Wharf Theatre, Walsh bay

Go to a performance of Sydney Theatre Company at the Wharf Theatre at Walsh Bay, stroll along to the bar and restaurant at the end, and here's the view.

Terrific adaptive re-use of historic finger wharves.

Ticket collection

If I ask you to collect some tickets from the Enmore theatre, do you think you'd be able to work out from where?

Sydney Theatre

Today I went with my lovely friend Lynelle to Sydney Theatre in the Walsh Bay area to see a compendium of 5 short ballets, called Body Torque. It features new choreographers, and younger members of the Australian Ballet.

You can watch a live streaming of it on the net on Sunday (tomorrow) at 3pm Australian Eastern Standard Time. Click here.

"You outlasted the bastards!" (One Word . . .WE!)

One Word …WE! : The songs and story of Pete Seeger and friends…a musical biography by Maurie Mulheron.

In 1993, teacher – activist – musician, Maurie Mulheron, wrote a theatrical work about the life and times of iconic folk musician – activist, Pete Seeger.

The play had a sellout season at the New Theatre in Newtown, Sydney, in 2000. It has been taken on the road to folk festivals at Maleny and Woodford in Queensland, and Port Fairy in Victoria.

Most recently it was revived for three performances (June 12, 13 and 14) at the Tom Mann Theatre in Surry Hills, Sydney. The performances were a celebration of Seeger’s 90th birthday, on May 3 this year. It contained much new material. As Bruce Springsteen said at Pete's 90th birthday concert/celebration in New York (a who's who of American folk - protest - activist musicians) : "You outlasted the bastards, Pete!"

Seeger was once America’s most boycotted, banned, blacklisted and picketed singer. But Pete not only survived and at 90, still records and performs including at the recent Obama Inauguration Lincoln Memorial Concert with Bruce Springsteen, and his grandson Tao Rodriguez-Seeger. (Springsteen and Seeger sing This Land Was Made For You and Me at Barack Obama's inaguration concert)

The title? Well, many of the old union songs of the 1930s - like We Shall Overcome and We Shall Not Be Moved – started off as gospel songs ‘Jesus Is My Captain, I Shall Not Be Moved’; ‘I Will Overcome’. Instead of singing the first person singular “I”, the unionists changed just one word … “we”.

And 'The Friends'? Maurie says: "The show is not really about one singer. It's about a tradition. A tradition dating back centuries in which singers and songwriters, 'the friends', have used their skills to galvanise others to action and to provide spiritual nourishment when things looked bleak. "

For this production I was privileged to be able to provide some technical support, and enjoyed working with the talented cast and crew. The house was packed for each performance, including on the final day, a standing ovation.

Perhaps you know some of the songs Seeger, and his bands and friends have written or sung over the years?

Where Have All the Flowers Gone? (Pete Seeger and Joe Hickerson) : sung by Pete Seeger
Pastures of Plenty (words and music by Woody Guthrie) : sung by Pete Seeger
This Land Is Your Land (words and music Woody Guthrie) : sung by Bruce Springsteen, Pete, and Pete's grandson, Tao Rodriguez-Seeger
Union Maid (words Woody Guthrie, music traditional) : sung by Arlo Guthrie & Sarah-Lee Guthrie
If I Had A Hammer (words and music Lee Hays and Pete Seeger) : Peter Paul and Mary's version, and here, Arlo and Pete.
Turn! Turn! Turn! (words and music Pete Seeger) : sung by Judy Collins & Pete. And here Pete tells how he came to write it.
Waist Deep In The Big Muddy (words and music Pete Seeger) : sung by Tao Rodriquez-Seeger
Goodnight Irene ( words and music Huddie Ledbetter – Leadbelly) : The Weavers (Pete and friends Lee Hays, Fred Hellerman, Ronnie Gilbert)

If you follow any one of those links, you risk being lost forever in great folk music, as one thing leads to another....

Scorched

Back to one of my favourite places in Sydney yesterday - Belvoir Theatre. This is a section of a series of panels showing the names of some of the theatre sponsors. There's some fairly famous names amongst this lot.

The play we saw was called Scorched. The playwright is Lebanese born Wajdi Mouawad , who moved to Paris and then Quebec. He writes in French. The play was extraordinarily powerful. It was based on ideas of love and hate, breaking cycles of revenge, set during the Lebanese Civil War (though the conflict was unstated - it is relevant to many such conflicts).

There is a review here and another here if you are interested in knowing more.

Saturday afternoon

Before the performance, the bar at Belvoir Street Theatre

Billy Elliott

Off to see this production tonight.
Do you like musical theatre? What is your favourite form of the performing arts?

Como

“Como”, said the station sign. And they ran on bridges over two arms of water from the sea, and they saw what looked like a long lake with wooded shores and bungalows: a bit like Lake Como, but oh, so unlike. That curious sombreness of Australia, the sense of oldness, with the forms all worn down low and blunt, squat. The squat–seeming earth. "

- DH Lawrence, Kangaroo, 1923.

Yesterday I saw a wonderful new play, called Toy Symphony, by Australian playwright, Michael Gow. Gow grew up in southern Sydney at Como, which was indeed named after Lake Como in northern Italy. As the play was based in parts on Gow's life, we travelled to Como in several scenes of the play.

So, today, we did something I've been meaning to do for a long time - we hopped on the train and travelled the 25 minutes from our place to Como and had breakfast at the Como Marina Cafe. Then we wandered around, and walked across the old railway bridge. It's now a footbridge and cycleway, joining Oatley and Como, across the Georges River.
The railway bridge was completed in 1885

Below: Photo of railway bridge taken by Robert Hunt, 1885. Macleay Museum, Sydney.

Above: Cafe, marina and pool, taken from the bridge

After all that strenuous exercise, I cooled off with a dip in the free pool.

More pool pics here.

The Wharf Theatre

We went to the Wharf Theatre at Walsh Bay to see Sydney Theatre Company's production of The Art of War, based on the 2500 year old "manual" on war by Sun Tzu. It was magnificent, and wove together themes around the invasion of Iraq, business practice and personal relationships.


To get to the theatre, which is in a renovated finger wharf, you walk down a long corridor lined with hundreds of posters from previous STC productions. The inky black waters of Walsh Bay, and the Harbour Bridge appear through the windows every few metres...

Here's an earlier post, taken in the daytime from ground level.

Sydney Theatre Company, Wharf Theatre, Walsh Bay

Sydney Theatre Company (soon to be under the artistic direction of Cate Blanchett and her husband Andrew Upton) has several venues: Wharf 1 and 2, Sydney Theatre (opposite the Wharf) and the Drama Theatre at the Opera House. I particularly love The Wharf - a great example of re-use of older facilities (ie a finger wharf on Sydney Harbour), when it is so easy to demolish redundant buildings from an earlier age. I love the use of painted iron and wood.

Piers 4/5 at Walsh Bay serve as home to many arts companies. Apart from STC, there are rehearsal spaces and offices for various performing arts companies: Sydney Dance Company, Australian Theatre for Young People, Bangara Dance Company, Sydney Children's Choir, Sydney Philharmonia Choirs.

When you come to Sydney, make sure to enjoy some of our outstanding performing arts offerings!

Belvoir Street Theatre, Surry Hills

The resident companies at the Belvoir, Company B and B Sharp, stage some of the most innovative, moving, and thought-provoking theatre in Sydney. Sydney is very well endowed with theatres - and there is always lots happening on the stage, but performances at the Belvoir are my favourite. Many of Australia's best known actors have appeared in Belvoir productions.

Full House

Yes, we were part of tonight's full house at the Capital Theatre where we saw a fantastic show. What an amazing performer is Billy Crystal (for those who might not recognise the name, he might be best known as Harry in When Harry Met Sally). The show is a one-man play about his family and family friends. I can't tell you how much we laughed! More about the show inside the comments.

Priscilla Is A Tram

Priscilla was a bus in the hit 1994 movie , Priscilla Queen of the Desert. Now Priscilla is a stage musical, and one of Sydney's light rail trams is decorated with advertising.