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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2016-03-23 Daily Xml
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Flinders University Drama Graduates

Ms BEDFORD (Florey) (15:06): Flinders University recently celebrated a golden milestone for its School of Drama. I attended an event on behalf of the Premier and the Minister for Arts called 'Flinders 50s Creatives', which was MC'd by Douglas Gautier, with the Vice Chancellor, Professor Colin Stirling, in attendance. It is an exhibition at the Festival Theatre highlighting some of the people who have left Flinders and have gone on to make their mark in theatre, film, TV, communications, digital media, and other creative industries.

Household names like Noni Hazlehurst; Kim Dalton, OAM, of Muriel's Wedding and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert fame; Helen Leake of Black and White fame, Closer Productions; Annie Fox, screenwriter; Alex Reid, arts administrator; Mario Andreacchio, who made Napoleon and The Dragon Pearl; Melanie Vallejo, who is now starring in Winners & Losers; film composer Martin Armiger; and, of course, John Schumann of Redgum—just to name a few.

Another less well known graduate is Joanne Hartstone, a South Australian theatre producer, professional actor, theatre director and teacher, who is involved with the wonderful Modbury High School. In her 10 years since graduating with Honours from Flinders University Drama Centre, she has made her mark on the international theatre scene by producing over 60 plays in New York, London, Edinburgh, and here in Adelaide, and performing in even more films, TV shows, and stage productions.

The 2016 Adelaide Fringe marked Joanne's 10th consecutive year of being a participating artist. She ran two venues: The Queen's Theatre (the oldest theatre on mainland Australia), and the Noel Lothian Hall in the Adelaide Botanic Gardens. The Queen's Theatre was awarded Best New Venue by The Advertiser, and the Noel Lothian Hall was home to the award-winning: The Bunker Trilogy, which Joanne also co-produced and presented. It was named Best Return Season by The Advertiser, and won the Adelaide Critic's Circle Weekly Choice Award. The magnificent set was brought to life by starring artists Bebe Saunder, Hayden Wood, Jonathan Mathews, and Sam Donnelly.

Joanne produced Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood at the Norwood Concert Hall with Guy Masterson, and the Pulitzer Prize-nominated monologue Thom Pain (based on nothing), at The German Club, with David Calvitto. At The Queen's, she presented What Would Spock Do?, with Sam Donnelly, and The Flanagan Collective, which also featured Alexander Wright, Wilfred John Nash Petherbridge, Holly Beasley-Carrigan, and Dominic Allen. They were named the Best Collective of the Fringe by The Advertiser, remarking that it felt like the Fringe of old. Joanne also produced South Australian performer Delia Olam in 'Just let the wind untie my perfumed hair…' or Who is Tahirih?, which Joanne is now hoping to export to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August.

Joanne supervised and presented an ensemble of over 20 South Australian teenagers to create the play A Minute in the Schoolyard. The show was entirely devised, directed, written, operated and performed by students at Actors Ink aged between 13 and 18 years of age. The young performers celebrated their first Fringe with a sold-out season and very positive reviews. As well as hosting six other productions at the Queen's Theatre, Joanne also took to the stage this Fringe to perform with South Australian company Waxing Lyrical in a new play by Adelaide playwright Liam Ormsby called The Storm, also to excellent reviews which were well earned by her knock-out performance.

Joanne's work in the Adelaide Fringe over 10 years has been impressive and prolific. She has brought many international companies to Adelaide to show us their productions and, as a South Australian practitioner appearing on international platforms, Joanne has proudly promoted the quality of theatre coming from our state. But her career path is not clearly defined: there is no corporate ladder she can climb and the risk involved in her work means Joanne's longevity in the industry is precarious.

There was much talk in the media this year about the difficulties of producing and performing in the Adelaide Fringe, with many artists decrying audiences and the Fringe organisation for a lack of ticket sales. Joanne tells me this issue has been building for years, with the theatre genre in particular suffering dwindling ticket numbers, even with the highest-quality five-star shows. Whilst this might indicate a natural development of audience tastes over time, lack of audience growth in proportion to the size of the Fringe Festival does not help the arts industry. It has a huge financial impact on South Australian creatives, as our best practitioners nearly always leave the state, and often the country at times, in order to work in the performing arts and earn a basic wage.

Joanne is passionate in her belief that we need to help grow audiences by carefully planning tourism campaigns and look at spreading out festivals so there is not as much competition for the finite audiences we do have. It makes business sense for our state, our economy and our citizens to review and to maximise the buzz and make sure the scheduling sees that we do the best we can to assist artists. We also need to properly support young entrepreneurs in the arts like Joanne so government funds are not the only way they are able to create viable works here in South Australia. South Australia is rightly a proud festival state, and we have fostered and continue to inspire incredibly vibrant, talented practitioners. Let's keep supporting independent producers so our arts ecosystem can continue to thrive.

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