33 POSTCARDS FROM HEAVEN USTRAYLIA
33 POSTCARDS FROM HEAVEN USTRAYLIA – a novel correspondence
2005
ISBN: 9780646436265
All Joe Deegan ever wanted was a quiet, simple life in a reasonably organic environment. So naturally he comes to HEAVEN UStraylia seeking healing, enlightenment and a little lie down on an unspoilt beach – where it finally dawns on him that, while life could be completely miraculous, time remained unbearably short. And with expensive guidance from his accountant/guru things were going really well … until the occasion of Joe’s 50th birthday. In quick succession he nearly drowns in the surf, virtually throws away an undemanding, well paid job, and almost destroys the perfect relationship. When it looks as though his modest fibro cottage is about to be swamped by dozens of pink and lilac cluster town houses, the beautiful birthday starts to go seriously pear shaped…
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REALLY MOVING DRAMA
REALLY MOVING DRAMA – taking theatre for a ride
2013
ISBN: 9781534866751
Really Moving Drama began as a PhD thesis examining the site-specific revolution that occurred in theatre performance in Melbourne throughout the 1980s. From 1979 to the early 1990s a number of small, professional companies took theatre out of dedicated buildings into places where their audiences lived, worked, travelled and played. Deriving from independent filmmaking, ‘happenings’ and political street theatre, these self-described ‘location plays’ were performed on busses, trams, and riverboats, as well as in tents, houses, cinemas, pubs, galleries, prisons, parks and gardens. What became known through 8 iterations as “The Tram Show” was staged over a dozen years on light-rail vehicles in both Melbourne and Adelaide, trambulating a total distance that would have taken its combined nightly audiences halfway around the world. These early forms of site-specific theatre immersed spectators in their places of performance in ways that liberated a whole suite of new sensations – beyond sight and hearing – to include touch, taste, smell, balance etc. In this way they moved the ‘art of theatre’ into literally new territory.Here the practice broke through not only theatre’s 4th wall (between stage and audience), but the 5th wall (between individual audience members) and 6th walls as well (between the play as a whole and a random outside audience sometimes looking back in). In the example of the Tram, Bus, and Boat Shows spectators could even witness the events of the play through a kind of 7th wall: that of their own reflection in the vehicle’s night-time window: watching themselves watch the play as it spread from its ‘really moving’ stage out onto the streets beyond…
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https://www.dymocks.com.au/book/really-moving-drama-by-paul-davies-9781534866751
SMOKE IN MIRRORS
SMOKE IN MIRRORS – screenwriters admit to make-believe
2020
ISBN: 9780648599883
Smoke In Mirrors examines the art of screenwriting through a series of interviews with some of the key players in the Australian film and television industry. Originally published in Metro, Cinema Papers and Cantrill’s Filmnotes these authors talk about where their ideas come from and how they manage to put words on a page for the purpose of producing moving images – sometimes with dialogue.
Keith Thompson (The Sapphires, Clubland, Homicide) tries to conjure a “three dimensional image dancing”. Peter Yeldham (Ride On Stranger, Age of Consent) agrees it’s “all in your mind”. For Mark Shirrefs (The Girl From Tomorrow, Spellbinder) it’s about a “different way of looking at things”. Andrew Knight (Seachange, Rake) strives to get to “the heart of the matter”. Roger Simpson (Good Guys, Bad Guys, Stingers, Something In the Air)searches for the “story engine”. John Hughes (What I have Written, After Mabo) works between “fact and fiction”. Everett de Roche (Patrick, Long Weekend)claims to be “only the writer”. For Shane Maloney (Stiff, The Brush Off) the stories are always about “crime, politics and the girl.” And Elizabeth Huntly (Neighbours, Something In the Air) quite literally “hears voices”.
All nine writers are talking about the art of make-believe, of ‘holding the mirror up’ – with sometimes a bit of smoke in the way. All were key players in a revival of Australian film and ‘teledrama’ that started in the early 1970s and continues to this day.
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STAGING THE WORLD
STAGING THE WORLD – theatre in the ‘space’ age
2020
ISBN: 9780648599890
STAGING THE WORLD is a collection of essays about plays produced in real places. These “site specific productions were inspired by political street theatre, independent filmmaking and a desire to take theatre away from dedicated theatre buildings. They took place on trams and boats, in pubs and cinemas, parks and gardens, tents and houses. They also took Shakespeare’s idea of “all the world” being “a stage” quite literally and were part of a revolution in theatre practice that occurred in Melbourne during the 1980s.
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A SHORT HISTORY OF THEATREWORKS
A SHORT HISTORY OF THEATREWORKS (1979 – 1994)
2020
ISBN: 9780648900207
A Short History of Theatreworks presents an illustrated chronology of the first dozen years of this small but remarkable theatre company that grew out of Victoria’s community theatre movement at the beginning of the 1980s and continues to support local, original theatre from its home base in the Acland Street Parish Hall in St. Kilda. TheatreWorks first gained a reputation for innovative performance styles in 1982 with their revolutionary production of Storming Mont Albert by Tram – the world’s first play on a moving tram. What became known as The Tram Show was subsequently reproduced seven times on trams in both Melbourne and Adelaide and lead to the creation of a number of other ground breaking site-specific plays in riverboats, pubs and cinemas, mansions, boarding houses, parks, tents and gardens.
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https://www.booktopia.com.au/a-short-history-of-theatreworks-paul-m-davies/book/9780648900207.html