Wednesday, November 4

The Gorge '09 back story....

Daisy Brown and Chris Drummond are the artistic directors of Gorge '09.  As director-in-residence at the  Adelaide University Theatre Guild. Chris created an event called Brewed, a sort of instant theatre. It was focussed on collaboration in much the same way as Brink works now, with all the creative teams brought together on an equal footing then working together to each create a piece of theatre within 24 hours - concept, script, development, rehearsal and performance. Brewed was exciting, exhilarating and completely exhausting. Only some lived to tell the tale and Daisy Brown was one of them!

Chris moved to Sydney and the Theatre Guild approached Daisy to restage the event. She refused as it had almost killed her! But took the basic concept and improved it. She changed the focus to interpretation, developed the idea of 1 writer's work being interpreted by 2 very different companies, wrote some guidelines and created a spectacularly exciting event called GORGE.

GORGE has had several very successful incarnations over the years and in 2008 Chris asked Daisy [now of 'The Misery Children'] if Brink Productions could present GORGE '09 as part of our FEED program. He saw this as an opportunity for Brink to give back to the community, to provide an opportunity for emerging writers and independent artists and small companies to be spotlighted. Daisy was thrilled that GORGE would get another outing and was excited to develop new aspects to the event with Chris.

Brink committed its team and a substantial amount of resources from its core funding, sought and secured philanthropic support from Sidney Myer Fund toward the event and partnered with Adelaide Festival Centre's inSPACE program. Additional philanthropic support from  the Mabel & Franklyn Barrett Trust Fund will give opportunities for disadvantaged theatre-goers to attend GORGE '09 as well.

Over the next couple of weeks Brink Blogger will post bits n pieces from Daisy and Chris and others involved in GORGE '09.

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