Laughter-Mystery-Intrigue with Eastside’s Arts Margaux Dombkins

Share in the laughter, mystery and intrigue with my guests today: Simon Lewis from The Miles Franklin Literary Award; the Sydney Impro Festival’s John Knowles and Marko Mustac; and One Scientific Mystery or Why Did The Aborigines Eat Captain Cook? playwright, Victoria Haralabidou.

My first guest: is Simon Lewis, head of Philanthropy and Community at The Trust Company, Trustee of the Miles Franklin Literary Award.

The Trust Company Limited is Trustee for the Miles Franklin Literary Award. My Brilliant Career author Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin left the residue of her estate to establish the award in 1954. Celebrating Australian character and creativity, the Award was established to support authors for the advancement, improvement and betterment of Australian literature.

The shortlist will be announced on 30 April at the State Library of New South Wales. The winner will be announced at the National Library of Australia in Canberra on 19 June.

The announcement of the longlist on 26 March is supported by the 2013 Miles of Reading Challenge, to encourage Australians to read one of the 2013 longlisted novels and support Australian literature.

The list, down from 73 nominations, includes five first-time novelists and four previously shortlisted authors and is dominated by Female authors.

The Longlist: Romy Ash – Floundering; Lily Brett – Lola Bensky; Brian Castro – Street to Street; Michelle de Kretser – Questions of Travel; Annah Faulkner – The Beloved; Tom Keneally – The Daughters of Mars; Drusilla Modjeska – The Mountain; ML Stedman – The Light Between Oceans; Carrie Tiffany – Mateship with Birds; Jacqueline Wright – Red Dirt Talking.

For more information on the Miles Franklin Literary Award and Miles of Reading Challenge:

www.milesfranklin.com.au/challenge.

My next guests: the impro actors and comedians, John Knowles and Marko Mustac talk about the Sydney Impro Festival. John is the former Head of Impro Australia (Theatresports) and Marko is the current Head.

The Sydney Impro Festival featuring the best of Sydney’s improvisational comedians runs from 2nd – 6th April at 8.00pm at the Bondi Pavilion Theatre, Bondi Beach.

In these highly unique shows, nothing is off-limits.

Tuesday 2 April On Location, Australia’s newest long-form troupe, The A Train, brings an episode of a previously unreleased television series based on a location provided by the audience.

Churchill’s Unmentionables is an hilarious, heroic tale of covert WWII missions that may (or may not) have changed the course of history. With comedic commandos Ewan Campbell, Linette Vollet and Jon Williams in the squad, there’s no telling what could happen.

Wednesday 3 April – Tabloid Musical gives the audience control when they select the subject of the Broadway-scale performance from a tabloid headline. The Day of the Bold & the Generally Restless Cale Brain’s mixture of romance, intrigue and improv in a soap opera like you’ve never seen before.

Thursday 4 April – Kosher Theatresports take over Bondi Pavilion with a Jewish-themed comedy game show.

Friday 5 April – the hottest improvisers in the country come together to battle it out in The (Scared) Scriptless Cup Grand Final.

Saturday 6th April – The Theatresports Cup Winners’ Cup Final close the Impro Festival, when all the winning Theatresports teams from the last 12 months come together to battle it out for supremacy.

For more information: www.festival.improaustralia.com.au

My final guest: is playwright, Victoria Haralabidou talking about One Scientific Mystery Or Why Did The Aborigines Eat captain Cook?

This is Victoria’s debut play and is an incredibly touching look at worlds colliding over a single night. The play, was selected for the 2012 National Play Festival in Melbourne and has a stellar cast – 2-time Logie Award winner Aaron Jeffery, Dallas Bigelow and highly acclaimed director Iain Sinclair.

In this beautifully-wrought tale of the tensions created in a harsh world, ”One Scientific Mystery” delicately intertwines the extremes of the human experience – it is at once loving and hateful, sad and funny and builds and destroys dreams. The moments shared by the three characters are coloured by cultural and gender differences, the impersonal and difficult nature of modern-day connection and the desperation for a better life that can lead to unthinkable actions.

9 – 14 April TAP Gallery Upstairs Theatre, Darlinghurst.

You can listen to the interviews with my guests: 

Thanks for your company, Margaux