Hi everyone,
Kip here from Sydney Theatre Company.
I hope you're safe and well.
First of all, I wanted to say a huge thank you
to all of you who have sent through messages of support
or donations in the past few weeks.
They've meant a great deal to me and the Company.
This has been an incredibly difficult time and these messages and donations
have really kept us going.
So, thank you so very, very much.
I'm coming to you from my home and I imagine many of you
are in your homes at the moment.
And I think the most challenging aspect this period of isolation is this experience
of not getting to be together, not getting to see one another, not getting
to our family members and our friends and our co-workers.
And for us theatre lovers, not getting to see each other in the theatre.
Not getting to gave that incredibly cherished experience of artists and audience members
coming together to share stories.
And I've been reflecting upon this a lot and it feels, I think, for us theatre lovers as
if we're almost being denied our second home
in our lives: the theatre.
It's such a special place to us all.
And that experience of sharing stories is so special to us all.
And so, my team and I have been thinking a lot about 'how do we deal with this period
where we can't all be together in the theatre?'
And, in the wake of this, we have come up with a new program called Sydney Theatre Company
Virtual, which I spoke to you about in my previous video.
The first phase of which is a series of readings, by much beloved
actors, of excerpts from plays, or poems, or novels and we launched this a week and
a half ago.
So, for those of you that follow us on social media, you will have seen these
videos.
And, for those of you who haven't you can watch them below me right now which
is incredibly exciting.
In creating this particular program and curating it, we've really been
focused on material that can offer you hope and inspiration, we've looked for material
that's been created in past periods where people have been enduring quarantine but I've
also thrown open the doors to artists to pick their very favourite monologue or an excerpt
from their very favourite novel.
Something that will provide you a little bit of joy,
something that will make you smile and laugh, something that will give you a sense of
that incredibly cherished experience that we all share with each other in the theatre.
The artists that you'll see in first phase are an incredible group of performers; Shari
Sebbens our Richard Wherret Fellow kicks off the program, she'll be appearing every
week reading an excerpt from some of the great First Nations plays.
And in this first week she's joined by Helen Thomson, Kate Mulvany,
Charles Wu and Tim Minchin.
So, enjoy those videos.
I do want to, again, stress a huge thank you to all of those who have donated to the
company during this period and event hose who have not been able to but who have
sent through your love and support to us.
It really has meant a great deal.
And also to those of you who have supported the Actor's
Benevolent Fund of New South Wales.
This is an organisation that supports actors but also directors, designers, stage
managers, crews, anybody who is involved in the process of making theatre who's fallen
upon hard times.
It's such a tough time for our industry and, although many people in our
industry have been covered by the JobKeeper program, the vast majority of our
freelancers have not.
So, please support the ABF because they really need your help
right now.
It's a busy time at STC, we're continuing to commission work, to develop our work and,
of course, to produce this material in STCVirtual.
They're projects that are hand-made by our artists for you, responding to this moment,
coming from the heart and hopefully creating that incredible experience you love
so much of coming to the theatre and sharing in the story.
So, enjoy the videos, I look forward to seeing you as soon as we
can in a real theatre.
But for now, stay safe and I'll see you soon.