I am in the process of making a multi-sensorial theatre work based on a text I wrote a few years ago The Engineer in the Snow: a fantastical erotic fugue for planet Earth. It will be presented at Theatre Works in December and has a creative development in June-July, which is very soon!

Right now in preparation, I am doing a lot of dreaming and thinking, working with producer Kat Carrington to pull it all together, and switching my brain over from ‘writer’ to ‘director’ with the incredible sense of possibility that comes with having the freedom to edit and interpret the text as I wish, with an incredible team bridging performance, sound, visual media and design. I am so excited to be working with such incredible artists to bring this work to life after many years, and incredibly nervous as it approaches.

Images from creative development on Zoom- Emily Tomlins

After a number of small and incremental developments we are coming together in June and July for our first full on the floor process. Bul (Deden Bulqini) my friend and collaborator over 10 years will be joining us from Indonesia. Kat Carrington has been an incredible producer bringing it all together. Working with Cole McKenna again makes me feel secure as they have such a creative mind which bridges the technical and creative aspects. We credit Cole as ‘Creative Logistics’ for this reason, starting with our project ‘Surat-suratnya’ in 2023. And coming back to work on this with the amazing Emily Tomlins and Darius Kedros feels like such an honour. We worked on this during COVID lock downs on zoom, and it was quite a fun time. How incredible to bring it to life finally. And working again with designer Emily Barrie, who not only is a lovely friend and someone who always makes me feel seen as an artist, however weird I am, but also who is an incredible designer.

This celebration of the erotic voice in relation to our beautiful planet feels so timely. Around the world we see the erotic voice is silenced and subjugated to the male gaze. At the same time our planet is being destroyed by carelessness and incompetence, by greed and a vying of control between ideological forces, a refusal to breathe in our humanity and celebrate the feminine. This work is an antidote to that. It feels so important.

The biggest challenge for me is to go slow as we approach working across forms, to allow space for each form to be present in the context of this work, yet in interaction with all the other elements. Letting the process unfold in a way which creates enough space for each individual element to find it’s place while a schedule needs to be made and rehearsal venues to be confirmed, people’s time locked in, and equipment organised is not easy. This is a big challenge for me. It’s difficult even to look at a schedule. It makes me anxious. Especially when there are still unknowns and factors to fall into place, such as funding. But looking at constraints and figuring how to work within them is also part of the creative process and actually helps me to imagine how it will unfold. So this will be my focus over the next couple of weeks. Pulling together a schedule, and figuring out what is needed for each step of the way, along with Kat, who is so good at this sort of stuff. I am so grateful to her for being on board this project. I truly feel honoured that she and the team believe in this work in such a way that they have given their time and energy to bringing it to life over a number of years. And with so far one grant from the Rodney Seabourne Foundation, here’s to more funding support falling into place. We are working on a wing and a prayer. Please support us, and come and see this work which I know will be amazing, at Theatre Works, in St Kilda, Melbourne, in December this year.