Get Your Fresh Producer Daily here!

Hi everyone,

This is where I'm going to share my (mis)adventures as a producer in London. It's also my first adventure into the world of blogging - you can practically hear the shackles of my hitherto closely guarded 'privacy' dropping to the floor with a clang. A bit strange writing for a potentially diverse audience but let's  see how I go....

My first week at ETT has been exciting and varied. Within a few hours of starting on my first day, I found myself wearing a hard hat and high-vis jacket standing a concrete bunker that is to be a new theatre near Westminster! The theatre auditorium, designed by Tim Foster, will I think look a lot like the Melbourne Arts Centre.

The next day I found myself a fly on the wall at a Theatre Managers Association meeting in Drury Lane Theatre Royal!

The feeling among theatre producers and managers is that the near future is looking grim. In the current economic climate they are all anticipating funding cuts of at least 10%. For some of the theatre managers who spoke at the meeting, this would mean they would need to sacrifice entire programs (most said their education and access programs would be the first to go) and come up with inventive ways to continue other programs. One manager gave the example of a new role that had been created at his theatre called 'House Manager and Digital Content Strategist' (ushers who use facebook apply here!).

Interestingly, the managers of regional theatres who spoke pointed out that while their local funding bodies - mostly the councils - were poised to pull the rug out from under them, the same councils were still publishing tourist brochures with their theatres on the cover as the major local attraction!

I haven't yet gauged if the level of pessimism was warranted or could be a bit of a cultural thing - you know, the way people here always talk about how it might be sunny now but rain is forecast all week!

Lovesong at the Albany in Deptford

The second day ended in Deptford at the ETT show that is coming to the end of its UK tour this weekend. Lovesong is one man show incorporating beautiful soul into a monologue of an oddly charismatic man. The house was packed and the audience was really involved - gasping and laughing and jumping to their feet at the end! Can't wait to see the next offering by ETT which opens in Coventry in a few weeks.

Finally, got a half-price ticket to  A Disappearing Number last night at the Novella Theatre (apparently it was called something else before Cameron Mackintosh bought it - imagine being able to rename a theatre!). The show had received such a good wrap when it was in Sydney so I was really looking forward to it. Beautiful physical performances and great use of multimedia. I probably just wasn't in the right mood to submit to the trickery of the narrative. It felt a bit like when a magician says 'look nothing up my sleeve'  while you know they've got a poor rabbit hidden in their armpit.




OK that's enough for now. Thanks for your patience while I get the hang of this blog thing!

More soon.