Performing arts
Broadcast rule change saves (some) Fringe, brings back live music
A change in lockdown rules will be seized upon by artists desperate to ‘pivot’ their Fringe festival shows online.
- by Nick Miller
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Keep the gags coming: where to find your lockdown LOLs online
Have you heard the joke about Australian comedians making stand-up work, even when they’re sitting down?
- by Mikey Cahill
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Arts
$5m rescue for Melbourne Theatre Company at ‘imminent risk’
The rescue package comes from a federal government fund directed to major arts organisations deemed in need of a “last resort” cash lifeline due to COVID.
- by Nick Miller
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Arts
‘No jab, no play’ for theatre performers
A Sydney show has become the first Australian theatre production to force performers to get the jab.
- by Nick Galvin and Linda Morris
Digging for Led, Australian researchers strike rock ‘n’ roll gold
Thanks to some determined sleuthing, a little luck and even some divine intervention, a long-lost interview with Led Zeppelin has resurfaced in Australia.
- by Nick Galvin
Billy Bragg is still angry - this time about COVID
An urge to fight the pandemic blues and disdain for those fighting collective responses to COVID spurred the English singer-songwriter to make his first studio album in eight years.
- by Michael Bailey
In Europe’s arts nirvana, Kosky nurtures a new epic for Australia
Melbourne-born superstar opera director Barrie Kosky has been working at the Berlin opera, where nobody lost a job or their salary during the pandemic.
- by Steve Dow
The funeral service for shows killed by the pandemic
Director and performer Lily Fish felt that all the plays, performances and songs lost to the pandemic needed an “end of life service”. So she made one.
- by Nick Miller
Live performance may wait until 2022, need 85 per cent capacity to reopen
The peak body warned governments will need to “fund the gap” if venues are forced to operate at reduced capacity.
- by Andrew Taylor
Selling homes, living on food vouchers: Performers suffering in long lockdown
The lockdowns in Sydney and Melbourne have pushed performers to their limits. This is how they describe the financial and emotional toll of the COVID-19 crisis and repeated lockdowns.
- by Andrew Taylor
Hundreds of shows cut from Fringe as lockdown reality hits
The Melbourne Fringe will lose 90 per cent of the program it announced only a week ago. But some digital-only shows will still go on.
- by Nick Miller