Monday, 12 November 2012

Me and My Ladies


I’ve always loved working with women. Let’s be honest, I’ve always preferred having female friends. I always told my Mum I don’t think I would have survived if I had to go to a boy’s school. Women just get me, and I seem to get them. (No wonder I’ve had such a chequered history dating men – until now). So a few years ago I created a show with a whole pile of women. 16 to be exact. Called “Hell Hath No Fury”, it was a big success for my company and I still list it as one of the favourite productions I’ve done.

Now all these years later, I am taking this massive journey again. With 16 amazing Melbourne actresses, we are entering week 2 of “Hell Hath No Fury”. And what a great time it has been again. These are wonderful ladies with some big talent. I already had a number of close friends in the cast, some of my closest friends in the world. Always great to spend that extra time with them. Then there’s the new ladies I met. Many will end up as good friends, you can always tell. Sounds like a love in, and it is, have had a great time with this show.


I was recently criticised by a woman because a man wrote this show. Should that be an issue? Why isn’t a man allowed to create a piece exclusively for ladies. Because I’m a man, does that really mean I can’t write a female character? I wrote for a killer once and didn’t go out and kill someone to find out how my character felt. I’ve never had sex with a woman, does that mean I can’t write straight men? And so forth. I think I get women just fine! This is a fun piece with a messages thrown in for good measure. There’s very few all female shows out there, so I’m going to continue to be proud to create this opportunity.

Independent theatre is getting harder and harder to publicise. With print media getting smaller and Facebook now wanting to charge for you to get your post to all your followers, it’s a bloody tough business. So if you’re in Melbourne, please come see this show. If you have friends, let them know about it. Let’s keep independent theatre alive and support this bloody good show that’s all about the ladies!

Show details and tickets: www.revoltproductions.com 

Sunday, 11 November 2012

1 Way to Help 37 Ways



I’m making a feature film. Cue excited scream, then the nervous whimper. I’ve been doing theatre for so long, this is a genuinely and exciting idea. Naturally it’s an adaption of one of my plays, “37 Ways To Say I’m Gay”. It played earlier this year at Downstairs at Alma’s for Midsumma and was quite the unexpected success. After my wonderful co-star, friend and now co-producer Perri Cummings said, “This would make a great film”, an idea was born. We shook hands, she was co-producing and I was directing.

We shot a teaser a few months back and it got us all excited for what was coming. With 25 different stories and over 100 actors, this is going to be a major undertaking. We’re planning on shooting this little Indy feature as cheaply as possible, but we still need a fair bit, especially for the scenes set in the past. There’s even a scene during World War II in the trenches with gun fire and many wounded soldiers in costume.

This is an important story for me. As a proud gay man, I worry we don’t do enough to tell truly Australian gay stories. While acceptance seems to be getting better, we still have politicians too scared to seriously talk about gay marriage and equal rights. I can’t stand on the sidelines anymore, I need to take a stand. I want to tell this story because it seems like a great way to get wider acceptance. One of the first things people often ask you is about how you came out, well here’s a whole film about it.

Plus, we need more chances for our great actors and crews to work on stories with heart, and here is a great chance. I am chomping at the bit to shoot this next year.

So here’s where I stand, asking, very nicely, if you can please click the link to our Indie GoGo page, watch our fun little trailer and please donate some money. Any amount helps. While there is still over 100 days before it closes, I’m really looking to kick it off with some more funds.

Your help will truly be appreciated.