GR_Ep10_a retrospective... of sorts

For their 10th episode, Mik and Nick skip the heavy theory and do a quirky retrospective of standout performing-arts memories: Mik’s terrifying year-7 Peter Pan audition that became his first taste of ensemble belonging; youth dance-theatre double bills (Peter Pan/Grease) and the hazards of skimpy costuming, including a mid-show costume tear. They trade college stories of accidental near-nudity (Chicago’s “forgot the boxers” dress rehearsal), then reflect on how dance normalizes exposure and why “uniform” costumes should be adjusted for different bodies. The tone turns briefly profound with 9/11—Mik performing Oedipus that day and Nick holding space for shocked students—before returning to touring highlights: a remote community gifting a seafood feast, a bullying-in-schools show prompting real apologies and disclosures, surreal nights on the Moon Plain near Coober Pedy, water-bomb diplomacy in Roxby, an Indigenous community visit in Kansas City, and a country-pub moment where a tough local pulled out spoons and joined the fun.

Transcript

SPEAKER_06 0:03

Hey Mick, what are we talking about today?

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Well, it's funny you should mention that, Nick, because this is our tenth episode. We've reached double figures, believe it or not, eventually. But we're growing up. So I was thinking, what do you do on these milestones? You usually have a retrospective. And you look back on all the greatest hits. And I thought, well, we've only done 10, so we don't have as many hits. So I thought maybe we could look back on some of the uh on some of uh more unique, funny, quirky, crazy, oblique kind of memories of performing arts, crazy stories, interesting anecdotes, something a little bit different, a bit reflective. So have a bit of a think. I'll do the uh transition and all the great groovy music, and we'll get back to it on the other side of this.

SPEAKER_06 1:04

That sounds perfect.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

This podcast is recorded on the Ghana lands of the Adelaide Plains. We acknowledge the traditional owners, past, present, and emerging, and are grateful to be able to contribute our stories to the vast tapestry of stories that come before us and come after us.

SPEAKER_06 1:27

Hello and welcome back to the green room. You're with Mick and Nick. We are a married couple, and we're both in the theatre industry, along with various other side hustles and in fact more serious endeavors. Uh yeah, I would say uh a doctorate is a pretty serious endeavor. So yeah, definitely. Um today we are discussing um just really some history. Uh we've made 10 episodes and we're moving through some highlights, I think, and some funny bits today, rather than any serious bits. Well like I said in the lot of history in a lot of different theatrical areas. So how are we gonna do it?

SPEAKER_01 2:17

Like I sort of said in the intro that uh as ten episodes, maybe we should do a retrospective, but we've only done ten episodes, so there's not much to retrospect on. So I thought, okay, well then let's think back to some of our more let's think back on something a little less uh period. Last week was a big episode. Last couple of weeks have been big episodes, so let's look back on some of the more frivolous and uh humorous anecdotes that we've collected over our years. Interesting anecdotes generally.

SPEAKER_05 2:54

So you know what? What that's why they call it a play. We're going to go back to play.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

So um I might start with I might start with my classic first experience of theatre in primary school. Um and uh was new kid in the school. I don't want this to sound like I don't want this to be a boring episode of us just I remember back in the old days, but nonetheless, pivotal moment where new kid in school from out of town picked on a lot classic story. Uh, but this school had a year seven production every year, and you know, big thing, part of the school culture. So they had auditions, and everyone in year seven had to oh, what's this? What's year seven? Um, nine?

SPEAKER_06 3:49

So back then it was um in year seven, you're about between eleven and twelve.

SPEAKER_01 3:57

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_06 3:57

So eleven and twelve. And you're about to head to high school after this.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

That's right. Last year of primary school, heading into high school, big, big musical for the whole year to celebrate all their achievements. New kid in town. Everyone in year seven has to audition for the school musical, Peter Pan. Oh my god, I was shitting myself, absolutely shitting myself. The I was the total uh yeah, anyway, you can picture it and um very, very instructive um moment in my life generally, having to be the new kid in school, the victim of school-wide uh victimization, because it was easy, and because I was from the country too, and I'd moved to the city, so you can't, yeah, just picture it, you know. So yeah, I had to get up in front of the whole year level, and there was maybe I don't know, 150 of them, and uh well, maybe not that many, maybe a hundred, and and you had to sing, and oh my god, I literally I wrote about this in in Chase the Feeling, sing or shit, sing or shit yourself, like literally shit yourself. Oh my guts were so tense. Anyway, I thought fuck it, got up there and I belted out, I don't know, happy birthday or something shit, and then I got cast as uh Michael, um Wendy's brother. So I had a kind of supporting role, and um all of a sudden the process itself was and I don't know whether this be Michael's the youngest brother from my memory.

SPEAKER_06 5:40

John is the older brother, the serious one with the glass.

SPEAKER_01 5:42

Oh no, I was John. No, I was John then, I was the older one. Serious one with the top hat. Yeah, yeah, yeah, John. And um I'll double check that. Eddie, you can feel free to correct me, but yeah. Um, so but anyway, I don't know whether it was because I got this role and I got cast above all the others who really actually wanted it. I didn't want it, I did just want to look like an idiot. And I don't know whether it was because of that, and suddenly I was in the cool group, or whether it was just the nature of theatre anyway, and my first exposure to ensemble working and working in a choir and singing and practicing and rehearsing scenes and working with people and collaborating to make something work together. Ensemble was a different kind of teamwork. It was my first experience of ensemble, and that was uh captivating to a 12-year-old, 11-year-old kid who was totally alienated. So I think I definitely don't have to go to therapy to be able to understand that that was an extraordinarily pivotal moment in um life and theatre, really. So there's my first anecdote, and I don't want to bore the audience with uh back in the day, but no, no, not at all. It's it's a pivotal one.

SPEAKER_06 7:03

So we can only share our memories, and if you enjoy them, that's great.

SPEAKER_01 7:07

Um not necessarily funny, but we'll get there.

SPEAKER_06 7:10

I think it's really I think it's really interesting that um uh I have I have got a few doozies, but first of all, I just want to comment on uh Mick's story because um many years after that uh Michael joined my parents' um youth dance theatre group. So we're not you know we're not talking just outright dance, but we're talking very serious dance. So you've got to come to ballet class, you've got to do the whole thing. But we we were um we were a group that did a lot of performance. And one of the pivotal performances when Michael ended up joining up with a few of the other boys from the from his high school, uh, we ended up doing our first big season, which sold out, and we did it again. And we did it as a double bill because back then you made value for money. So um we did Peter Pan and we did Grease after it. And um, so yeah, it's it's funny that that um it just kept popping up.

SPEAKER_01 8:14

Peter Pan turns up. Yeah, and it's funny the four man.

SPEAKER_06 8:19

Yeah, and it's funny even today, the guy who ended up playing Peter Pan, um He married he married Thinkabelle. On top of that, he he was always very much um I refused to grow up and always had his hand on his hands on his hips with his head held high like he was about to cry.

SPEAKER_01 8:37

Oh yeah, he always stood like Peter Pan.

SPEAKER_06 8:40

And naturally the person who played the the the woman who played what girl at the time, really, young woman, was uh uh you know, a foot stomping, um outspoken, obstinate, obstinate person, a wonderful person, but yeah, oh yeah sharing all of those qualities qualities of Tinkerbell.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

But here's trippy, we were we were Kanicki and Rizzo in Greece. That's weird.

SPEAKER_06 9:08

So yeah, we ended up being cast as um Kanicki and Rizzo together in the Grease section, and uh but in in Peter Pan, Mick got to play Pirates, which was much more fun.

SPEAKER_01 9:20

Much more fun to be a pirate. Yes, and it was bloody funny, in it.

SPEAKER_06 9:26

And I got cast as Winnie, unfortunately, because um uh yeah, I probably looked like her at the time.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

Innocent gloom. Wendy was more of a ballet.

SPEAKER_06 9:38

Well, Peter Pan was more of a ballet, and um Greece was more of a just a show with dialogue, so do you know I remember it was really funny because you you had to play Wendy and go, Oh Peter, Peter, will you take a button? My butt, you know, can I have the button back? And this beautiful high voice, like a lost child, and then you're gonna go into Greece and go and and try and talk in not that voice and stuff. It was and it was very confusing for a uh young woman because you were all trying to speak like we're young and gorgeous all the time.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

For uh international listeners, I know there are a few, thank you, by the way, really appreciate it. Um, listening to us ramble about stuff. Um but Australia doesn't have a very strong tradition of doing panto. Oh no. Um panto is a style of pantomime is a style of theatre, really popular in the UK, um, especially around Christmas, as I understand. And it works really well with that because you can yeah, but Australia doesn't have a strong tradition of panto, and Australia Panto is seen as is the the melodrama of panto, I don't think really catches on No, it's seen as somewhat amateur or um benign uh lowbrow. But Segway, I do want to get to a funny story now because speaking of that youth company, that youth dance company that your parents ran and I joined, um the first show I did with you um was was uh some fairy show. It was done to the soundtrack of Oh, it was called Fairies, yeah. Yeah, called Fairies. And it was done to the soundtrack.

SPEAKER_06 11:32

Spring, no, it was called Spring. It was no, it was called Fairies, there was a different show.

SPEAKER_01 11:36

And it was but it was done to the soundtrack of it was a rock and roll kind of soundtrack, um, you know, and it was all contemporary and stuff, but it was still but it was costumed. This is the thing, it was costumed in a very um uh risque ballet way. So basically, I don't know whether this was a baptism of fire kind of casting, like your mum was actually having a bit of a sly chuckle getting us to do this, or or whether the piece actually called for us to be dressed this way.

SPEAKER_06 12:12

Not called for you to be dressed that way.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

The result was the result was wearing nothing but a flesh-coloured G string, and and this was the first time I'd ever done a dance show at all, ever. And I was asked to go on on stage in public in a flesh-coloured G string.

SPEAKER_06 12:30

But you had some leaves and flowers lined around them.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

Kind of felt like I was wearing a costume because I had some tule draped over me with my head cut out and various leaves and feathers sort of sewn into the tule, and I pranced around. And I'm like, I was a tall kid too, so I'm pretty gangly. So I'm prancing around, prancing, prancing around in a flesh-colored G string and some tule with some ad hoc pieces of foliage sewn into it, and I remember I I don't know if it was the first show. I you know, anecdotally, it always sounds like the very first show, but it could have been the second or third. Regardless, there was a particular performance where, as I ran on to stage, um, there was a group of us that ran on stage for this scene, big scene of the boys doing their dance front and center, and someone in that cluster caught the tule and it tore off me. So all of a sudden, I'm standing, and this was a very intimate theatre, it was only two rows deep, it held about 60 people maximum.

SPEAKER_06 13:47

Yeah, we we adapted it as we went to fit about 80 in the end.

SPEAKER_01 13:52

In the end, it was a squeeze, but yeah, it point is extraordinarily intimate.

SPEAKER_06 14:00

Yeah, you're like if you sweat on if you spin in front of them, they're gonna feel you sweat.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

Yeah. And here's me in my very first dance show, scrawny, gangly, nearly six foot tall, wearing a flesh-coloured G-string. And that's when I felt naked. I'd you know, I didn't feel naked with the tule on and the random pieces of foliage, but once that was gone, it was it was the nightmare become reality that you're on stage naked. For all intents and purposes. And actually, you know what? I've got another story about being on stage naked accidentally, like the nightmare, but I'm gonna handball. Because that's enough of my bare ass and bolts.

SPEAKER_06 14:43

Well, the only time I've been on stage naked was not accidental. We had one show at the end of college that we were uh invited to do. And um, it was somewhat risque, and I can't even remember who did it, could have been State Theatre, could have been anyone, one of the bigger companies. And they want and so they wanted they shouted out to all of our second and third years, wasn't our last year, second and last year. And I, you know, being me uh had a good look at it and was like, yeah, I want to have a play. I'd love to get on the fizzy stage or wherever it was. Oh god, I think it might have been been baker's, I can't even remember. No, it must have been bigger than that. Anyway, it doesn't matter, you don't know these theatres. Um, in the meantime, I sign up, and it's uh the clause is that you all have to get your tits out, and you have to bounce up and down on stage with your tits out, um, all in a big long line, and then we all exit. And I like I pissed myself laughing.

SPEAKER_01 15:51

What year was this? Just just this is my second year.

SPEAKER_06 15:54

End of second year.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

We're in 2026 at the moment. I I just want to get a frame of reference of how we can get away with these stories.

SPEAKER_06 16:01

I was legal. Um, I was legally allowed to do it. I was 21, 22 by then, and um, yeah, anyway, so I was like, okay, I'm gonna go do this. And at the time I I had gained a bit of weight, and so I was a bit of a larger on the larger side, and I've I always had uh, you know, like as a group older, always had larger breasts. And I remember that we were standing in this lineup, and all we had to do was shut the fuck up and stand still on the night. But this girl whose hysterical, a lover, who was in the air above me, just turned and looked down at my breasts and went, fuck, they're amazing. I feel small. And then she looked down, but it wasn't as quiet as she thought it was gonna be. I was thinking, it was like boom. And the thing is, I instantly laughed, like because it was just instinctual, it was just so random and funny, and so of course I instantly laughed all the time. Um, kind of go into this weird shock, and then um all of a sudden we're bouncing our titties. And I can't fucking I can't stop laughing. I think it's hysterical, and she can't stop laughing because she's saying that it's hysterical, and that she just blurted that out for I I don't even remember what it was. We probably went and got drunk afterwards, you know. But um, what a bizarre experience of nerdity on stage. All the others have been quite serious and very well handled, but that one was just bizarre.

SPEAKER_01 17:38

Did you say they were very well handled?

SPEAKER_06 17:40

Yeah, my boobs have always been well handled. It's the best br. No, I'm joking. Um but yeah, like um, but you've got another college story on that line.

SPEAKER_01 17:52

Uh the other nightmare come true. You know, that nightmare of you're on stage naked and you don't know what you're doing.

SPEAKER_06 18:01

Well, I knew what I But your costume has disappeared suddenly. Yeah. Yeah. That classic.

unknown 18:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:07

So I already had that experience, not naked in my first experience at with Peter Pan, but it certainly felt that way. Certainly felt naked in that experience I just talked about. And then the third time, Three Times of Charm, um, we were doing uh version of Chicago in college, and I had to play um I don't know, what's his name?

SPEAKER_06 18:35

Right at the beginning.

SPEAKER_01 18:36

Right at the beginning. Yeah. He he bonks uh Roxy and she murder and she kills him, and that sets up the whole musical. The premise for premise the murder in Chicago. So I played him, and we did this stage uh you know, in the in the opening number in the sequence, there's a moment where that is that scene happens where they go to bed together and she shoots him. And so we staged that. And it was meant to be um the actresses lying on her back with her legs up with her legs up in the air in the air, and but her head is upstage and her butt is downstage. But it's meant to be me standing over the top of her in that kind of missionary spread eagle kind of position.

SPEAKER_06 19:28

Not so much standing, but on all fours.

SPEAKER_01 19:31

Well, no, no, no, she's she was on a bed, so I was standing over her, but sort of bent over. Gotcha, gotcha. Right.

SPEAKER_05 19:39

But it was one's got it clear.

SPEAKER_01 19:41

Yep, just to give you the image. Um but it was all pantomime and it was all you know da da da. Um musical, it's a musical, like but I'm meant to pull my pants down, I meant to have these ridiculous boxer shorts on, like that are panto funny boxer shorts. And this was the last full dress rehearsal. And um so I I was and I don't know, I was rushing before the show started. And and I remember that I was rushing and I was running late for some reason. I don't know why. Musical side this is final full dress rehearsal, so you don't get to stop. Like there's no stop start, you just you just go. If something pushed through the mistake, you just kick up, right? So I get on stage first.

SPEAKER_06 20:31

It's the show's litmus test.

SPEAKER_01 20:33

Show's opening thumb. I get on stage and we get into position and we're ready to do the show, the the scene. And as I'm pulling my pants down, he's actually standing up and he's acting this out.

SPEAKER_06 20:44

I just need to let you know that.

SPEAKER_01 20:46

As I'm as I'm standing up, I pull my pants down to reveal my um funny box of shorts, and that's as I'm pulling them down as oh shit, I haven't put my box of shorts on. Oh, and I could and I was thinking this and realizing it as I was in the motion of pulling my pants down. Once you start, you can't stop. Again, I was wearing a flesh has to run flesh-coloured G-string. But on the stage under the lights, who would know that? And I remember just looking and in position, and I looked at the actress who was lying on the bed looking up at me, because we're face to face in the position, and I just looked at her and I went, I forgot to put my boxes on. And she just started pissing herself laughing, like lost her shit laughing, which because she was Roxy Hart, she was mic'd up. So she's mic'd up laughing.

SPEAKER_06 21:48

Uh, it was just great directorial choice.

SPEAKER_01 21:52

And actually, and then we put the notes at the end of the run, and oh my god, I'm just Waiting for it, it's inevitable, you know.

SPEAKER_05 22:03

What?

SPEAKER_01 22:04

First note first note opening number.

SPEAKER_06 22:09

Actually, you were called Freddie back then, so it would have been Freddie.

SPEAKER_01 22:12

Freddie.

SPEAKER_06 22:13

What the hell was that about?

SPEAKER_01 22:14

Well, yeah, but well, they made a joke of it. They realized it was an accident. Okay, it was a big it was a big laugh everyone. You know, we all had our fun. Um, but then he goes, actually, I really like it. I'm gonna keep it in the show. I want you to do it every night. I was like, no, but because we're at college, heads of department got involved and and that was fixed.

SPEAKER_06 22:39

But oh, yeah, I can imagine, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:42

Um, yeah, but that was another yet another example of literally being on stage caught naked and with my pants down. And yeah.

SPEAKER_06 22:51

See, this is the really weird thing with dance, right? Like, because with dance, none of that matters. These rules don't apply here. Um, what do you mean if youar a G string and do the splits and finish with your ass to the audience and hold it for a minute? And why isn't that like it's never questioned? You just shave harder and sort your shit out down there because you've got to do the show. Sometimes they make hard.

SPEAKER_00 23:17

Did you say sh shave harder?

SPEAKER_06 23:20

Because that's a whole line of vision there. And like Nair was only just coming into the scene back then, and it was nasty back then. And like, so yeah, all you could do was go, oh my god, I just I pray and I hope there's nothing showing, and I will do the hold for the 30 fucking seconds that she's requested it with my ass to the audience in a G-string. Do you know what I mean? Like, you don't, those rules, like, and even if it was a leotard, it'd be up your ass that hard anyway. It might as well be a G-string. Summer time they let you wear tights, but you know, it doesn't leave anything to the imagination, still, does it? Because it's all still out there, and it gives you this, but it is like you said earlier, it's all sense of protection.

SPEAKER_01 24:11

I appreciate that the dance, contemporary dance particularly, is notoriously um body image, um has its body image um debates, let's say for sure, right? Yeah, all dancers. We're gonna ignore that and and then this is not any other thing other than to say different body shapes and types of different body shapes and types. And some dancers' body shapes and types are particularly what I would say scrawny. Not not um uh they're underveloped. They're underdeveloped, they um malnourished.

SPEAKER_06 24:53

This is back today, not even malnourished, but they're just they work like a machine. There's no chance to gain anything with muscle.

SPEAKER_01 25:01

It actually doesn't. I maybe that maybe that's the code costume choice.

SPEAKER_03 25:05

Because it doesn't actually it it looks um I don't know.

SPEAKER_06 25:15

Yeah, but you see it at all and even in dancer steadfords, we have these things called dancer steadfits, they're just little dance comps, right? And they m they're everything and nothing. It's the same as your grades from high school, you know, like they're everything and they're nothing. And um these dance comps, like the stuff they get kids to wear, now they've got this, like they might have a troop of 50, anywhere between maybe six to a hundred, you know. And they're all wearing the same thing. Now I want you to think about how diverse the world is. If the choreographer or the designer, whoever, you know, if they've got a costume chooser, designer, whatever, um, and someone's actually dedicated on 50 costumes that look Tinkerbell.

SPEAKER_01 26:04

So everyone's wearing the Tinkerbell.

SPEAKER_06 26:06

Even if someone's dedicated as a costume designer, they're still informed by the director or the choreographer or whatever, and it has to all come together in a line. So, in in that way, you're talking about this hugely diverse range of young dancers wearing a see-through um Grecian outfit with um okay, they're all wearing um like the the um little sport sneakers that are like boy boy underwear, you know. But they're all doing hard splits and the and it rides up and stuff, and it really doesn't leave anything to the imagination anyway, because she's chosen white, right? And they're allowed to wear stockings, that's cool, um, and all the rest of it. But you know, you really think about it, and then think about all the and she's cinched it at the waist with a puffy top, right? That's fantastic. How do all those young people feel in this costume? And how exposed and vulnerable do they feel, and how under pressure are they to do the bloody thing they're asked to do? It's just, you know, it's it's a whole different ball game. It's like it's your costuming and everything, even in even in tertiary, that what you can do or allowed to sort of dance or cross the line, you know. I mean, really wearing a leotard that is flesh colored and nothing else. Um is nothing more than what you did, you know.

SPEAKER_01 27:41

Having said, yes. So yes, I I think it's what we're talking about here is the essentially, yes, you can you can costume your chorus or your ensemble to look uniform, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't take the time to address particular not everyone and adjust it, yeah, and adjust it to body type so it looks it, it's it's a not it looks, it shows them off in the best way, otherwise they're it's like or it could squeezing people into something or making people wear something that doesn't look right, like can't perform as well, yeah. They can't, they feel self-conscious, the audience picks up on it.

SPEAKER_06 28:20

It's like just take the time to it's the dragon eating its own tail that sort of making it.

SPEAKER_01 28:27

Exactly in the uniform. But what is funny literally, and then and and then it looks amazing.

SPEAKER_06 28:33

But what is funny about that is that it does look bloody awful when you've got a room full of people in the center, you know what it looks like when bridesmaids will wear the same thing without adjusting it for them all. Who looks the most confident? I mean, it's just it's not cool.

SPEAKER_01 28:48

That's always meant to be about the bride, anyway, isn't it? Isn't that the point? You make the bridesmaids look-I don't know, it's not my ballpark.

SPEAKER_06 28:54

No way that oh, that is no. Oh, it's not um that's got nothing to do with it. Not my ballpark, but it's but um I think that the funny thing about it is the strange and fucking outrageous things that that you get asked to wear in a lot of dance shows, you know. I've literally worn leather G strings and a leather top. I was going to say and this was a serious dance piece, this was not a pole dance, you know.

SPEAKER_01 29:23

I would I would like to cat I would like to say though that as a 14-year-old boy joining a dance company, that was one of the um attractions to giving it a go. And which is ironic because I remember at school too, everyone would go, oh you because this is back in the eighties, okay. So I'm gonna reveal a bit of age there. This is back in the 80s, so you know, really repressive kind of homosexual homophobia going on, um, cause of great distress, blah blah blah. Um, not to diminish it, but just mid to late 80s. But mid to late 80s, um, the common curse or slur was to be called a faggot or a pufter, right? And because uh we there was what two, three, maybe four of us who did ballet and contemporary dance and were part of this company, um, we were considered the faggots and poofters because we were dancers. This is Australia mid-80s, right? Good time.

SPEAKER_05 30:26

Um, just to add that it was actually a pretty rough school, too. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:31

Yeah, pretty rough school. Um but yeah, so we were constantly being called faggots and poofters, and we're like and this is by, you know, accused of being gay. Yes, God forbid it. God forbid you're accused of being gay. So by for that. But this is by predominantly, you know, big sports jocks type, so footballers, cricketers, all the sports jocks types, right? And it always amused me, and I said this to a couple of them not that it put out through their heads, but it always amused me is that you're calling me gay, or you're accusing me of being gay because I choose to be in a room, I choose to dance, which means I am in a room in leotards and G strings and next to nothing, with at a ratio of other women, maybe one guy to three girls, four girls, they're all dressed in lycras and leotards, and they're all being asked to spin around and jump all over you and do lifts and do all this.

SPEAKER_06 31:40

There's a lift we call the munchy cruncher.

SPEAKER_01 31:42

Yeah, you can imagine.

SPEAKER_06 31:43

And basically, you run towards the guy and you do a little preparation jump, like a gymnastics prep, really, and bounce up, and he sticks his hands between your legs and then boosts you up to his arms and then right up to sitting with your cooch right around his face and your legs straight up behind. So these were the sorts of and then you he holds your legs, you you throw yourself back down to the towards the ground, put your hands down, and then just pop your legs back off of him. It looks fantastic, but uh yeah, it's quite vulnerable. Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:26

So these were the sorts of things we were being asked to do in these contemporary dance classes and stuff, and they're calling, they're accusing us of this. And I'm like, I don't get it, because you run around on the football field, you get covered in mud, and you roll around to get us over this ball and you tackle each other, and then you all go and have a shower together, and then I see you out of the pub, and you're all tapping each other on the ass, and you're all doing this sort of and like I you know, I I don't get it. Like, just it doesn't make any sense to me at all. You are really, you really don't get it.

SPEAKER_02 33:01

Or anyway, that was a uh yeah, aspect of that era.

SPEAKER_06 33:08

Oh, for sure, for sure. Um, I think uh there would have been an enormous amount of ridiculous and funny moments. Uh it was actually a really creative time. Uh, we were really into like, you know, long before prank patrol or any kind of prank shows were doing this kind of elaborate um well, we were doing YouTube stunts before there were cameras around.

SPEAKER_01 33:33

We just did it for the fun of it.

SPEAKER_06 33:34

Yeah, like one of the one of our friends who was involved in the company uh was was also into St. John's, which is a medical team, and part of their job is to go out stage makeup and pretend that someone's been hurt. In order to do that, he had to learn stage makeup. So prosthetics and latex prosthetics, latex, blood, glass, all that sort of stuff. And so, you know, the multiple amount of times that that these guys we would have a pool party, and someone inside would be there'd be boys would offer to do the dishes, which should have been the red flag in the first place after a barbecue, and all of a sudden you'd hear screaming, you run inside, and there's someone with blood spewing out their arm and a hell huge piece of glass and a broken glass on the sink, and it's all a big bloody fake setup in the end, you know, like it was just like it was a funny tube back then, man, we would be mega stars, absolute mega stars. The shit we used to do, elaborate, ma'am, elaborate, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:36

And um we used to go to great lengths to set up pranks, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 34:41

And and um, and even within the company, I remember one time, um, just as a joke, it was in an old church where we performed and rehearsed at at the school, and one time the boys just thought it would be funny to put one of the other boys' bikes like right up on the apex of the church on the roof. And um, you know, like didn't go down that way. That one's been the camera as well. Man, like just stupid stuff all the time. It was very fun, very funny, um, challenging and hard work, too.

SPEAKER_01 35:13

Okay, I'm gonna go on a different tack now. I'm gonna another throwback memory to careers and uh a retrospective for those joining us on uh radio Nick and Mick Green Room. This is the episode 10 retrospective. We don't have enough content and podcasts, so we're reminiscing about interesting anecdotes from our we do, we've got heaps, but we've had a few very serious ones, so we're doing a reminisce.

SPEAKER_06 35:38

So I'd go back to funny moments, impactful moments that we just feel like sharing.

SPEAKER_01 35:43

So impact impactful moment for me was uh oh, there are so many, um, but one of them was um uh 9-11 when the twin towers came down in New York, and I was in a season of Oedipus and I was playing Oedipus and we had a matinee that morning, like so Australia woke up to what was going on that morning, and then I had to go to the theatre and do like an 11am matinee of Oedipus for a bunch of year 12 students from various schools, and I remember we were just in our little dressing room slash green room, slash green room, the green room, um, and we were watching the TV of what was happening live, and just like everyone, just oh my fucking what the and then putting our makeup on and going out and doing Oedipus of all plays. But the I remember the I remember because we were watching Bush give his speech about I don't know what it was about, you know, yeah, if you're not with us, you're against us, kind of whole. Yeah, it felt like rhetoric. Yeah. I remember having to go out and do this matinee in the opening scenes, Oedipus gives the speech about who pose who put this curse on Athens, and I'm going to find them, and there will be vengeance, and I will hunt them down. Like it's the you know, the setup for his whole boom, the setup for the whole tragedy of Oedipus. And I remember standing there having just heard Bush say almost the same thing. Same thing, God, then have to say it on stage as Oedipus to these kids who and I remember the looks on the faces of this is a small theatre, maybe what, 80 people, 50 people, something like that. And you so you can see their faces, and they had woken up to all this too, and they were just in you could see they were in shock.

SPEAKER_06 38:00

And they yeah, they really were, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:01

They were in shock, and they're sitting there watching this play. I'm standing there doing this play, this is all happening. Like it was a really kind of existential moment. Um I don't remember much time. I don't remember much else about the play of different aspects, but but you know, that whole flash, flash, flash, flash, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 38:31

It was huge. It's really hard when you're the actor in real time doing this, and you're registering something that is reflected in this very speech right now that you just witnessed or experienced, and that new information is going directly into an actual show, not a rehearsal, and you can't stop it because it's so correlated and it's meant to come together. Um, yeah, and it probably informed and influenced um the way that you did deliver the point on.

SPEAKER_01 39:07

I I can I can you know how you have memory recalls of some moment. I can picture, I can picture vividly now in my head standing there, almost I could feel myself in costume, standing there looking out at that theater and seeing those faces and saying these words, and yeah, just and you gotta give it that speech, you know. You gotta give it.

SPEAKER_06 39:29

Look it up if you're interested.

SPEAKER_01 39:32

It's um it was I yeah, I can that was so and I remember and I remember watching it in the in the dressing room, the green room, and then I remember walking the short five meters from the dressing room to the stage through the little back area there, and then walking out onto the stage. And I remember I can feel the lights in my face, I can see the audience's face, I can just see kids just sort of in a daze, just kind of watching this show. And you know, it's got a grab what they saw on TV as they got ready for school that morning. Yeah, it was just surreal.

SPEAKER_06 40:11

I remember where was I? I I was teaching, I had to teach that day. I had to teach at a private school, a religious private school. And it was first lesson after prayer. And they all came in and they sat, you know, because I was teaching theatre, not dance by now. Um uh yeah, and they all came in and then they sat in the circle because that's how I roll. Everyone sits in a circle at the start, and we just debrief. How's everyone? And on this day, they came in with the same shock and the same silence. This silence that I've never heard them walk in with. But I know that I knew they'd come from prayer. So I thought, that's fair. You know, they are now processing. So I sat, you know, they're all sitting with me and they're all sit looking down and they're not looking at me, which is odd. I can't make the circle if they don't look up. And I know why it's odd, all that sort of stuff. But it and I ask them, how is everyone feeling? And no one answers for a while, and then one kid goes, Oh, um I don't really know. What do you mean you don't know? Like, in what way? Can you express that a bit more, or is anyone else feeling that way and wants to like contribute? And then anyway, it turned out that in the end, I suddenly realized that they hadn't actually processed anything. They had gone through a process that was familiar to them but made no sense today, which and actually frightened them more, which was so they went to prayer, but prayer was just prayer. And then they came here, all unanswered, all confused, all big words, big feelings in the room, like so much energy and distress. And so I spent my whole cast just in the circle. Just that's all we did for the whole session, just let them each one of them talk it out and um share with each other and yeah, it was genuinely frightening. And for someone like me, um, who's easily like wooed, you know, um, it was it was a it was a hard day, like just keeping me together. Yeah, but it was a great um it was the biggest session we had had of connecting. And it made all the difference and everything we did after. So again, profound.

SPEAKER_01 42:53

But yeah, um Oh yeah, huge. It was a massive day to be working with kids. Uh uh to working with anyone, yeah, far out. It was a huge day. And to be because the thing is that we I mean we were still processing it too.

SPEAKER_06 43:11

I didn't know what any of it meant yet. But I didn't want to believe all the hype on the media.

SPEAKER_02 43:16

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_06 43:17

Yeah, because let's just get it all together first, everyone. Like what yeah. I know we're gonna point lots of fingers, we're gonna say lots of angry things, but what okay.

SPEAKER_03 43:28

Next one, next one, next recall subject theme.

SPEAKER_01 43:36

Right? And this is gonna be a hard one for both of us, because we've done so much of it. Best moment on tour. I I've got one ready to go if you want to think about it, or if you want to go.

SPEAKER_06 43:53

One jumped in my mind, but that doesn't make any sense. Go, go. Um one that jumps into my brain. There's two. One's a quick story, one's a longer one. Um one, we just got married. And we went to Venus Bay. To f which is a incredible part of the coastline.

SPEAKER_01 44:16

Seaside village town in uh on the on the eastern edge of the Malible Plain and just before you're heading up to Perth.

SPEAKER_06 44:25

But let me, I'm telling you, Adelaide's Perth is a whole long way, right? Um this trip was very long. It was like to even get to where we got to we only got halfway to Perth like towards even where we get to the Perth border. So um Western Australian border. Very remote. And so anyway it's all coastal towns and the kids I remember like I literally can see it to this very day almost all the kids had eyes like the ocean eyes like their environment sparkling and curious you know um like wind. And they were absolutely delightful spirits. They were all like spirits and sprites like just delightful and we one of the kids found us because we always used to stay in one house and for the whole time and then travel outward and come back to home base because we liked all hanging together. Touring in a hotel alone is so lonely and just sucks.

SPEAKER_01 45:31

So we'd hire a house and then just rent a house for a week and go on tour around the place.

SPEAKER_06 45:35

That's right. And um and the people we went with on this particular tour were just incredible humans. And um so anyway this kid finds us just chilling out the front of our house in um this beautiful place and he goes hey are you the people that came and did the show today and we go yeah man do you live out here and he goes oh yeah like and my dad just went and caught a heap of lobster and and like Bluetooth crabs and this and that and the other and prong do you want me to bring you some and I go oh look only if you've got extra he comes back with this feast I have never seen that much or fill it his mum and Phillips in the fig.

SPEAKER_01 46:20

Everything like it was just insane. It's like winning a it was just like winning a the the raffle at the bowling club I know because the other thing no we didn't just have that short conversation we totally hung with him for a while and chattered and he was totally he just he'd never had anything like our shows come I remember that particular for that particular school too there were so few kids because our show was interactive so we'd get kids up from the instant get like up to a hundred kids up to in one show in various areas. That particular school only had about eight kids in it. It was we had to get teachers in yeah the only people watching it were teachers and I remember I think I remember at one point there was only one teacher as we had to get them to get them as well to get to get the scene but he never ever had he'd never played like that.

SPEAKER_06 47:11

For him it was like a choose your own adventure and a and it like a whole like interactive imagination game and you know it set his world on fire. So that was my first one but my my main major one I don't even remember where it was I mean I remember some bloody funny ones but I don't remember where this was remember we were doing a show called Beasts which um is based on a book written written by Margaret Wrightson no Margaret Wilde Margaret Wilde sorry wrong word wrong name wrong author Margaret Wilde and um we uh used it as a framework to do a show about bullying where the um bully was actually the girl and it was the boy who was experiencing overwhelming emotions and and um psychological breakdowns from the bullying. And he was haunted by a beast that would haunt him at night and he didn't know what it was there and anyway great play can't tell you how many times that play can't tell you how many times that that piece of theater in schools changed entire schools and gave me a memories and genuine um imprinted feelings for a long time and always will. But there was this one school out in the middle of nowhere and we were and we were doing the show and the guy that was the lead role was a gay guy and he didn't hide that but he didn't advertise it either. When he had to play like masculine roles man he played them well you know but he didn't hide it as his true personality or advertise it. Just he was who he was and uh incredible human being he is who he is he's still alive obviously but you know in this is a past story and um in this show we did the most incredible performance and it was a really hard performance because for me personally this is why I remember this show because for me personally the boys in the audience were really really going at Brenda because I was the bully Brenda is the bully you played Brenda yeah yeah and they were really going at it and what they were doing was they were picking on my body and they were going so hard at me that I was really struggling to get through the show. And this is you know this is me late in my career like Hide Piper I can do no I can deal with everything. But it was really starting to get to me and I was starting to get kind of broken down by him and instead I played her harder and they got harder and then the moment came in the show where she broke and the truth came out and the truth was shocking because she was being hit by a jab.

SPEAKER_02 50:41

She was a victim of domestic violence which is why she was a bully.

SPEAKER_06 50:45

And these boys just went fucking silent and then after the show it wasn't one thing it was quite a few things that happened this show too yeah I I there's I've got so many memories of this show and stores man so we're anyway multiple things happened after that show. One was that I'm almost certain this was a tour one one was that this kid comes up at the end of the show we get kids up to feedback and talk and have and what theatre gives us a space to speak without interruption where the agreement is the audience is there to hear you and based on this we get kids up not to share experiences but to share what their experience with the show was and how what their feedback is and all the rest what they learnt today with teachers and all the rest of it as well. QA session afterwards yeah big QA session debrief and processing yeah and this kid gets up on stage and he starts basically just verbally processing out loud without any warning or cue instantly starts going I've been bullied I've been bullied all the time and he just starts confessing everything right and then we're we're like no vulnerability okay can you hold it there who thinks this is okay hands up like who doesn't then how are we letting this go on can you now come and talk to us in the meantime we would love to hear more from you can you come and have a chat with us after the show um give him a huge clap that is hugely proud at the end of this show this big we're packing up right and the kids are just sort of mingling around most of them have gone this big this little kid who came up and tried to is hanging with us because he's just felt never felt so sane he doesn't want to leave us ever and he's just again he's still just talking and sharing and talking sharing and we're trying to yep and like he's not sharing too much information or anything like that. It's just chatting away this huge kid comes up behind him. I remember Mick who was teching literally stopped everything he was doing and just sort of turned around going what because it felt intimidating because he was coming up behind this little kid.

SPEAKER_01 53:31

Little scrawny oh it was classic little scrawny no disrespect little scrawny but classic cliche little scrawny kid big hulking you know and the little and the dude was talking to me and I'm watching this big kid come up behind him and going okay what is about to happen looks like confrontation and you know what it was the bigger kid put his hand on this little kid's shoulder and he and he just patted him on the shoulder.

SPEAKER_06 54:08

Well but patted him like in that kind of like you know like that hard because what he was saying when he patted him wasn't a good sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry then the little kid turned around and he said it's okay can we stop and the big kid went yeah I don't want to do it anymore and then the big kid left and the whole book and the teachers just started bawling uh we were just like gobsmacked I'm glad you mentioned that story because that was one of the ones I was going to mention too that was just phenomenal moment and it wasn't the only thing that happened that day so us thinking God it's all over we go into this little storeroom I go into this little storeroom and I'm alone in there I'm checking to see if all the costumes have been gone this girl is following me everywhere she just won't stop talking she's following me everywhere I'm cool with that but I still got to check all the costumes and stuff as soon as I'm back there she makes this massive confession that she's basically Brenda and I go whoa can you wait here for a second I need to go and get and is it okay if you talk with a teacher in there and and suddenly we're doing this huge um report Carl report and stuff and you know what like it was it was a it was hard but the thing is if we hadn't come and done the show that day would she ever have said anything and it was but oh man we went home that night exhausted you know but what a show and it was just out in some nowhere like out on tour somewhere I can't it wasn't a local school but there were big amounts of kids in the audience it was packed in and it was an activity room and so many kids were in the show and the playground scene where we all hassled Jamie nearly got out of control because of the two boys that just wouldn't fucking stop you know like yeah and wow man it was a crazy I'm glad you mentioned that one because that was one of the stories I was going to mention too actually that one was just an amazing day to watch that kid just come up and apologize and the teachers broke down because the teachers knew about what was going on but they couldn't protect this kid that night they were they were their hands were tied through various bureaucratic and administration they didn't have enough evidence you have to gather evidence all this sorts of stuff or have the child come and speak this kid just came up and just said I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'll never do that again and he don't want to and I don't want to do it again and he just walked off and he just walked off into the crowd like it was but he felt remorse and then this that's what the heavy hand yeah that's what the heavy hand was he was just like oh my god he just wanted to dude I'm sorry it was so no I think he did have a light interaction and a giggle afterwards about something and then he wicked skipped off to but it was just a brief kind of very brief and very like it's gone like he dealt with it like a champion he would like absolute champion he was so humble and he was empathetic and he would just sort of let it go and well he just watched the show he can't know what the other guy's position is.

SPEAKER_01 57:40

But he just but he also showed in his character in that moment that he was a genuine honest transparent human being who meant no harm to anyone and what was the big issue and I think that's what the big kid and he had a whole school affirm that and go yeah and so he was bullying you like the ironic coda to this story is that the when we went to the front office to collect the check the fuckers didn't have it. No stiff us for month yes and we actually got bullied and intimidated fuckers anyway that's why we're not gonna name them because I remember it was anyway I remember I always remember who skipped it on the skipped out on the check. Oh we all remember that god okay cool then we share one I've got one more as well I was on tour with um um the state theatre company here at the time had a junior state theatre company so it was a state it was like um the state theatre company company but it worked specifically in youth and did workshops and plays. Yeah and so we we had this show and we were on tour and um the community connection part of State Theatre we'll loan you some actors and we'll take them out into school so you don't have to bust them anyway. We used to have our own carriage on the train that went across the nullaboard oh it's fantastic back day of the days day were the days back in the days when it was fully funded you actually felt you had a job and a career and a you're a real you're a real man anyway.

SPEAKER_06 59:28

Mind you you're still in the hotel room alone every night which is meh but yeah that's why we changed it anyway we were out in um Tuba Pede oh what a great place look it up if you're not from here and if you ever can go out there magic magic and mayhem and madness and strange if mad if by magic you mean at night time on the plane on the moon plane turning something into something else everyone lives underground yeah everyone it's too hot so everyone lives well not everyone but a lot of people do yeah and there's a lot of mine shafts so you gotta watch out where you go it was Cooper yeah it was Cooper Pete.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:16

It's a desert anyway just outside of Cooper Pete is a place called the Moon Plane I've never been there so we were performing in Cooper Pete and we had the night off so we all decided to hop in the van like we had a little van you know sort of 10 seater all our stuff hopped in the van not with all our stuff but we hopped in the van and we went out to this place called the moon plane at night obviously and let me tell you about this place. You need the moon to be out obviously for it to be in its full better when the moon's out obviously but we'll get to the how and why in a minute because you go out there and you drive so I don't know it's maybe an hour to get there that's that long far where we are no it's not far. And yeah and then you you drive out and you're in the middle of uh it's so it's night so I'm only describing what I can remember because it was at night but I remember the moon was out it was a cloudless night so the stars were magnificent. Unbelievable and you're driving out on what feels like a paddock at first but then this paddock just goes on and on and on and it's flat and flat there's nothing and even when this when there's a cloudless sky and the moon's out you can see pretty far still like your eyes adjust and you can see pretty far in the side where a lot of films go because it looks like outer space. You can see there's nothing on the horizon it's just flat 360 degrees around so we drove down the middle of this plane and it heads off to some I don't know andamukra or something. I've been there so you know we get about we get out as far as we want to drive and then we pull over and we stop we turn the turn the van off the engine off so it's quiet and there is nothing because there is no landscape because there is no bushes there's no salt bush there's just absolutely nothing there is nothing for air pressure to have to navigate and so there's no breeze and there's no noise but there's no so it feels like you're in a room like that audibly it feels like you're kind of in a room at the same time as being in this immense expanse where you can see nothing as far as the eye can see. And you look up at the sky so we all had a bit of a cigarette and then we climbed magic herbal ones climbed up onto the roof and just lay on our back and just stare and I remember lying on my back staring at stars which and it just felt like you're in a big room like you could just reach up and just walk towards that star. They're so close when they're like that. So clear it was so tangible many. There were so many stars and they call it the moon plane and this is gets back to the moon planet plane surface feel of it is that the entire landscape is flat dead billiard table flat but it's covered in quartz crystal everywhere. You just tripping over it it's just on the surface everywhere we use quartz crystal in watches and all sorts of everything so it is it's flat as far as the eye can see and what what can you see like is I think it's about five kilometers at at sea level looking to the horizon is about five kilometers away so so the horizon I'm guessing is about three or four kilometers away at least that you can see at night and it's covered in quartz crystal and the moon's out and so the quartz crystal just picks up the moonlight and so you're you're when you're lying on the van and you've had a cigarette think of how think of how crystal light light work yeah these are after all some crystals so you're lying on the van they've got prisms in them and all sorts of all sorts of cool effects. The other thing about the air pressure and the wind and stuff I mean is because when we were lighting our cigarettes with our cigarette lighters in the middle of nowhere the candle that's on our table at the moment is flickering more inside in our lounge room is flickering more than the candle than the lighter did out there. It was dead straight nothing just nothing and so then you're lying on the on the roof of the van looking up at these stars that feel so incredible and then the ground itself is like stars reflecting back the moonlight.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:12

So you feel totally encompassed in this 360 degree and I gotta tell you if you've ever been it incredible it was cool coming from uh yeah if you've never actually been out there like I I used to tour out to Roxby regularly Roxby Downs um another uh about eight hours away from where I am um still in Adelaide in South Australia sorry should I say but eight hours away and um that place you know me and a good friend of mine who worked together for a long time we would we tested it multiple times uh you know going out into the middle into the desert and then walking 50 steps away from the car, walking until you cannot see the car when you turn around and look. And it's absolutely terrifying. Now, if you let that get to you, your mind starts doing weird things and telling you to follow weird tracks rather than just turning around and going back. So we tested the theory, and it's true. It's this strange kind of madness that your brain can't compute this place.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:30

Get disorientated.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:31

Really discombobulated, disorientated, and you know, all of our we would always have one person at home base, but we genuinely wanted to test the theory, and uh yeah, it's it's pretty scary. Definitely scary. One of the funniest times actually on tour was was out at Roxby. The year nine boys wanted to test us in our first year, and they uh they threw water bombs at us on Saturday, right? After we just got there, sort of thing. And man, the woman I was working with was a very strong merry woman.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:09

She was a very strong woman.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:11

She is a very strong merry woman, and she was like, what the fuck? Like the rage and the fury in that woman's face was hysterical. These boys ran, they ran like we've never seen children run before. And on Monday morning, they didn't show up. And uh so I go, see, I remember their whole names, but I'm gonna make up, you know, such and such and such and such. We're a mother, and they're all going, uh uh, uh, uh, uh. And I go, What's your name? And I'm going to this kid. And he goes, you know, my name's such and such, and I go, You're a friend of theirs, huh? And he's going, uh. And then my goes, you can answer her now. Sorry, I can't say that sort of thing about it. Uh, and then the woman I'm working with said, You can answer her now. Uh and he goes, Yeah. I go, go and get him. Go and get them now. So they go and get these kids and they bring them in, and they are shitting themselves, right? Literally think they're gonna be like their parents are gonna be contacted, they're gonna be dubbed on, they did the wrong thing. And the woman I worked with says, Come closer, and they walk in a bit more, come closer, they walk in a bit more. And I'm just playing like Psycop now, letting letting her take over, and then they get right up close, and you can literally see these two kids shaking. They're you know, they're like 14-year-old boys. And she goes, Why did you run away? I mean, if you'd have actually stayed, then we could have had a serious, like, actual battle. Like, you are wimps and you run away. She just did the whole like turned it right around and was like, Why'd you run away? Like, didn't even give me the chance to fight back or play, you know, and it's hot in the desert, so who cares if a kid throws a water bomb? Ugh, oh, that's nice. And um, they'd really just met us, and obviously they thought we were a bit of fun. And in the end, these two kids turned out to be our number one go-tos for anything, like they were amazing. Um, yeah, just play, man. Like it would have actually been fun. So we we told them on the last day that they could all set up a huge and we had a heap of fun with it. A huge play fight with the water bombs, and we would actually participate because we're not we're not your teachers. We're here to do this project, so it was great.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:49

I'm gonna I'm gonna reflect uh a little bit on touring overseas was kind of cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:01

So I've been lucky enough to tour the Edinburgh Fringe and Kansas City Fringe. Kansas City Fringe not as high profile. Appreciate that on the International Fringe Circuit, but nonetheless a warm and welcoming bunch of people and I thoroughly enjoyed being over there. I remember going over there and you had a request for me when I went over there.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:30

I was excited.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:32

Um some indigenous uh Native American um it's the middle of America.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:39

Would you find that says Native Americans were here? So I was with our because we have a lot of indigenous centres and places and yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:51

I mean, don't get me wrong, Australia has a long way to go for conciliation.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:57

But if you want it, you can look for it and find it. Yeah. Not hidden.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:02

Which I think you know, we we that's fair. We yes, we've got a long way to go, but you know, we're allowed to pat ourselves on the back for for those of us who are doing what we can. Regardless. So I was in positivity makes wonders happen. Absolutely. So I s said this to our producer host. I said, I really want to find some indigenous kind of um heritage building or a group or a museum or an art gallery or a Americans are great at hosting you, like actually taking you out and science and just not just saying, Yeah, you can stay here. But it really actually stumped him. He had lived there all his life and he didn't know of anywhere. So he it took him a couple of days before he came back and said, All right, I don't know where I can take you. And so that was a bit interesting, I thought. Yeah. Anyway, so we've very excited to know you were going. Suburb. We went out to this suburb, and it was really like a community center, I guess. Uh, and it actually was it was a community center for the Native American people of Kansas City, and they had like a boardroom and they had small offices, and they obviously did a bit of admin and that sort of stuff. And they also had a food bank out the back, uh shed and a truck that did runs around the neighborhood and all the rest of it. So we went in there and we had a look around. They had some photos and some pictures of, you know, prominent people, like I guess um, you know, if it was another building, I would say that they were people like mayors or or people who were long-term administrators and treasurers and you know, significant people. Um full headdress and you know, full uh outfit and all the rest of that. Um very proud sort of heritage, a few ornaments and bits and pieces, but not a lot, sort of very administrative like building. And uh got talking to a few people there, uh a couple of people at work there, and um and then got and and I said I said I I I wanted to do the right thing, and so I got um I've heard it's appropriate to say Native American instead of Indian now. I I just want to make sure I've got the right uh term of reference, you know. And she said to me, No, that's absolutely fine that you call us an Indian or call us Indian. And I and I said, Oh, okay, is that okay? She said absolutely because and she said because for us, Indian in here, yeah, in this space and place. Us here in this space and place. Yeah, I can't speak to everyone when she said this to me, so forgive me, but she said for us in this place and space, Indian is means who is like God. So we're actually proud to be known as Indians because that's how we interpret the word to mean the children or we are like God. Or we are of God, or you know. Um, and so I thought, oh cool, that's that's that's really cool. Actually, sorry. Um anyway, then I've got introduced to this guy who was obviously the kind of he would be the front man for who they were. He was young, he was handsome, spokesperson. He was the spokesperson, he was particular, he was charming, he had you know charisma. Yeah, you know, he had the whole thing going on, you know, and he was the representative. And so I'm like, great, I can talk to the spokesman about it. And I said that so tell me about the the uh the tribe here, yeah. The country here, you know, like you know, we have Ghana land, we have mob, um, and and we have like you know, so many nations. And I recognize you're indigenous to this place, yeah. Who are the indigenous people of this particular area of Kansas? And you know, how do you fit into all this? He said, Well, to be honest, we don't actually know. He said, I'm actually not of these lands anywhere. I'm from down south somewhere, can't remember where.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:07

But there's nowhere to go.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:08

When I moved here, I didn't know there was any Native American or Indians in Kansas City at all. And eventually I found this little sort of community outreach group that helped people. This is where we were at the time, and they found this community, and so the Indian population of Kansas is so dispersed. They're so dispersed. Yeah. Collection of people that come from all over the country, they actually have no um continuous tribal relationship amongst themselves, apart from the fact that they are kind of all orphaned of their own indigenous lands and have ended up in Kansas, and so they are bound that way, um, which I've found really kind of ah, I have I've uh an empath for that kind of cultural genocide. It really hits, yeah, and just still hits now, even and I and it's still happening now.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:06

I am fully aware.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:07

I know we've got a long way to go in our country. I know we've got a long way to go in our country, but I was at least proud that we had some that there is enough pressure to make something some small pop small amount of our population at least had some, and we were fighting for this acknowledgement of country that we have here that that man, I always was, always will be. Always will be, man. Totally. They're custodians of the land.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:40

So that was a really um and now we have to work from here to restore what we can and to make new meaning where we can. You can't go back and just turn the clock, but you can do what's right and you can do the next best thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:56

Yep.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:57

Just trying to do the next thing, and not just shove people in a little spot. So that was uh see that grow. Profound moment in a tour that you didn't expect, like left of center there.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:10

Panzer City was also where I threw a uh I threw a bullseye at a dartboard with my eyes closed.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:18

Yes, I remember this story. This is a bloody impressive. Absolutely. Then there's the spoon, guys. Oh my god, there's so masters.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:25

There's so many got so many stories. So I threw a dart at a dartboard with my eyes closed. I was backstage in the green room again, uh, with uh where you can be yourself out with other members of shows that were on in the venue at the time, and uh the challenge was to throw a bullseye with a uh while you with your eyes closed from standard regulation competitive distance. And so we were all having a go, and one of these guys, he kind of went all mystic on us all, and he goes, You've got to imagine the board coming towards the dart, not the dart going towards the board, right?

SPEAKER_06 1:18:06

It's the same idea of the ball coming to your hand instead of going to the board, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:10

Yeah, I'm like, okay, so we're all in this moment, and so I lit and I remember stood there and I closed my eyes, and I literally imagined the board coming to the dart, and the dart instead of the dart going to the board, and I threw and I let go lightly, and bang, I literally got a ball's eye. And I haven't thrown a dart since because there's no way I am ever gonna come close to anything like that again. That is that is peak peak dart throwing moment, and we exit on that night. Yeah, out of the room. That's it. I'll never throw a dart again.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:48

I I was practic this has nothing to do with anything, but I have had one of those moments, and these have nothing to do with theater, but everything to do with theater because my kid, our kids were going through a very extensive basketball period where they were highly successful, which meant we became not only basketball parents, which like my family really dislikes most sport and resents it because of the following it gets beyond the arts. So I just inherited that, but then was faced with becoming basketball mum. And in the end, we ended up managing, yeah, both teams. Yep. In and while they were practicing, I would get very bored. And one of them would practice and then the other one would come and sit with me. And so me and my eldest daughter were just mucking around in the other basketball rink while they were practicing, and we and I said we have to do ballet moves with every shoot. You can go for a goal, but only if you do a ballet move. So we're doing jetto leaps, you know, and we're doing spins and shooting and all the rest of it, and we're just totally entertaining ourselves and totally distracting the other kids on the other side. And then I realise how distracting we are, so I pull it back and I say to my daughter, you know what? I'm gonna go to the three-point line, which is actually quite a long way from the goal, from yeah, and I'm gonna put my back to it and I'm gonna visualize the ball going in, and it's gonna go in. And she goes, Go for it, go for it, like scoff, and I did it. And because I distract we distracted everyone earlier, there were actually quite a few of the kids that and the coach that saw the moment, which was nice because um, if you have those moments and no one sees them, yeah, they're so hollow.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:49

It's like the one armed fisherman I could have fished this big.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:52

That's right. Um, we have so many memories of it.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:54

I've got to go back though, like yeah, you brought up the guy with the spoons, another great so many. I love going on tour because when you go on tour, when you go on tour, you you not only go on as a tourist and you go and visit places that you've never been before, but because you're working, you you become you have much more sort of everyday contact.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:18

Charisma.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:19

Oh no, you have much more everyday contact with the people who live in the sp in the towns and villages and wherever that you're going to. If you go somewhere just as a tourist, you're I often it's a different point of contact, but you can't work. Yeah, you're only connecting with people, and they go, Oh, are you? And all of a sudden. Well, you're connecting with teachers in their teaching environment. That's who tell you who to go and say the test of a personality of a town, you know, like you get to work, you get to experience the place. Very much. And I remember you brought up the guy with the spoons, and this is a great example. We were on tour in the um um country South Australia.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:57

It was the first time that we've taken one particular young, trained up dancer on tour.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:03

Was it? Yes. No, I don't remember.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:06

Yep. That must have been he um he'd never been on tour before, so we thought we should go to the hotel. We got blind drunk that night.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:13

So we went to the bar.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:15

So the local but we had to make him do remote crimes.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:18

No, that's a different story.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:21

It was the same night.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:22

No, that was in Victoria. Oh, very sorry, cross stories. That's a different story. So there's so many stories being on tour.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:33

Don't this was dance. We danced on the tables before we played the spoons. We went to the box.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:38

We switched the jukebox. We went to the local pub, we had dinner, and we hadn't danced enough, so we were with a particularly flamboyant couple of cast members who decided to get onto the jukebox in the front bar of this local pub in a country town and put on and put on some gay shit. Oh, it was it was great, total total classic, it's raining men kind of stuff, you know. Total and then they jump on the bar and they start dancing. And I'm the tour manager, and I'm just going, Oh my god. And all the locals who are all hard and sort of working. Just watching, just with just dead and watching, no nothing, no flinching, nothing.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:23

And they look like scary biker.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:25

And then this guy, he just sitting at the bar with me, because I'm at the bar trying to keep an eye on them while they're dancing on the bar. And just be cool. And just be cool, and just sleeping eye in the room. He's sitting in front of me and he opens his jacket, and I think ah, not that we have guns in Australia a lot, but you don't know what people are going to pull out of their jacket when they do that classic move, you know. That's not a knife. What he pull, yeah, that's not a knife. What he pulls out was a pair of spoons. And it's and it's seriously, it's got they would like Madonna or It's Raining Man, or whatever it was on the jukebox, something totally new or something. Old Silver Soup spoons. And he pulls them out and he starts spooning along to this song, this disco song, and he starts spooning along to it while they're dancing on the bar, and everyone else just sort of softened at that point, picks up their beer and just starts nodding along with the music. Not breaking character, but just sort of, you know, relaxed. And then the song came to a finish, and he picked up his spoons and he put them back in his jacket, and he went back to his beer and then and the night, and that was it. The moment was gone. That was that was just this regular.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:38

I know we did talk because I can't shut up when things are. I'm like, how do you know how to do that? How do you learn how to do that? I've tried that. I can't do that. How do you do that?

SPEAKER_01 1:24:48

But yeah, um so many on tours, anyway. That's um that's probably more than enough. Yeah, probably more than enough of us renting.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:02

More than enough, but you know, if you are out there and you are listening and you are looking for engagement, next podcast we can always get back in touch and let us know what your craziest experience was. Like, yeah, I I love I love playing those games, they're cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:20

Everyone's got a story. That's the other thing about being on tour. Everyone's got a story, and um, they're often fascinating.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:28

And hysterical.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:30

I I used to play the March hair, and while we drove from one school to another to air the mask out, because you've got to do multiple shows and travel distances, I would wear it in the car and stick my head out the window just in case because it was all velcroed in, just in case it got lost or whatever. But then I realized that was hysterical when people were passing us, and so I started going into character.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:53

Sitting at the traffic lights with you wearing a mark.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:54

The ma chair was a disaster, many broken chairs in schools, all the rest of it. Very funny. We um we love to hear your lived experiences. We hope you like to hear ours. Uh, it's been a pleasure just hanging with you in the green room, the space where we can be ourselves, talk everything theatre, and not have to try and sell our wares. However, if you're interested in any wares, you can always go to the wares on the website. We'll see you soon. Thanks for hanging with us.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:26

MickAllenconcepts.com if if you uh are curious. Anyway, we will try not to be as long between the next one.

SPEAKER_06 1:26:34

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:35

Promise.

SPEAKER_06 1:26:36

Take care.