MEDIA RELEASE

ELASTIC: Stretching Boundaries Between Suburbs and Centres

Released 9 January 2004

Information and Cultural Exchange
PO Box 4033 Parramatta NSW 2124 Australia
T: +61(2) 9897 5744 / F: +61(2) 9897 5766

10-minute dramas by 6 new writers (10X6)

Six new writers will present a montage of stories about life in Western Sydney at Parramatta Riverside Theatres from 22 to 24 January in ELASTIC, a program of ten-minute dramas.

The six plays, each of which is intensely different and yet intimately connected, bind together like elastic – expanding and contracting as they connect individual and collective tales of life in the suburbs, real and imagined memories and desires. Produced by contemporary arts organisation Information and Cultural Exchange (ICE) in partnership with Parramatta Riverside Theatres, ELASTIC will run for five performances only.

Director Deborah Pollard and emerging director Claudia Chidiac team up with dramaturgs Julieanne Campbell, Katia Molino and Barry Gamba. The cast of six performers works as an ensemble in a program that varies from the comic to the lyrical, featuring actors Valerie Berry, Brian Fuata, Nicole Barakat, Scott Moon, Kathy Luu and Juan Carlos Martinez.

“The discipline of 10 minutes ensures the plays are succinct and lean. These are plays that will surprise and inspire,” said director Deborah Pollard.

In Thao Nguyen’s ‘Living Room’ a Vietnamese girl who grew up listening to her mother on a sewing machine, completing garments for 25 cents a sample, can’t go shopping without being overwhelmed by the number of stitches in a t-shirt. “This was the first play I have ever written and to have it performed is a great privilege, said 23 year-old Nguyen. “My story touches on my own experiences as a migrant living in the Bankstown area. The opportunity to work with professional dramaturgs, directors and actors has taught me a great deal about writing professionally and I hope it encourages other young people to articulate their stories through creative expression.”

Paschal Berry’s ‘Conversations Through The Wall’ tells the tale of a Filipino-Australian marriage where the appearance of matrimonial bliss is dismantled like a game of mah-jong, revealing the secrets and deceptions in this cross-cultural marriage. Jonathan Nanlohy’s ‘How Things Change’ represents a dramatic and symbolic journey where two men in an emergency ward at Blacktown Hospital become passengers on a voyage that started centuries ago in the war canoes of the Moluccas.

ELASTIC is part of the 10×6 program that has been running since 1996. “2004 is the first year that 10×6 has been held in Western Sydney, yet so many of the writers and the works over the past 8 years included writers and actors from this region,” said initiator of 10×6 and 2004 Project Producer, Barry Gamba. “10×6 has always nurtured new work by emerging writers from culturally diverse backgrounds. This year’s theme was about those retractable boundaries between cities and suburbs”, he said.

“This kind of writing is re-defining Australian performance and drama,” said ICE Chairperson Heidi Freeman. “These stories of living Australian culture are rarely given the opportunity to be professionally performed and staged. Providing opportunities for artistic development and audience development is central to what we do at ICE,” said Ms Freeman.

“The opportunity for a partnership between Riverside Theatres Parramatta and the Information & Cultural Exchange is a great way to showcase local talent. Riverside is committed to supporting and nurturing new work from diverse cultural backgrounds and providing opportunities for emerging creative artists in a professional performing arts facility”, said Robert Love, Director, Parramatta Riverside Theatres.

10X6 is a project of Granville-based arts and information organisation ICE in partnership with Parramatta Riverside Theatres and with funding through Parramatta City Council and the NSW Government Ministry for the Arts.

For five performances only, ELASTIC presents:

• Living Room by Thao Nguyen
• Mi Tango by Alejandra Martinez
• Flypaper and/or Inertia by Andrew Ma
• Conversations Through the Wall by Paschal Berry
• Sleepwalking in Lakemba by Lena Nahlous
• How Things Change by Jonathan Nanlohy.

Season commences: Thursday 22nd January at 8.30pm at the Parramatta Riverside Theatres, continuing on Friday 23rd and Saturday 24th at 6.30 and 8.30pm.
Tickets are $18/$15 concession with group discounts available.
Call 8839 3399 for bookings.

For more information, please contact Barry Gamba on 02 9897 5744 ext 6.

For further information, please contact ICE Media Officer, Linda Mirabilio ext 6. email