, but also a way to show that things can be approved if people just try, and to expose some darker issues people rarely speak of.

What aspect of your show are you proudest of?

I’m proud of the honesty. It’s not about characters or fiction – it’s nothing but me, and the true feelings of my life. And some of them are fairly brutal, and some of them leave me very exposed, and not all of them are flattering. It’s raw, and it’s me and I’m really kind of amazed that I could put it on stage.

What part of contemporary Australian culture does your show engage with?

Primarily, it explores issues affecting millenials and Gen Y, as well as the LGBT community. For Gen Y, it addresses the disconnect from what we were promised to what we experience now that we’re adults. For the LGBT, it’s everything – coming out, coming down, and some of the abuses beyond just homophobes on the news or in the streets.

What is your show about?

What if William Shakespeare had a sister, with equal poetic talent in Elizabethan times? Virginia Woolf asks and answers this question in her seminal feminist text, A Room of One’s Own, by introducing the fictional character, Judith Shakespeare. This performance piece brings Judith Shakespeare into 2016.

What motivated you to put this show on?

It is a great opportunity to present my fun, quirky take on a beautifully written text that still resonates today.

What do you love about Melbourne Fringe Festival?

I love the way the Fringe Festival is inclusive of all artists. It’s such a great platform to present work that pushes the boundaries.

What sets your show apart from others at Fringe?

The Judith Shakespeare Theatre Company is its own travelling carnival with puppets, story and humour. Plus, it’s completely free.

Beat Magazine’s Melbourne Fringe Festival 2016 Guide

How does your show push the envelope in terms of creativity and convention?

The Judith Shakespeare Theatre Company embraces the over the top, the silly, the fun and the theatrical, yet has a powerful narrative.

How does your show explore Fringe’s theme of stepping into the light?

Virginia Woolf’s work A Room of Ones Own can again step back into the light and be brought into the minds of new audiences today.

Beat Magazine’s Melbourne Fringe Festival 2016 Guide

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She Dances

Love Letters to Fuckbois

Venue: Emerald City - The Rabbit Hole, Meat Market Dates: September 15 - September 18 | Times: 7pm (Sunday 6pm) | Tickets: $18 - 23

What is your show about?

She Dances is a visually spectacular show about a quirky woman who loves to dance. Well, at least she used to. Without giving the story away, it’s about rediscovering a passion and expressing yourself the way you want to rather than the way you’re expected to. As you can imagine, the journey to making that discovery is quite ugly at times and strikingly beautiful in others.

movement rather than words in everyday life.

Could you imagine it?

How does your show incorporate circus?

To me, circus is used to expand on a moment. It’s like someone pressing pause, and then looking deeply into the thought and emotions of that moment. Throughout the show, I use two different trapezes, diabolo, dance and innovative choreography both to tell the story and to expand on moments.

What sets it apart from other shows at Fringe?

It’s a stunning fusion of circus, dance and theatre.

There’s a real emphasis on genuine emotions rather than sparkles. I hope the audiences will get lost in the moment, be mesmerised with the choreography and come out of it inspired.

I’ve had so much fun creating it. I really hope Melbourne has a ball watching it.

What was the hardest part of the show to perfect?

Show fitness. She Dances is a solo circus show, which is quite demanding physically. So once the choreography is set, I’ll run each scene twice in a row so I can build up my show fitness.

What themes does She Dances explore?

The celebration of movement is a major theme in the show as well as loneliness, brave choices, lust, mental games, femininity (and lack thereof) as well as embracing your quirks. I love the idea of people expressing themselves through

What sets your show apart from others at Fringe?

We are all experienced performers in theatre and dance (basically over 40), with a good deal of life experience. With that comes a need to

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What is your show about?

In the broadest sense, our show is about treating other people right. One night stands, Tinder dates, friends with benefits, long term partners – everyone is a human and deserves to be treated as such.

How does your show explore modern relationships?

Through literal firsthand tellings of our personal lives and the disgusting, depressing, honest to god truths of our romantic follies. I guess, by exploring our own relationships, we involuntarily explore them all.

We are ourselves in this show and every single story we tell is 100 percent truth. It’s all happened to us and real life is the funniest and most depressing thing there is. Our show is one giant, very rude, very real Scarlet Letter where we divulge the most shocking and intimate details about our love lives – that’s got to be something different in Fringe.

Has your show evolved since its first performances?

We’ve totally condensed and just kept the juicy parts. We strengthened this cordial, baby. All jokes, all sass, scrapped the intermission: 50 minutes of pure fuckboi-ness. I think I’ve been dumped by the same fuckboi four times since we finished our last season, so I’ve had to write him a few letters to include in this Fringe season.

How do you want audiences to remember your show?

As a hella funny, hella personal rollercoaster of human intimacy along with all the awkward mornings and ribbed condoms in between.

Momento

Venues: Frankston Arts Centre - Cube 37 & Wick Studios - Wick Media Dates: September 17 & 18 at Frankston Arts Centre, September 22 - September 25 at Wick Studios Times: 5pm, 6pm, 6:30pm, 8pm | Tickets: $20 - $25

What motivated you to put this show on?

After a stunning response to the prequel Brain Fog last year, we realised we had more to say.

We’re all trying to be better people and trying to cope, but human beings can be tragic and hilarious in the same beat at the same time.

That’s fascinating.

First up, what’s a Fuckboi?

Well, a fuckboi is an all-encompassing, wonderful expression used to call out those douchebags you date. It’s originally a rap term coined in the early 2000s. Twenty years later, whitefolk appropriated it. Now in its Taylor Swift-version, it means a not very nice person to date.

What sets your show apart from other Fringe performances?

Spring Clean

What is your show about?

The story is picked up from the moment Rowena is thrown into an accelerated process of self healing. It’s about exploring a holistic lifestyle (often unsuccessfully with bizarre results), finding your way back to yourself, letting go of the past and holding onto the now. Also, the difference between our public and private personas, friendship, loneliness and asking the question: did your family royally stuff you up or can you break the cycle?

Venue: Wick Studios - Room 10 Dates: September 15 - September 20 | Times: 5pm, 7pm, 8pm, 9pm | Tickets: $16 - $22

communicate and enrich the audience in some way.

What are you asking the audience to think about with your show?

What is the alternative? What is the answer to feeling ‘balanced’ and happy? Do we need to accept it’s never completely possible before we can step into self-acceptance and growth? Do we just fake it till we make it? Is our generation trying to fix past mistakes and unspoken darkness? Is this our role as parents and humans? We also ask them to laugh at how ridiculous we are.

Why should someone come to your show?

It’s a relatable story with laughter, light, sadness and a sprinkle of hope. Think AbFab, and Offspring with a darker thread running through it. The sensory medium of theatre and dance combined will give you a rich experience to take away, and is bound to cause some thought and discussion in the bar afterwards.

Venue: Hawthorn Arts Centre - The Basement Dates: September 20 - September 25 | Times: 8pm (Sunday 7pm) | Tickets: $21 - $27

What is your show about?

The performance is very a much reflection of recent tours and performances in parts of India, Malaysia and Indonesia. It draws upon both personal memories and interactions with other cultures. On the flip side, it deals directly with the sense of displacement felt upon returning to Australia, focusing the lens on our own culture and trying to find a sense of equilibrium between the two through the creation of performance.

What does Momento have to say about Australia as it is today?

If anything, it focuses on how we are moving away from an ideal that made Australia such a great place. It looks at communities I have spent time in that I personally believe is the kind of society we should aim towards if we are going to collectively heal past hurt and become equal.

How does Momento engage the audience’s senses?

Momento works hard to incorporate scent and taste through serving food. But visually, it employs projection, light, shadow, emotive sounds and verse to fully create an imposed world.

What is the significance of the meal served to audience members?

The small meal that is served to audience members is a gesture of good faith and communicates the ideals and concepts at the heart of this performance. It binds, and holds together Momento and adds another sensory dynamic to their experience.

How does your show experiment with multiple artforms?

My work often employs different devices, be it spoken word, physical theatre, dance, sound and projection. What is interesting about this performance will be the ways in which the mould is successfully broken, placing opposing ideas and styles together and alongside each other in an attempt to retell.

How have your experiences overseas contributed to the show?

I’ve been incredibly fortunate to work with some of the most amazing and diverse artists in some of the most unique places over the past three years. Each of these interactions have further informed me and at times forced me to approach performance with a different lens.

Beat Magazine’s Melbourne Fringe Festival 2016 Guide

Gold Greed & Ghosts

Melbourne Fringe Festival 15 to 30 Sep Tours run 830pm Thursdays, Fridays BOOK www.melbournefringe.com.au

HAWTHORN ARTS CENTRE & METAMORPHIS PRESENT

M O M E N T O

Melding spoken word, dance, projection, sound, and taste in a performance resonant of memories forged through travels to faraway places.

SEPTEMBER 20-25, 7PM & 8PM THE BASEMENT B HAWTHORN ARTS CENTRE HAWTHORNARTSCENTRE.COM.AU

Notorious Strumpet & Dangerous Girl

BY MEG CRAWFORD Venue: Emerald City - The Gingerbread House, Meat Market Dates: September 15 - October 2 (except Mondays) | Times: 7pm, 8pm, 8.45pm, 9.45pm | Tickets: $20 - $25

Being the family black sheep has its perks – you get to be naughtier and have more fun than everyone else, but the flip side is that it can be isolating. It also comes with the caveat that if you push the envelope too far for too long, you risk losing yourself in self-loathing.

Cheeky circus savant Jess Love has experienced both sides of the coin first hand and is premiering her show about it, Notorious Strumpet and Dangerous Girl, at Fringe Festival.

Love has an illustrious circus background, which includes earning her stripes at Melbourne’s National Institute of Circus Arts, becoming a core part of the Circus Oz family, alongside touring the world with Le Soirée and Finucane and Smith. Love has mad skills and can do everything from tap dancing and jumping rope at the same time to gender-queer sideshow. She’s also devastatingly

Sammy J: Hero Complex

BY DAV I D J A M E S YO U N G

funny and not averse to getting her kit off – check out her gender and clothes swapping routine with her ex-wife Ursula Martinez on YouTube.

Love’s show – a mix of performance art, circus and theatre – was born from her own misbehaviour and finding out that she wasn’t the family’s only wild child. It turns out that Love’s greatgreat-great-great grandma Jess Mullins was convicted of theft (she nicked

a john’s wallet) in the UK and was transported to Australia. Upon arrival, Mullins settled in Tasmania and amped up her infamy, being arrested 23 times for being drunk and disorderly.

Love found out about her notorious nan in what she describes as an “ interesting accident”. Love’s uncle, a librarian and genealogist, had mapped out the family tree, and a week after Love hit the skids herself, he sent her an email with nothing other than the intriguing title “find yourself here” and a PDF of the family tree attached. While Love was half hoping for a metaphysical epiphany when she opened the attachment (that didn’t happen), the family tree did spark a process of self-discovery.

In the four subsequent years Love cleaned up her act, as well as digging up as much info about Mullins as she could find – interviewing historians, meeting up with authors who had written about convicts and connecting with extended family, including down in Tasmania. “It was a really freaky time,” Love says. “No one in my family is an alcoholic, they’re all heterosexual Christians, very clichéd middle class, perfect members of society. So, I grew up in this very straight environment.

My parents don’t drink. They’ll have a glass of wine sometimes, but it’s so rare, and none of my sisters are alcoholics. In fact, I didn’t know anyone who was. So when I started finding out this information about [Mullins] at the same time I was discovering my own problems, it was difficult not to make a correlation between the two of us.”

Venue: Northcote Town Hall - Studio 1 Dates: September 15 - October 1 (except Mondays) | Time: 8pm (Sundays 7pm) | Tickets: $25 - $32

The butterfly effect is an element of chaos theory that suggests small things – for instance, the flap of a butterfly’s wings – could have far greater consequence later on. Sam McMillan – better known as pianobased musical comedian and actor Sammy J – is a married man with two kids. The proverbial butterfly that caused this to happen was an unexpected and formative friendship from his youth. It’s all detailed in his first solo show in several years, Hero Complex.

“The show is all about a friendship I had with my school gardener,” he explains. “We used to trade Phantom comics, and that is as weird as it sounds. In writing the show, I had to do a lot of research by going through old school diaries, scrapbooks and things like that. All these new things started presenting themselves along the way.

It’s a bit of a mystery story, too. This gardener disappeared from my school and then re-emerged years later. It’s been a really fun process. I had the idea about three years ago, but it was only this year that the free time to complete the show presented itself.”

Hero Complex arrives at an interesting juncture for McMillan, who has spent the majority of the last few years working with long-time collaborator Randy Feltface, a purple puppet who can’t shake his hanger-on mate Heath McIvor. He’s had a mix of bad luck – the duo’s television show not getting picked up for a second season, a cancelled run of their festival show Sammy J and Randy Land due to ongoing illness – as well as unexpected viral success as part of the web series Playground Politics in which Sammy took on hot-button Australian political issues through a Play School-esque lens.

“I genuinely thought it would be something that flew under the radar, but it kind of took on a life of its own,” he says. “I had to step up and make

14

sure that the episodes were up to scratch and good quality. It was crazy that I was writing songs in the morning, knowing that they would be up online by the end of the day. It was pretty nuts, to be honest.”

Throughout his work on stage and television, McMillan has been somewhat of a self-titled character – Sammy J as played by Sammy J, if you will. With Hero Complex, the lines blur a little as the real-life events unfurl.

“This is definitely the most personal show that I’ve made,” he says. “In the show, I talk about my family a lot, which is quite different to how I’ve written shows in the past. When I’m performing with Randy, that’s definitely a character. On my own, I’m given more of a chance to just be myself. I’m allowed to let a little honesty in. It’s the same type of comedy at work, just in a different form.”

Dancing with Dark Goddesses

BY STEVIE ZIPPER Venue: Dancehouse - Upstairs Studio Theatre Dates: September 29 - October 1 | Time: 8.30pm | Tickets: $20 - $25

There is an air of mystery surrounding internationally acclaimed poet, dancer, singer and performance artist Irinushka. Listening to her music and watching the footage of her performing Dancing with Dark Goddesses is testament to that. Her influences, including Isadora Duncan, the mother of contemporary dance Martha Graham, and her ultimate hero the great Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova exude from her.

“She surpasses anyone for me. Every move she makes means something,” says Irinushka on Pavlova. “I have always felt so close to what she was about. A presence who has come alongside me all this time.” Dancing with Dark Goddesses was first a book of poetry dedicated to her mother. Irina was often told stories of when she was very small, dancing to every musical note she heard, whether in church or in

a shopping centre. Ultimately, mothers form a large influence in the show: from mothers of contemporary dance to her own. But what darkness is she dancing with it?

“Dark: people assume it’s a descent, and in a way it is a descent into darkness, but I think it’s like most people who have been on any sort of quest whether it’s a mystical quest or a personal one,” says Irinushka on her

Beat Magazine’s Melbourne Fringe Festival 2016 Guide

show’s title. “A lot of women have to go through it to find themselves. When you’re really in that darkness it requires its own light – its own luminosity.”

Irina has had an extraordinary journey so far, as a woman and as an artist. An Oxford doctrine graduate and junior research fellow who has shown her work in Germany, London and several times in New York, she has achieved a great deal. Dancing with Dark Goddesses will be performed for the second time in Melbourne, tying into Fringe’s theme of ‘Stepping into the Light’ succinctly and with grace. As far as audiences go, it’s a chance to find “a deeper connection through themselves, through their souls.” With Irinushka’s work scoring accolades across the globe for achieving exactly this, there’s no doubt that that will be the case.

Dreams. Performed.

15th september 20th september wick studios, 23-25 leslie st, brusnswick

Person: Tim Quabba Date: Sep 26 - 1ST October 2016 Time: 7:15PM tickets: melbournefringe.com.au / 03 9660 9666 Place: Belleville - Globe Alley, Melbourne

Breadcrumbs.

Where The Fringe Am I? EY

CBD/Inner North Venues 29. HIGHLANDER: LIBRARY ROOM 30. HORSE BAZAAR 31. HOUSE OF CHRISTA 32. JOE TAYLOR 33. KATHLEEN SYME LIBRARY & COMMUNITY CENTRE 34. KID NEON 35. KING ARTIST RUN INITIATIVE 36. L1 STUDIOS 37. LA MAMA 38. LA MAMA COURTHOUSE 39. LAB-14 40. LIBRARY AT THE DOCK 41. LONG PLAY 42. LOOP PROJECT SPACE & BAR 43. LORD COCONUT 44. MAGNET GALLERIES 45. MAILBOX ART SPACE 46. MCG MELBOURNE CRICKET GROUND 47. MOUNTAIN VIEW HOTEL 48. NO VACANCY GALLERY 49. OLD GEOLOGY THEATRE 50. PLANETSOL TEMPLE VAN 51. PRINCES BRIDGE 52. PRINCES HILL COMMUNITY CENTRE 53. PRIVATE RESIDENCE 54. RICHMOND THEATRETTE 55. RMIT KALEIDE THEATRE 56. ROSE CHONG COSTUMES

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57. SCHOOLHOUSE STUDIOS 58. SECOND STORY 59. SOKOL STUDIOS 60. SOMACHI YOGA STUDIO 61. SPACE 338 62. ST MICHAEL’S NORTH CARLTON 63. STATE LIBRARY VICTORIA 64. STICKY INSTITUTE 65. THE 86 66. THE BUTTERFLY CLUB 67. THE CARLTON 68. THE COMICS LOUNGE 69. THE GASOMETER HOTEL 70. THE IMPROV CONSPIRACY 71. THE LODGE 72. THE MELBA SPIEGELTENT 73. THE OLD CHARLES STREET MILK BAR 74. THE TICKLE PIT @ FANCY HANK’S 75. THE TOFF IN TOWN 76. TRADES HALL 77. TUXEDO CAT 78. UNION LANE 79. UNI. OF MELBOURNE, GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION 80. WEST HALL, ST MARY’S COLLEGE 81. WEST SPACE 82. YARRA SCULPTURE GALEERY

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Beat Magazine’s Melbourne Fringe Festival 2016 Guide

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JUDITH SHAKESPEARE'S THEATRE COMPANY Judith Shakespeare from Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own comes to life in a roaming live art performance.

12PM SEPT 17, SEPT 18 & OCT 1 ABBOTSFORD CONVENT 1 ST HELIERS ST, S ABBOTSFORD

The Loneliest Number

The Queen of Broken Hearts

Venue: The Melba Spiegeltent Dates: September 21 - October 2 (except Mondays and Tuesdays) | Time: 10.30pm | Tickets: $15 - $20

What is your show about?

As the show has developed it has become more and more about the nature of being alone and in fact, the right to be alone. Since I started performing solo – about two years ago – I’ve noticed some acute issues that face solo female artists and I’m using this show to talk about some of what I’ve learnt.

What was the process of putting your show together?

I’ve effectively broken the show up into six standalone parts. I’ve had each part directed by a different director. One thing I know about myself from having worked in groups my whole career is that I have a very set style. I wanted to put together the most diverse and interesting show I could, so with the help of multiple artists giving input I have been able to create a show that I feel flows nicely from one piece to the next without getting boring.

can’t say the same for any other shows at the Fringe this year.

What does your show say about contemporary society?

In Australia at the moment one woman dies every week at the hands of her partner. I’ve put a lot of thought recently into the difference between political art and political entertainment and I think my show definitely falls into the latter category.

Political entertainment aims to approach issues in a way that is accessible and enjoyable to the widest possible audience. It requires no prior reading and no prior knowledge. When people come to my show I want them to laugh and have fun, and be impressed with my tricks. And then – when I have their attention – I will talk to them about something that is really important to me.

How will your show involve audiences?

Actors often talk about breaking the fourth wall.

Well, my show will have no walls whatsoever.

Venue: The 86 Dates: September 28 - October 2 | Time: 8pm | Tickets: $25 - $30

What is your show about?

The Queen of Broken Hearts is an adventure through fantasy worlds we create in our heads and the reality from which they come. Exploring themes such as escapism, bullying and mental health, we follow the queen and her struggles until it becomes clear that there are cracks in her looking glass. The world can be a dark and scary place, but we all have to learn to get through it the best we can. Sometimes a good song is all you need.

What motivated you to put this show on?

This show is an original concoction from my brain featuring my own music and stories from my life and experiences. The theme of mental health and what we call ‘crazy’ is something very close to my heart. I wish to connect with those who have experienced mental illness or know those who suffer from it so that no one has to feel alone with it as I did growing up.

What sets your show apart from others at Fringe?

This show is part comedy, part circus, part cabaret and yet all one woman. Also, I’m in it and I

What sets your show apart from others at Fringe?

This show has a life, a heart and vibrancy that is entirely unique. As well as being fun, quirky

The Virtual Reality Fringe

Tudor Roses

Venue: Kid Neon Dates: September 14 - October 1 (Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays) | Time: 7pm, 7.50pm, 8.35pm | Tickets: $14

What is your show about?

The Virtual Reality Cinema hosts Australia’s new wave of VR content creators over the three weeks of the Fringe Festival presenting 16 original, never before seen VR pieces spanning four categories: music, short film, documentary and group VR. What sets your show apart from others at Fringe?

This event gives an exciting opportunity to experience Australia’s new wave of VR content creators, exploring the frontiers of this innovative medium.

The Virtual Reality Festival offers a group synchronised and intimate cinematic experience like no other, for up to 12 participants at a time.

How will your show involve audiences?

A member sits down comfortably in a spinning chair, puts a lightweight VR headset on and starts a journey into a new 3D group-VR and 360 degree digital dimension. Virtual reality is an endless space in which you can fully immerse and find new opportunities. This innovative entertainment lets you experience incredible emotions, moving you to a completely new world.

20

How does your show challenge audience members?

The onslaught of new wave VR film creators will expand member’s horizons, heighten their senses, ignite their imagination and challenge every convention of film, theatre and music videos. We have curated an eclectic group of talented new wave artists who will showcase their exciting works of virtual reality, and inspire you to play wild and live big.

What should a punter expect from your show?

To share an acoustic studio session with a rising music star Didirri, step into the visionary and geometrical mind of an architect, get up close and personal with our city’s leading street artist Adnate. To lose yourself on Easter Island, play a swashbuckling seafarer on board an 1800s tall ship, see the imaginations of Australia’s youngest VR filmmaker, dare yourself on an Alabama ghost train ride, and drop into arguably the most psychedelic VR music video you will ever see with Usurper of Modern Medicine.

and creative it features catchy, original tunes not heard anywhere else. It’s a cocktail of cabaret, burlesque, comedy and tragedy taking the audience on an up close and personal venture through the Queendom of Broken Hearts How will your show involve audiences?

When you’re in the Queendom of Broken Hearts the whole venue becomes the stage. You are part of this story as soon as you walk in the door. The Queen might call on you, the Queen might write a song for you, or she might chop off your head.

The audience has the opportunity to experience both this and the reverse, when the control and authority is switched.

Venue: Fringe Hub: Lithuanian Club - Son of Loft Dates: September 24 - October 1 | Times: 10.15pm (Sunday 9.15pm) | Tickets: $12 - $18

What is your show about?

Tudor Roses is a deliciously dangerous cabaret that explores what it was to be a queen in 16th century England, and how that transforms into being a ‘Yas Queen’ today. Today, nobody needs a king to be queen, or more importantly, to be a Yas Queen. On her path to becoming a monarch of fabulousness, Aubrey Flood has discovered that the tribulations that plagued the queens of 16th century England are still rife in our society today. Tudor Roses pulls back the veil of a history predominantly written by men and dissects how women were and will be remembered.

What motivated you to put this show on?

I have always be fascinated with Tudor history, particularly how the court and the people of England had that hate-but-love-to-watch relationship with the Tudor queens, much like people today have with the Kardashians. The further I researched these women, the more parallels I found between what they went through and what women go through today. We are centuries apart but we still get judged on appearances, children or lack of, age and how men perceive us.

Beat Magazine’s Melbourne Fringe Festival 2016 Guide

What sets your show apart from others at Fringe?

Its humour, costumes (or lack of) and its audience participation. Also my boobs.

What does your show say about contemporary society?

We have a lot to learn from history and that we aren’t studying hard enough.

Why should someone come to your show?

Because they’ll have fun, laugh a lot and it’s cheaper than a pub meal.

What part of contemporary Australian culture does your show engage with?

The part that watches Beyoncé slay every time she performs and tags their friends in memes every ten minutes.

How does your show challenge audience members?

Female nipples. And glitter. Glitter can be quite confronting.

Hannah Cryle in

the

LonEliest number Directed by Many People

Everything she does best relies entirely on her ensemble but in this show she will be performing in an ensemble of one. A solo ensemble show.

WED SEPT 21 - SUN OCT 2 The Melba Spiegeltent (NO SHOW MONDAY & TUESDAY)

35 Johnston St, Collingwood TICKETS FROM melbournefringe.com.au

Sediment C R E AT E D & P E R F O R M E D B Y C O M PA N Y 2

PRESENTED BY AFTERDARK THEATRE & BOARDWALK REPUBLIC

Inspired by Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Notes from Underground, Sediment explores the quirky, dark and at times comical nature of the human disposition to always question. To push, to pull, to strive, to fall; and to push again. Explored through feats of physical impossibility, and set to an original live score featuring the Theremin, the Typewriter, Crystal bowls and other interesting and unusual instruments. Sediment is Company 2's newest and most innovative the theatrical venture, in which these three seasoned artists explore themes of truth, adversity, amity and affray.

1 1 S H OWS F R O M

Wed 14 September – Sat 1 October GASWORKS - THE BIG HOUSE 21 GRAHAM ST, ALBERT PARK

TICKETS FROM WWW.MELBOURNEFRINGE.COM.AU

Beat Magazine’s Melbourne Fringe Festival 2016 Guide

21

Woolly: The Morose Merino

Dear Delphine: Letters to a Dead Voodoo Queen

Venue: Courthouse Hotel - The Jury Room Dates: September 15 - September 23 | Times: 9.30pm (Sunday 8.30pm) | Tickets: $16 - $22

What is your show about?

Woolly is a sheep with some serious personality issues. We meet him at the end of his tether, frustrated with his feelings of loneliness and overbearing sense of sexual inadequacy. Through anecdotes and reflection of unrequited love, emigration and horrendous jealousy of other flock members, Woolly tries to come to terms with who he really is in a last ditch attempt to achieve his ultimate goal of finding love.

What motivated you to put this show on?

A lot of the stories involved are actually based on truths from my own life. I decided to run away from all my troubles in England to my cousin’s farm in South Australia to help with sheep shearing. It was such a ludicrous and uncharacteristically impulsive thing for me to do that I thought it would make for a great show.

What sets your show apart from others at Fringe?

I think what sets this show apart is that it’s been entirely conceived, written, produced and performed during a year-long working holiday visa. It’s essentially a backpackers’ diary of farm

work and failures over the last year. As a debut solo Fringe performance in a foreign city halfway around the world from home, it’s also quite the fish out of water story.

What does your show say about contemporary society?

Despite the absurd narrative, I like to think that the show actually makes a comment on confidence and body image, and being accepting of one’s self both mentally and physically. I think if some of that finds its way into the piece for an audience then I would consider it a success.

What should a punter expect from your show?

Anyone attending the show can expect a lot of stories about sheep – naturally – and some stories about sex, although not in the way you might be thinking. It’s really a show for people who like tales of travelling, awkward encounters and sexual failure, all written in a hilariously selfdeprecating tone hopefully Melbourne has a ball watching it.

The Boy Who Was Born With a Moustache Venue: Emerald City - The Gingerbread House, Meat Market Dates: September 15 - September 24 (except Mondays) | Times: 12:30pm, 3:30pm, 6:15pm | Tickets: $14.50

What is your show about?

Our show follows Manfred Mellinski, a young boy who was born with a rather bushy moustache – a hairy appendage that gets him into all sorts of strife. With the help of his grandma and stories of his hairy ancestors (uncles with conjoined beards, a grandfather with hairy ears and a great aunt with armpit hair so long it turns into whips) we see Manfred turn his quirk into his finest attribute.

has always impressed me is her desire to make entertainment that is fun for the whole family; that treats children as the intelligent sponge absorbing minds that they are.

What was the process of putting your show together?

My family, my brother Atticus, my fiancée George and my mother Monica (Trapaga) decided to write a children’s booked based on George’s fantabulous orange moustache. All the illustrations from the book have been hand collaged and drawn by the family and have now been transformed into the set of the show.

What are the key influences that informed your show?

George and I as circus performers have a love of bringing joy and laughter to an audience. We have a love of old vaudeville, classic European clowning and shows that have suspended reality to create rich dreamscapes. There is also a heavy influence of Dr. Suess and his drawings and rhyming styles.

What motivated you to put this show on?

Monica has had a rich history as a children’s presenter on Playschool, Play House Disney and her own range of children’s entertainment. What

Why should someone come to your show?

This is the perfect escape for this school holidays – a show that will wow the kids with high flying aerial stunts, acrobatics on a penny farthing, and lots of silly stunts.

Venue: Emerald City - The Rabbit Hole, Meat Market Dates: September 21 - September 24 | Time: 9pm | Tickets: $20

What is your show about?

Dear Delphine is a dark and salacious cabaret that brings the darker side of Monica Trapaga (of children’s television and Playschool notoriety) to the stage. The show brings her talent as a gutsy jazz singer, coupled with burlesque, circus and a healthy dose of vaudeville to the stage. Delphine is a twisted agony aunt with an ear for the cheeky and sadistic.

What motivated you to put this show on?

Our family loves the rich, sweaty feeling that exudes from New Orleans. If you have read Tom Robbins’ Jitterbug Perfume, loved a dry gin fizz, or wished to write a mischievous response to an agony aunt column, then it begins to explain our motivations. We love to create a vibrant, visual backdrop to cushion our shows and the Southern Creole persuasion in the 1940s had a plethora of rich ideas to choose from.

on old classics, as will the younger crew who love a little mischief and seeing a childhood icon becoming a real person filled with sassy comments and cheeky asides. With circus, live music, a dash of nudity and a fair amount of chaos, this show is fun night out for those that love a laugh.

How has your prior work informed your show?

Monica Trapaga has been a jazz musician for as long as I have been alive. As her daughter, I have watched her for the last 31 years master the intricacies of the jazz greats: Anita O’Day, Ella Fitzgerald and Pearl Bailey. She has pulled her knowledge as an entertainer from three decades of stage work together with a bunch of younger circus performers to bring Dear Delphine to life.

What sets your show apart from others at Fringe?

This show is not targeted for one age group. Seniors with a love of jazz will like this take

The Curiosity Experiment Venue: Wick Studios - Room 13 Dates: September 15 - September 20 | Times: 5pm, 7pm, 9pm | Tickets: $15 - $25

What is The Curiosity Experiment about?

The host and director of the show wants to tell you a ghost story that has been passed down the generations, involving a theory that an antique can talk to you through your dreams.

smell is employed.

What do you want audiences to take away from your show?

A sense of fun, while wondering if what actually happened before them was real or not.

How does your show throwback to older forms of theatre?

The show involves a radioplay format where old fashion foley work, storytelling and the audience’s imagination play an important part in the show.

How does your show explores metaphysical ideas?

The wisdom of men are small and the ways of nature are strange, and who shall put abound to the dark things which may be found to those who seek with them. I bid you goodnight and pleasant dreams.

How do audiences participate in your show?

Four audience members will read a letter out loud to the table. Then they will be blindfolded and sit in a darkened room where touch and

Beat Magazine’s Melbourne Fringe Festival 2016 Guide

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Polish Tennis Dad

BY ASHEDA WEEKES Venue: Tuxedo Cat - The Alley Cat Dates: September 22 - October 1 (bar September 28) Times: 8.30pm | Tickets: $12.50 - $18

After his show Bringing out the Cheeseboard earlier this year, writer, producer and performer Willem Richards shares a zany coming-of age tale of his father’s tennis playing aspiration dwindling to a halt. Step into his memory bank and enter this off the wall skit about growing up with a Polish Tennis Dad.

Sky Light ­

BY M AT I L DA E DWA R DS Venue: Melbourne CBD Dates: September 15 - September 18 | Time: Dusk – 11pm | Tickets: Free

“I reckon if you could bottle that moment when the creative process really takes hold – there’s this kind of euphoria where you feel like you’ve revolutionised something – you could make a lot of money,” Robin Fox laughs.

The prolific audio-visual artist is in the middle of his most ambitious and large-scale project to date. As part of Melbourne Fringe, Fox has rigged a laser and sound installation that practically takes over the CBD. For four nights over the festival sixteen lasers will be beamed off the IBM tower in Southbank, hitting different points across the city, accompanied by a piece of music, also composed by Fox. The music will be played at listening stations across the city and is available for download online.

It’s a mammoth project and one that’s evolved over time. “It’s exciting, adrenalising, terrifying – all of those things together,” Fox says. “If it doesn’t work, then it doesn’t work on a massive scale. There’s so much risk. But I’ve always thought life is nothing without risk, without something on the line.”

The project has also involved a good bit of trial, error and reflection on the nature of individual experience. “We were testing these lasers and looking at them in the sky, and from some points they looked amazing but from some they just didn’t work,” Fox explains.

“It’s all about perspective, and the way you look at things, and I thought – well rather than see that as a bad thing, why not make that a feature. You can

walk around and experience it in 100 different ways. But it’s not the lasers changing, it’s kind of your biology. If you’re standing under a street light, your pupils contract and you won’t see the laser very well at all. But as soon as you step out of that light, everything comes into relief. The light in the sky doesn’t change, it’s how you perceive it, and I really like that subjectivity.”

As he began to create the accompanying audio piece with the lights, Fox found parallels in the light and sound technologies he was using.

“For Sky Light I’ve written a piece of music entirely on a particular module of synthesiser called a Bucla, which has the capacity to split a sound into its odd and even harmonics,” he notes. “You take a sound and you split it into two halves, almost. I really liked that visually the piece is about connecting all these geographical points, with the lasers beaming to different city buildings across the river, and it encourages you to look up. It draws attention to the topography of the city in a way. Then the way these synthesisers work is that you won’t get any sound out of them until you connect two points with a cable – so it’s quite poetically connected to the visuals.”

Richards’ eccentric performance approaches the history with his larger than life, leather-clad father George.

The sketch stems from his fondest, often embarrassing memories growing up of his dad imposing a grand slam dream upon him. “Dad loves the limelight,” he laughs.

Everyone knew the Polish man surveying the courts and putting in his two cents on any tennis-related technique known to an amateur coach. Richards even interviewed the man himself for some authentic Polish Tennis Dad quirks – an overzealous man with a good heart underneath it all.

With a man like this egging him on, a mousy little Richards’ tennis career peaked as Under 12 champion of Maribyrnong Tennis Club. So what happens to the father-son duo after the realisation Willem would not be in the Tennis Hall Of Fame alongside Federer and Nadal? As the young Willem moves into adulthood leaving his tennis dreams behind, the sketch observes how their relationship shifts – with a warming promise that everything will be alright. It becomes an anecdote of how an overbearing Polish Tennis Dad accepts to let go.

Amongst the absurdity in his stand-up comedy, Richards tells a story that anyone can relate to.

His performance includes some audience interaction to keep everyone involved in the story. If you’re lucky, Willem or another boisterous characters will invite you

The Guilts: Hearts

BY STEVIE ZIPPER Venue: Fringe Hub: Lithuanian Club - The Ballroom Dates: September 24 - October 1 (except Monday) | Time: 8.15pm | Tickets: $10 - $20

Gabriel Piras grew up in a rural idyll north of Tuscany and although he emigrated to Australia when he was five, he recalls it in terms both sweet and romantic. The woods were full of chestnut trees and wild goats were in the hills. Piras has returned to Italy a bunch of times since and keeps alive some of the traditions, including playing the Italian card game Scopa – a bridge-like game that his mum played like a fiend. “I still play with mum – it’s one of the things we do,” Piras says. In light of that, it’s not a huge jump that he’s embarked on a super-ambitious project of writing a song for each of the 52 cards in a pack with his five-piece band The Guilts.

The Guilts have recorded 13 songs thematically grouped under the suite of hearts, which they’ll bring to the stage for their Fringe show of the same name.

The band, which has always made a habit of having guests stray in and out, is doubling in size for Fringe and will perform against a lavish, vaudevillian backdrop of burlesque superstars, circus performers and puppeteers, with a smack of sideshow.

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on stage to participate in a little improvisation. No two performances will be the same, between hardcore tennis drills and outlandish characters like Spanish Ken and Magic Mystic.

Audiences will enjoy the sincerity of the father-son storyline that is layered between the quirky characterisation and storymaking. It’s a relatable relationship, one many people can identify with, told brilliantly through comedy. Polish Tennis Dad promises a strong set that celebrates exuberant fathers who really just love their children.

It’s not the first time Hearts has been brought to the stage – The Guilts gave it a much-lauded whirl during Sydney’s Fringe Festival last year and once before in Melbourne, where they were raising money to help an Aussie circus performer locked up in a Turkish clink.

If you’re a Tom Waits or Leonard Cohen fan, you’ll dig on Hearts. “I’ll happily take that,” Piras chuckles. “I listened to that music as a teenager

Beat Magazine’s Melbourne Fringe Festival 2016 Guide

and it’s imprinted on my psyche.” The comparison runs deeper though. “Both [Cohen and Waites] were influenced by European folk music,” Piras notes. “If you think about Leonard Cohen’s recent live performances – the band he’s assembled and the sounds he’s created are very reminiscent of Mediterranean folk music and that’s a big connection for me as well – that’s the culture I come from.”

Despite the fact that Hearts is being released this month, coinciding with the Fringe season, Piras had been kicking around the idea for the song cycle since his teens. In fact, he had some of the Hearts songs under his belt already and is having fun revisiting those earlier tunes. “It’s a bit like looking at a photo album,” he muses.

The rest of the pack will follow. “It was kind of the obvious place to start with hearts,” Piras reflects. “When you’re a songwriter you talk about love a lot.

Although, the album’s not just about love – it’s also about other matters of the heart.

The Adventures of T-Bone and Sea Bass Venue: 24 Moons Dates: September 19 - September 21 | Time: 8pm | Tickets: $15-$20

What is your show about?

My wife and I have two kids: T-Bone who is a quirky, autistic five year old, and Sea Bass who is two and somewhat bonkers. Drawing on life as a stay-at-home dad, I explore topics such as the pitfalls of joining the toy library, cultivating my dad-bod and how wonderfully annoying grandparents can be.

What should a punter expect from your show?

They can expect a mix of standup and storytelling. It’s based on my blog tboneandseabass.com. Originally I wrote about our chaotic family life, but it has evolved since to explore my own childhood. While I like to think the show is pretty funny, I do touch upon a few heavier issues such as mental health, cultural identity and parenting a child on the autism spectrum.

What are the key influences that informed your show?

I’m a big fan of American humourist David Sedaris. I love his writing and saw him live a couple of years ago. Before then I never realised

Venue: Fringe Hub: Arts House - Warehouse Dates: September 16 - September 23 (except Monday) | Times: 8.15pm (Sunday 7.15pm) | Tickets: $13 - $17

someone reading from a page could still be so warm, funny and engaging. Around a third of my show is stories based on my favourite blog posts, and the rest is stand-up.

What motivated you to put this show on?

In the past I took comedy too seriously and put a lot of pressure on myself to succeed in that as a career. Ultimately I lost the passion for it and didn’t perform for nine years. I feel I have something to say again, but I’m looking at it purely as a hobby: if it works, it works; if it doesn’t, it doesn’t. I think that’s a healthier way of approaching it.

What aspect of your show are you proudest of?

I suppose the fact that the show is really a representation of me. I kicked around in comedy for about five years but never really found my voice. I feel like I’ve found out now what I want to say, and how I want to say it.

Venue: Emerald City - Bluebeard’s Den, Meat Market Dates: September 23 - September 25 | Time: 8pm (Sunday 7pm) | Tickets: $15 - $20

What was the rehearsal process like?

Experimentation. It’s the kind of work that could only be realised through trying out ideas on the floor. We ran the gamut of inspired flow to floundering in stuck-ness. Part of the challenge without having a set director was to find the magical path open to group collaboration but also getting somewhere.

Where have you taken your show before bringing it to Fringe?

We had a run at the Annandale Creative Arts Centre in Sydney. This was essential in a) getting our shit together and b) getting audience feedback. One nice comment from a guy who’d seen a few Jesus-ey shows said it was like The Passion on acid.

What are the key influences that informed your show?

Articles from Cosmo and Vogue, especially when it comes to snagging your dream beau on Tinder.

The incredible ads from anything American Apparel have made a really big impression on us too – we certainly won’t get some of those steamy poses out of our minds anytime soon.

Why should someone come to your show?

Well, we’ve done a lot of research into maximising Tinder profiles, so if you want tips to get fingers waggling when your profile pops up definitely book a ticket or two. Overall there’s a bit of fun, a lot of flirt and some fabulous dance happening before your very eyes. What’s not to like?

What was the rehearsal process like?

Fun and a bit different for us. We’ve done a lot of reading online, a lot of sexy posing and finding out ways to really accentuate the body. Long sessions of selfie taking and mirror posing have definitely been the highlight. Coming home with sore lips from pout-smiling is accompanied with a real sense of achievement.

How does your show challenge audiences?

The show provides a yo-yo of emotions with audiences. We’re subverting known content in relation to the objectification of women in advertising and everyday sexism in the online dating realm. It’s a hilarious look at these sometimes disturbing social norms.

What motivated you to put this show on?

When I first started making the work I had a text conversation with a friend that resulted in a massive misunderstanding of each other, so I started looking at the conventions of instant messaging. Then I became interested in how this convention applies to the online dating world – the games and manipulation of character related to how men and women are expected to behave in this forum.

How does your show push the envelope in terms of creativity and convention?

This show is a fantastic collaboration of sound, dance and pop culture references. It addresses current social issues using cleverly worded text, delivered by six fabulously sassy MacBook laptops.

Bombshells

Body & Blood

What is your show about?

We based our piece on scenes from the New Testament Gospels. So in one sense our show is about the life of Jesus. But it’s also about putting this character in a new aesthetic landscape to bring out new aspects. In another sense, it’s also about an archetypal struggle between the visionary and systems of power.

No Blank Stares

Venue: Wick Studios - Studio A Dates: September 22 –September 27 | Times: 7.30pm (1.30pm & 7.30pm Saturday and Sunday) | Tickets: $15-$25

How does your show push the envelope in terms of creativity and convention?

We play in a small circle, no props, set nor traditional costumes. Such minimalism makes the body central in evoking the world of the story. It’s a highly exaggerated kind of theatre that condenses text, rhythm, character and place. It also requires a fluid ensemble with each actor playing over 30 different characters, entities and places.

What is your show about?

The acclaimed Australian play Bombshells by Joanna Murray-Smith is about six different women living on the edge as they desperately, yet humorously, attempt to balance their inner lives with their outer worlds. Directed in a new format by award-winning artist Kaarin Fairfax, it has been produced by The Dog Theatre at Wick Studios as part of our Wick Fringe program.

What are the key influences that informed your show?

Jesse, who initiated the project, had just come back from studying at the Lecoq theater school in Paris. It was here that he encountered an exacting attention to the expressive potential of the moving body. A Butoh dance workshop also provided inspiration to delve into the grotesque. Our cast includes members who are practitioners of contact improvisation, Suzuki method and trapeze, adding up to a strong accent on physicality.

What do you love about Melbourne Fringe Festival?

It’s a fantastic opportunity to meet people, support the independent program and sector, and experience exciting, new and innovative works across a wide variety of mediums. Also, some mates are incredibly disciplined, so it’s the perfect time to snag everyone for some party-fun time at Wick Studios – The Dog Theatre’s stunning new kennel in Brunswick.

Wick Studios for Melbourne Fringe. Despite the challenge of what we have built, we’re not only desperate to hold a mirror up to society, but also for the new vanguard of underdogs and fringedwellers in local performing arts.

How does your show explore Fringe’s theme of stepping into the light?

We’re simply saying hello to Fringe. The cast is an emerging ensemble called Roare, and since finishing my entertainment management degree, this is my first foray into producing a play. It’s a bright moment for The Dog Theatre since our sun set in the West at The Dancing Dog Café, and we just love our new joint. Wick Studios is also a sparkling new facility – and the word’s out now, because it’s our first crack as a new venue for Melbourne Fringe!

Why should someone come to your show?

To drink in some great writing, support awesome emerging artists, and in-turn benefit other outcomes programmed by The Dog Theatre at

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Full Tilt Janis

Bomb Collar Venue: Fringe Hub: Arts House - Parlour Room Dates: September 16 - September 23 (except Monday) | Time: 6.30pm | Tickets: $18 - $20

Think-pieces about ‘the death of live music’ are everywhere these days, but one Melbourne Fringe show is daring to ask what gigs might look like after the musical apocalypse. Enter Bomb Collar, a one-man black-comedy cabaret, where Nick Delatovic plays The Last Pop Singer Alive. Join our anti-hero as he tours a burnt-out world where music is an endangered resource; horded jealously by a roaming militia who use it to stir up their

increasingly sickly troops. Witness the ancient, creaky electronic instrument that acts as his band, but be warned, the explosive charge around his neck is live. “The show imagines the end game for popular music,” says Delatovic. “Pop has sustained a free market boom for a century, mostly through regular pillage of the artistic underground. Despite being a raving pop music fan it delighted me to create a world where the bubble finally burst”.

Game Boys: Free to Play

their childhood through a series of sketches and stories. Join in the fun as you get to play reenactments of your favourite classic games live on stage. So insert coin, press start, pick your character, set your difficulty and don’t forget to invert your y-axis. Pre order now for exclusive in show item and day one DLC. No need to line up at midnight ‘cos this time Game Boys is Free to Play.

Are we adults, or are we just pretending? Two children, confined to their adult bodies. Two souls, confined to the mundane structure of their everyday lives. Two dancers, confined to a 2x4.5 metre stage in a dimly lit room. Tangled Adulthood is an absurdist and satirical piece of dance and physical theatre. Two intertwined bodies ask the question: are we adults, or are we just pretending?

What happens when childlike curiosity takes over?

The mundane everyday becomes dark, funny, sexy, beautiful and grotesque: a curious journey into a parallel universe where anything is possible. A Fringe highlight, Tangled Adulthood is performed

by Kyle Davey, Stephanie Osztreicher with original music and sound performed live on stage by Josh Mitchell.

Manfül

Venue: Fringe Hub: Arts House - Warehouse Dates: September 24 - October 1 (except Monday) | Time: 9.15pm | Tickets: $20 - $25

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countless enthusiastic audiences including highly praised performances at Adelaide Fringe Festivals and standing ovations at the prestigious 2015 Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland. A show not to be missed by all Janis Joplin fans of that amazing music generation.

Venue: The Butterfly Club Dates: September 27 - October 2 | Time: 10pm | Tickets: $25 - $32

Terror Australis

Jump on the Hills Hoist of your worst nightmares, as Leah Shelton (Polytoxic, The Brides of Frank, Vegas Nocturne) takes you on a terrifying ride through the horror that is the Great Southern Land. Yes, the place where dingoes eat babies, hitchhiking is never a good idea, and just about everything will kill you. Shelton, an experienced physical performer who has taken shows around all Australia and as far afield as Las Vegas, inexplicably but seamlessly manages to mix black

Full Tilt Janis is the premier Australian Janis Joplin Tribute Show that hauntingly brings Janis Joplin back to life through the critically acclaimed vocals of Melissa Jubb and her talented band of musicians. The show captures the sound, feel and attitude of the infamous Janis Joplin as they perform her greatest hits all rolled together in one big entertaining interactive live concert experience. Full Tilt Janis has performed to

Tangled Adulthood

Venue: Tuxedo Cat - The Alley Cat Dates: September 29 - October 1 | Time: 9.45pm | Tickets: $15 - $19

Experience a show from brothers Eden and Josh with incredible ultra-realistic 3D graphics in 4k resolution running at a stable 60 fps. So realistic, it feels like you’re in the room with them. After sell out shows at this year’s Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Game Boys: Free to Play returns for three nights only. Come along for a nostalgiafilled trip through your old save games. This time you’ll guide the action as they reminisce about

Venue: The Spotted Mallard Date: September 24 | Time: 9pm | Tickets: $20

comedy, pole dancing on a washing line and sharp, witty pop culture references that will certainly make us look at ‘Strayan culture a little differently.

There are spiders, blood, the wrestling of inflatable crocodiles and – of course – beer, as Shelton hones in on Australian colonial paranoia in a show that will shock, offend and delight in equal measure.

Venue: Fringe Hub - Upstairs at Errol’s Dates: September 16 - October 1 (except Mondays) | Times: 9.15pm (Sundays 8.15pm) | Tickets: $16 - $22

Worried about that fragile masculinity of yours?

Not quite sure you know how to be a REAL man?

Want to be a high-flying business mogul, a hit with all the ladies and perfectly muscly, all at ONCE? Well, fret no more, my Y-Chromosomed friends, because Dicky Rosenthal is here.

Created by up-and-coming Melbourne comic Josh Glanc, whose debut show 99 Schnitzels (Veal Ain’t One) was named as one of Fringe’s top picks of 2015, character comedy manfül (yes, complete

Beat Magazine’s Melbourne Fringe Festival 2016 Guide

with umlaut) promises to teach you everything you need to know about the art of manhood - perhaps with questionable methods and morals along the way.

Asexual Healing

Bombshells

Belleville

Wick Studios

Known for its brilliantly stocked bar and delicious rotisserie chicken, the CBD’s Belleville, tucked away just behind Swanston Street, is playing host to plenty of Fringe shows this year - including Nic Spunde’s Asexual Healing, which SBS named as its top pick of the whole festival. The venue’s cocktail bar will transform to hold everything from cabarets to political comedy, all while you’re munching on the venue’s award winning food - duck poutine, anyone?

Theatre? Comedy? Visual Art? Music? The options are endless at Brunswick’s Wick Studios no matter what you’re into, as they host a mammoth 12 shows over the course of the festival. A must-see is Joanna Murray-Smith’s contemporary classic play Bombshells, a play of six monologues - as well as the very promising cabaret Love Letters to Fuckbois and an interactive telling of a ghost story to an audience limited to 13 people in The Curiosity Experiment.

25 Leslie Street, Brunswick

Globe Alley, CBD

PARLEY!

Butterfly Club

Festival Fortune Teller

It’s already been established as one of Melbourne’s best cabaret and comedy venues, so the Butterfly Club is sure to be the perfect venue for some stellar Fringe shows. Cabarets which tell the story of parenthood through John Farnham hits, ukulele-heavy shows and shows about dating your therapist, there’s definitely something for everyone at the Butterfly Club, secluded down an alleyway off Little Collins St.

We’ve seen your future. The results are in. You’re going to have a ripper time at Fringe, diving into some of the most brilliant, bizarre and avant-garde shows on offer. You wanna know how we know? The Festival Fortune Teller told us, that’s how. The Fortune Teller will be appearing live at the Bank Australia Ticket Booth to read your palm and advise you on what event you are destined to see, even if you don’t know it yet. Indulge in a game of chance and embrace the spirit of adventure by consulting the mysterious predictor of Fringe fortunes. Your festival future awaits.

Carson Place, Off Little Collins Street, CBD

Bank Australia Ticket Booth, City Square, Cnr Collins and Swanston Streets

Bobby Deez

Losing the Plot A Stand Up Comedy Show Sat 17th & Sun 18th Sep 6:00pm SHARP The Tickle Pit @ Fancy Hanks BBQ 456 Queen St, Melbourne VIC 3000

Tickets: $15 full, $10 Conc.

Bookings and info melbournefringe.com.au / 03 9660 9666

Meat Market, 5 Blackwood St, North Melbourne M E L B O U R N E F R I N G E . C O M . AU

Beat Magazine’s Melbourne Fringe Festival 2016 Guide

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More Fringe Goodness

There’s never been a better time to dive head first into Melbourne Fringe, with their biggest year yet on offer for 2016. Here’s a rundown of some of this year’s special programs, events and shows to get you started.

Festival Club Festival Club is party central during Fringe. Located in the Festival Hub, the Fringe Club opens and takes out the festival and plays host to all of the good times in between for free every goddamn night. Doors open at 6pm nightly (except for Sundays, where they’re thrown open at 5pm).

Fun times include Noughties by Nature – the dance club brainchild of Talia Wolfgramm (of soul queen, Wolfgramm Sisters fame) and Anna Go-Go (grand dame of Anna’s Go-Go Academy). In previous years the pair have broken festival records and dance floors with their 1992-1-Oh celebration of grunge,

flannie and all things ’90s. This year, they turn their attention to the 2000s. Bring your dance shoes and get in early – there’s no pre-booking for this baby.

We’re also loving the chance to hit the Moth StorySLAM for a chance to live our own Girls moment.

The Moth concept involves live storytelling by aspiring and established writers – but basically, anyone can have a bash. The theme for the literary throw down is “lost and found” and Moth is looking for tales of departure and redemption. Put pen to paper on the topic, BYO penned piece, stick your name in a hat and if called let rip with a five-minute recitation of your tale. Comedian Cal Wilson will do her best to keep this writers’ riot in check.

Fringe Hub While Fringe events play out all over Melbourne (yes, even in Doncaster) the heart of festival is located at North Melbourne’s Fringe Hub, taking in the retro-Soviet bloc chic of the Lithuanian Club, Arts House and Errol’s Café. Playing host to over 70 events, three bars and the Festival Club, it’s the place to be.

We’re not necessarily encouraging it, but theoretically you could just live at the Lithuanian Club during Fringe. For a start, hit the main theatre in the Lithuanian Club for some of the bigger scale

Families at Fringe Knowing that there’s nothing worse than being forced to endure a kids’ show that makes you want to kill yourself, this year’s Fringe puts a renewed emphasis on quality family programming, commissioning six shows just for the festival.

They’re so goddamn good that you’ll be borrowing kids if you don’t have access to any already.

DJ, comedian and host with the most Andrew McClelland is running a special edition of his Finishing School dance party for kids and their keepers. Knowing that kids can end up with a musical diet of Katie Perry and T-Swift if left to their own devices, McClelland is taking it upon

Spotlight Stage Hit the Spotlight Stage at Fed Square on Sunday September 18 to taste test festival favourites.

Funny bloke Josh Earl presides over events during this one-day-only affair. The lineup for the free bash includes circus and hula hoop extraordinaire

Kids VS Art Bless their hearts, kids don’t hold back: if they think something is shit, they’ll tell you. With this in mind, Fringe has lit upon the genius idea of unleashing small fry upon this year’s festival, bringing the harshest criticism and some brutal honesty to play in the Kids Vs Art podcast.

Let’s face it, grown-up editorial is skewed by all sorts of subjective factors, but kids play with a straight bat. So if you want the low down on whether or not you should see a show, have a listen to what Fringe’s junior festival-goers have

The Other Film Festival Inspired by the slogan “nothing about us without us”, this is a film festival consisting of Aussie and international films made by filmmakers who identify in the context of the disability or deaf communities. Held biannually, the program incorporates shorts, docos and talks (which explore topics including authentic casting) and has shit hot access for patrons.

Highlights include Super (a short about

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to say. The podcast will feature reviews, interviews with Fringe artists and the kids’ reflections on the festival’s program. We’re looking forward to hearing little peeps put the hard-hitting questions that politeness precludes us from asking – like, why the fuck did you think that was a good idea for a show? Sans swearing, maybe.

For a no-holds barred exposé on Fringe, listen in when new podcasts are released on Thursday September 15, 22 and 29. You can find them on the Fringe site, Soundcloud or at the Fringe Hub.

superheroes saving the day at North Fitzroy’s iconic supermarket Piedemonte), Autism in Love (a nine-minute doco about a happily married dude with autism, who can behave in a neurotypical fashion only for so long), Bruno Mars ‘The Lazy Song’ (it’s a US sign-language film clip for Mars’ song, made by all deaf cast and crew),The Quiet Ones (a 15-minute thriller about a murder at a deaf school), and Dan and Margot (a 75-minute documentary about a young woman who lost three years of her life to schizophrenia, during which time she was stalked by someone who didn’t exist outside of her head).

Open Book In 2008 Melbourne was nominated by UNESCO as a City of Literature. Damn straight, this town loves a good read. So, hip to our bent for books, this year’s Melbourne Fringe has curated a program of lit’ lovin’ events and works for the first time under the banner of Open Books.

Our curiosity levels are running super high with You Must Come Alone to Read the Last Book on Earth.

It’s an interactive reflection about the demise of print – what if all the books bar one went online?

As the name suggests, you have to experience this work solo.

For fresh views, we’ll be checking out Wild Tongue – a live performance of feminist texts, focusing on the lesser-heard voices of black, queer and underrepresented women.

Triple R host Marian Blythe’s extravaganza is also set to be a ripper. She’s convening an impro panel of some of Melbourne’s favourite musos, comedians, authors and actors to tell a one-minute tale off the cuff in Lose the Plot.

To tick your visual art quotient for the festival, have a gander at artist Anzara Clark’s frock, which she’s fashioned out of words in her work Ex Libris. Unlike the Emperor’s New Clothes, this kit can be seen – Clark has constructed the gown from recycled books.

Beat Magazine’s Melbourne Fringe Festival 2016 Guide

shows, including Damian Cowell’s Disco Machine.

Cowell, the evil mastermind behind TISM, decided he just wanted to have some disco silliness and wrote songs accordingly, which he performs with mates. In the past, he’s roped in Tim Rogers and Shaun Micallef. From the audience’s perspective it’s an all dancing, all laughing good time.

Then, work your way into some of the some of the smaller rooms, like the Loft for a spot of Fringe exploration. Try comedian Laura Davis’ confessional Marco. Polo. for all of the feels.

If you’re on babysitting duties the Kids Club is also in the Hub.

himself to educate little ears with quality tunes, including musical gems from the likes of Prince and misery makers The Smiths.

Another plus is the inclusion of cabaret diva Yana Alana in the program, who’s down for some queerfamily fun in Rainbow Cactus. Alana promises to tell some tales and perform some glittering numbers in a colourful celebration of diversity.

The Fringe Footy show is another boon for grownups. In the lead up to the big game, it’s a family-appropriate celebration of footy, circus and cereal (which’ll make sense on the day) and it’ll beat the shit of Eddie McGuire and Sam Newman’s version.

Anna “Pocket Rocket” Lumb, the award-winning Casus circus ensemble from Brisvegas (trust us – it’s circus, but not as you know it), Adam Page’s one-man, bearded band, and Mr. Snot Bottom’s family-friendly, Rik Mayall-esque gross-out: like it or not – farts are funny.

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ASK YOUR FRIENDLY FLOOR STAFF TO LET YOU friendly KNOW WHAT’S ON staff TODAY ask your floor to know what'sTICKET on for today $30let FORyou FRINGE FESTIVAL HOLDERS $38 W W Wper . b E person L L E V I L L( Eminimum - M E L b O U2R people) NE.COM Beat Magazine’s Melbourne Fringe Festival 2016 Guide

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