Radio Gothic presents creepy tales developed through a collaborative process. In their current incarnation, the works are an experimental mix of radio play and performance, utilising live sound elements. Eventually, they will be recorded and made available as podcasts.
For Dark Mofo 2016 Radio Gothic transformed the Peacock Theatre into a nightmarish prison to present their first play, Episode 1: The Pit.
Telling the tale story of a young woman sent to solitary confinement whose fears threaten to overwhelm her, The Pit is part of a planned series of works (episodes 2, 3 and 4 are in development). Featuring young actor Katie Roberston (Rosehaven, The Kettering Incident)The Pit challenged the audience to 40 minutes durational suspense.
Heath Brown spoke to Melanie Tait on Statewide Evenings about the June 2016 production (listen below).
(audio used with thanks to ABC Local Radio – Tasmania):
Briony Kidd : Playwright / Producer
Briony Kidd is a Tasmanian-based writer and director and a graduate of the VCA Film School in Melbourne. She has written and/or directed short films that have screened around the world, including the acclaimed short animation Sam and Piccolo and the Gothic melodrama The Room at the Top of the Stairs. She recently directed the short thriller Watch Me and is attached to an as-yet-untitled horror anthology feature film produced by Unicorn Films and supported by Screen Tasmania. Briony also writes and directs theatre: recently a full-length play for Tasmanian Theatre Company in 2011, Death By Television, and a site-specific work for Salamanca Arts Centre’s Space Invaders event in 2012. In addition to her own creative pursuits, Briony is the artistic director of the Stranger With My Face Horror Film Festival, a showcase of new genre films directed by women and a cross-disciplinary mini-con. She’s also a freelance arts writer and reviewer.
Alison Mann : Playwright
Alison Mann is a playwright based in Hobart, Tasmania. Her piece Baby/Doll was performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2004 and selected for the 3DFest showcase at the Malthouse Theatre in 2005. In 2006 she received a First Draft Award from PLAYWORKS in Sydney and in 2008 was awarded the Melbourne Dramatists Emerging Playwright Award, supported by MTC, for Tabula Rasa! at the Melbourne Fringe. Her play She’s Not Performing had a sell-out season at La Mama in 2010, directed by Kelly Somes, and a new production directed by Belinda Bradley was part of the Tasmania Theatre Company’s 2013 season. Alison studied writing for performance at the Royal Court Theatre and Soho Theatre in London and is currently undertaking a development program with Blue Cow Theatre. She is interested in the interaction of language, physicality and visual theatre, and themes of gender and the forgotten places between childhood and adulthood.
Carrie McLean : Playwright / Performer
Carrie is a founding member of Mudlark Theatre. She graduated with a BPA (Theatre) from UTAS in 1997 and has had 13 years of experience performing, directing and writing in regional Tasmania. Companies include Mudlark, SSYT, Tasmania Performs, Tas Theatre Company, Theatre North, Second Storey Theatre, Streets Alive, BITco Productions, Bell Productions, and Centr Stage. Her writing credits for Mudlark Theatre include Strange Fruit as part of Dancing Back Home, an epic continent-wide collaboration with JUTE Theatre in Cairns; The Fools of Fire in the 2008 season; and Cafe, which toured Tasmanian schools and colleges in 2007. She also wrote and directed the short film New Skin, awarded a WiFT Award for Emerging Artist. Carrie wrote Chasing a Sound Like Rain, a youth theatre project for SSYT which was performed as part of the Ten Days on the Island Festival in 2011. She also writes for television and film.
Heath Brown : Composer / Sound Designer
Heath Brown is an Australian composer with a strong focus on collaborative projects. His work ranges from film and TV to performing arts and installation. He has written scores for three feature films (Chocolate Strawberry Vanilla, 41 and El Monstro Del Mar!) and over 40 shorts and his film work has been recognised throughout the world with a number of awards for original music composition, including the award for Best Original Score at the 2012 Maverick Movie Awards for his score to 41. He also composed the score for the multi-award winning web series Noirhouse (funded by Screen Australia, Screen Tasmania and the ABC). Heath has written extensively for the theatre, notably for Terrapin Puppet Theatre (Big Baby, The Waltzing Tree) and Tasmanian Theatre Co. (Born From Animals, The Boy With the Longest Shadow, Poxed). His work has appeared in a number of arts festivals including Ten Days on the Island (Poxed) and DarkMOFO (The Geometry of Innocent Flesh on the Bone – a collaborative installation work with Oscar Ferreiro). Heath has also written music for television and radio commercials, winning the 2012 Tasmanian Advertising Design Awards category of Best Original Music. Heath holds a BA (Philosophy) and BMus (Composition) from UTAS, where he now lectures in several specialised units including Music for Vision and Fundamentals of Sonic Art.
Jason James : lighting Designer / Creative Consultant
Jason James is a Tasmanian based artist, lighting designer, video designer, curator, teacher, technician, production manager, rigger, musician, father, student, tinker, performer, improviser, stage manager, database developer, curator, network administrator (retired), vision systems operator, lighting operator, sound engineer, gamer, and forum administrator. Recent artworks include Instill v1, v2, and v3 (Live Art at Light Box Gallery, Peacock Theatre, Old Hobart Penitentiary Chapel), Death of the Actroid (solo exhibition at Rat Palace Pop Up Gallery), Lego Head on Statue of David (Penny Contemporary Artists for Bushfire Relief), Bulb (with Scott Cotterell at Kelly’s Garden), and Kill Machine (group exhibition at Inflight for Touchy Feely). Recent lighting design credits include Shadow Dreams Terrapin Puppet Theatre, The Shipwright and the Banshee Joshua Santospirito and Chris Downes, The Barbarians IHOS Opera, Hungry For You Extended Play Projects (Lighting and Video Design), and Sleeping Horses Lie Terrapin Puppet Theatre.
Hilary Bell : Dramaturg
Hilary Bell writes for stage, radio, screen and music theatre. Plays include Wolf Lullaby (Griffin, Atlantic, Steppenwolf), Fortune, The Falls (Griffin Theatre), The Anatomy Lesson of Doctor Ruysch, Memmie Le Blanc (Vitalstatistix, Deckchair), Open-Cut (WAAPA), The Mysteries: Genesis (Sydney Theatre Company), The Bloody Bride (NORPA) and Angela’s Kitchen (with Paul Capsis and Julian Meyrick). She has written libretti for musicals (The Wedding Song, comp. Douglas Stephen Rae), song cycles (Talk Show, comp. Elena Katz-Chernin), opera (Mrs President, comp. Victoria Bond) and for Phillip Johnston’s score to Murnau’s silent film Faust, premiered at the New York Film Festival. The White Divers of Broome, for Black Swan State Theatre, has recently played at the Perth International Festival. Hilary is a member of the playwrights’ company 7-On, and a recipient of the Philip Parsons Young Playwrights’ Award, Jill Blewitt Playwrights’ Award, Bug’n’Bub Award, Aurealis Award for Fiction, the Eric Kocher Playwrights’ Award, the 2007 Inscription Award and an AWGIE for Music Theatre. She is a graduate of the Juilliard Playwrights’ Studio, NIDA, and the Australian Film, Television and Radio School. She was the 2003-04 Tennessee Williams Fellow in Creative Writing at the University of the South in Tennessee. She is a director on the Griffin Board, and on artistic advisory panels for Griffin and the Production Company, New York. Hilary also works as a playwriting teacher, mentor and dramaturg.
THE 2016 DARK MOFO PRODUCTION:
Episode 1: The Pit opens 9 pm 15 June in the Peacock Theatre, Salamanca Arts Centre, runs until 18 June.
Episode 1: The Pit
Presented by Radio Gothic, HyPe and Salamanca Arts Centre in association with Dark Mofo
Produced by Heath Brown and Briony Kidd
Sound design by Heath Brown
Written by Briony Kidd (with input from Heath Brown and the creative development cast of Katie Robertson, Sara Cooper, Carrie McLean and Craig Irons)
Lighting design by Jason James
Directed by Briony Kidd
Performed by Katie Robertson, Carrie McLean, Karissa Lane and Craig Irons
Co-produced by Alison Man and Carrie Mclean
The show is approximately 40 minutes in duration.
Peacock Theatre, Salamanca Arts Centre
9 pm, 15 – 18 June 2016
This work was developed through HyPe and the RAWspace program which was supported by the Theatre Royal, Tasmania Performs and Ten Days on the Island. A showing of it was presented at the Theatre Royal Backspace in 2015.