Shh’s Blind, As You See It, featuring as part of Crack 2010

The title of this post is the whole story. It’s true, it’s real, the program for this year’s Crack Theatre Festival has been published, on this very website.

Since emerging in 2009, Crack has taken its place as the sullen teenage goth in the This Is Not Art family, cheating on its Maths assignment while drinking cask wine in an underpass. In 2010, join us for a very special coming of age celebration at the Crackhouse on King Street from 30 September – 3 October as we unleash a blistering program of performances, gigs, panels, forums, workshops and interventions by an array of Australia’s most creative and accomplished theatre artists, including Sisters Grimm, The Last Tuesday Society, Shh, and The Masters of Space and Time.

Check out the full schedule of events on the Program page, or have a butcher’s at this year’s lineup on the Artists page. Do it all, do it right now!

The Masters of Space and Time’s Up to your Arse in Alligators, featuring as part of Crack 2010

Exciting times! The program for this year’s Crack has been finalised, confirmed, and we are safe and snug in our VERY OWN BRAND NEW VENUE, about which we will tell you more soon. Along with all the other This Is Not Art festivals, Crack is preparing to launch its program on this website on the glorious date of AUGUST 9!

In the meantime, Crack is the subject of discussion on the internet this month (and not in relation to any criminal or civil court cases!). National magazine for youth performing arts Lowdown this month features an article on the Crack Theatre Festival, written by none other than outgoing co-director David Finig. And as you’d expect from Finig, it falls somewhere between serious reportage and Livejournal confessional.

From the darkness of the truck’s interior, a pale ghostly shape lurched forward into the light. In the harsh glare of the floodlights, the shape resolved itself into a tall figure dressed in a loincloth and smeared white paint, a constellation of glowing LEDs bound to his skull with sticky-tape. Lifting a megaphone to its mouth, the figure barked: ‘I’M SUSAN SARANDON! I WAS IN THELMA AND LOUISE!’ As a DJ concealed in the back of the truck began to play, the megaphone-wielding creature loomed over the crowd shrieking that he was married to Tim Robbins and asking the crowd, “What famous movies have you been in?”

Check it out at Lowdown Online, or simply sit closer to the fire and blow on your hands, waiting in tense anticipation for the truth to be revealed: what will happen at Crack this year?

Alright, Crack is gearing up for a blistering second year: we have an extraordinary program of performances, panels, forums, workshops, parties and (ahem) special events, featuring a diverse array of Australia’s most accomplished theatre-makers, performing artists and professional deviants. We’re dusting off the last wood shavings from the program, and there’ll be more information up on this page for you in the near future.

In the meantime, we have some extremely exciting news: Crack has a new director! Joining current co-directors David Finnigan and Gillian Schwab, we are pleased to welcome the inestimable Ben Packer as director for 2010-11.

Ben runs the independent theatre company ‘little death productions’. Most recently, he directed Strangers in Between by Tommy Murphy (Store Room, 2009), Motortown by Simon Stephens (Griffin Stablemates, 2008) and Mercury Fur by Philip Ridley (Theatreworks & Griffin Stablemates, 2007).

Ben will direct the 2010 festival along with David and Gillian, then following David and Gillian’s departure, Crack will recruit a new director to join Ben in 2011. The position of 2011-12 co-director will be advertised on this site from October, so keep your eyes peeled.