GR_Ep 11_Connection & Resistance: Intimate Theatre Amid AI

Nik and Mik reflect on how a cash-strapped project pushed them into “parlor theatre”: tiny, intimate shows (often in private homes) historically tied to taboo, political, and community communication. They unpack what changes when the audience is acknowledged in the room—heightened vulnerability, blurred lines between “play” and “real,” the need for consent frameworks (color-coded wristbands), clear boundaries, and aftercare/debrief so people aren’t left raw. They argue this kind of bespoke, underground performance functions like a theatrical zine: handmade, niche, authenticity-driven, and harder for AI to replicate or even track—offering a possible pathway for theatre as AI disrupts acting through replication and follower-driven casting. They also note it demands craft, responsibility, and a different business model built for small networks rather than volume.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome back to the green room with Nick and Mick. We are launching straight into a first or second double digit episode. We're at episode 11. And we're going to try and be more consistent than we have in the past. This week, tonight, this episode, we were sitting around the couch having a bit of a jam about some contemporary issues of AI and sort of resistance measures to AI in our particular industry and the search for authenticity. And we thought, hey, let's chuck on the microphones and have a bit of a chat. So here's all the music segue stuff, and we'll see you on the other side. 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. Okay, hi everyone. Welcome to the green room with Nick and Mick. We're a married couple who've been working in the performing arts industry for over 35 years. We are doc well, I'm a doctor, and we are teachers, and we are choreographers and writers and directors and producers and actors and everything in the between. And the green room is where we sit and just jam uh ideas and thoughts and things that are happening in the industry, reflections, uh contemporary issues, teaching practices, and all sorts of other things in between on our couchside fireside tonight ramble. It's a Saturday night. We're sitting by the fireside, we were having a bit of a chat about some stuff, and I went, wait, hang on a minute, let me just grab the microphones and I'll whack them on and we can keep chatting and turn this into an episode. So Nikki's a little bit sort of um I'm catching her up on it all, and I'm saying, and and um we're just sort of because we've had dinner and we're just having a wine and we're having a chat, and I thought, right, throw on the mics, let's chat. Where were we? Because we were talking about this before we thought about getting the mics on, so we're actually trying to get back to the middle of the conversation we were in.

SPEAKER_04 2:23

Yeah, which is um so a while ago, a few years ago, Michael and I um were struggling financially and decided to use our know-how uh to create a performance piece based on uh research that we'd been doing around people our age. And um so when we put it all together, we decided to go completely unconventional and go uh through different avenues and make our performances very small, very boutique, and what we were basically reworking was was what we now understand as publisheatre. I mean, we knew about it before, but we're near in the middle of it, you know. Um, so yeah, public is a type of theatre that came about uh during times where things were tough, communication was hard, small um political uprisings wanted to come together, uh wanted to educate small groups of people, and they would create these little parlor plays. Uh, as you can imagine, a parlor is small.

SPEAKER_00 3:44

So when I did some research on it to to because I was interested. Yeah, yeah, I've done a bit too, yeah. We we came to this production, yeah, because we needed to make money, we needed to make it fast. We came up with a short, hard and fast, dirty show, uh quick and dirty show, pardon the pun. Um, we found that an exclusive audience was for it. So and we did that. And I was doing some research on the type of theatre this was because it was very intimate audiences of what 10, 12, 20 max. That was big. Um in um um very small intimate or domestic private residences. And so I was looking up, we both did their research on parlour plays, and the best research we could find is that it was uh came to prominence in the sort of I think the sort of mid to late 1800s in America after the Civil War because small parades were put on by people that were plays, yeah. So they were plays, but they were uh I guess commissioned and performed for to be um somewhat educational in their nature. Yeah, but they also promoted um the ideology of the ruling class at the time of the era, and so they were very political. It was kind of a subdiff subculture of the the political movement that that was.

SPEAKER_04 5:12

Okay, so the word propaganda did come up in my research a few times, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

And then the other example I remember of it was when I met my first drama teacher at high school, and he was an immigrant from South Africa, he was a South African Indian, and he was heavily involved in the anti-apartheid movement at the time with Mandela and that in the 70s and 80s, and he'd moved to Australia, he was followed by ASIO and all sorts of other stuff. And but he was he often told us about that the the revolutionary network in South Africa of anti-apartheid movement, they would often do little performances of what the um the rebel army, uh the rebel forces were doing, like so if they'd attacked a power station or if they'd won a court battle, or if something had happened, then people would turn those anecdotes, like the news, into little dramatic stories, and then they would be performed around the place, and then that was how they communicated what was going on within the movement. So parlour plays in this sense were very But you don't want it to be advertised in a newspaper. No, it's not this is not a public performance in a small street theatre. This is more like because they were subversive ideas, they were taboo ideas, they were on the fringes of society ideas, whether they're political um thoughts and ideologies, or whether they're behaviors and lifestyles, or whatever they are, they were they that's where they seem to find their most prominence. And I know I've seen I've been at a lecture with uh someone who was following the um uh which revolution it was a civil war in Europe. I think it was um the breakdown of Yugoslavia at the time. And um again, shit there was evidence of these small pockets of sort of revolutionary theatre that was that was actually in in the content communicating the ideas and the struggles against the state that were going on at the time. So they really connected to these networks um somehow.

SPEAKER_04 7:21

So they're really quite but also in a lot of these places, uh gatherings of people at that time were really not something that was smiled upon, and were if if it was found out that gatherings of people were regularly coming together to talk about anything at all, uh, you know, uh it wasn't it then it was investigated or broken up. So the easy way around that is to create a theatre piece. We're just we're just doing it's just punch and duty. It's just this. We're just coming around to the town and doing a little performance. Blah blah blah. And uh yeah, and I remember uh in college our lecturers, our head lecturers were very, very um proactive about us getting out there and being subversive and asking questions and poking and prodding.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

And um voice of the people and and in in that kind of you know, um fourth estate media journalistic kind of to quote the young ones and Rick Mayo to be the people's voice.

SPEAKER_04 8:36

Absolutely classic. Um yeah, so when it comes to the people's poets, sorry. Um the people's poets, uh yeah. The I the idea behind uh uh so yeah, the one question that I remember Peter Dunn would ask every single time we did a show, he would ask the collective ensemble, why are we doing this? What do we want the audience to walk away with? That was what my drama teacher said to me. What do you think uh and what do you think you might be able to shift politically or thinking-wise within your audience for the betterment of all? And I realized uh just now that I use that almost the same question in my um in my um canvas culture canvas uh a method that I created. So yeah, it's more of a culture canvas, really, because every group you work with is an individual culture that created a new story without the culture, you can't make the bread, you know what I mean? Can't you need the yeast first, eat for example? So um yeah, um yeah, and and I realize that I I I still use that in a lot of my methodology methodologies uh and teaching and directing today. And I know Mick uses the same thing in different ways. Uh yeah, so I find that really interesting.

SPEAKER_00 10:11

But one of the reasons we got to talking about parlor theatre, so there's a there's a bit of a connection like I said, we're trying to catch up on the conversation we've already started because I have seen parlor plays at um I have seen parlor plays at like a fringe. Um they were public shows and they were kind of done in small there's a big theatre in Adelaide that's got a really small like office space.

SPEAKER_04 10:39

Yes, but um they're always advertised as parlor style, yeah. Which often means the actor goes to the person's house or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 10:49

These ones in the fringe though were done at venues. So the the one I saw was at like um that venue down at Hindmarsh. Oh right, so I've seen a few of the other ones, yeah. It was like in an office and they'd turned it into a bedroom, so they'd set dressed an office room essentially into a bedroom and it had about five ten people, and it was all very intimate. But it was all still done with a fourth wall.

SPEAKER_04 11:12

The actors it was done uh training splitting in the fringe too in the railway station.

SPEAKER_00 11:17

But the fourth wall was still there, it was still like the audience didn't exist.

SPEAKER_04 11:24

Well yes, but within the confines of the fourth wall and everything that we currently believe and understand. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:31

The characters living the moment of the plan.

SPEAKER_04 11:33

Absolutely got you. And and the um the audience respond to these things and make them happen because we know the rules.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

And so I think the different the distinction between what we did and what that was was that apart from the fact that we were doing it in private residences and small venues, really small venues, is that our work acknowledged the audience was there. Which again is like what you just said, it's something that we we often do in our work. We have a component of uh self-reflection in the performance where the where the performers are aware of like everyone has is aware, the audience and the performance are as there's a reason you're here.

SPEAKER_04 12:19

Yeah. You're not talking into a vacuum.

SPEAKER_00 12:22

That's a common thing that we do in a lot of our stuff. So that was different. And I think the other thing about the public nature of it doing in a fringe season, when it's public like that, is that it's not as ironically enough, it's not as easy to do subject matter that is politically or subversively charged. Because you've got to sell tickets. You've got to be commercially viable, you've got to be interesting. So the Hall of Play became when I I recall this particular one that I went and saw, it became very uh it was uh bespoke, it was different, like it would like its catch was its hook was that it was different in that way that it was intimate. Everybody got a bit of you, but but essentially the performance wasn't because the fourth wall was still there, and the ideas weren't particularly taboo or on the real fringes where these kind of performances live because of that that sort of underground quality to the the the communities that that use it as a form of communication and and understanding and connection with them.

SPEAKER_04 13:25

Totally. The other thing about that, before you keep going, like yeah, keep going with that idea, but the other thing about it that I I don't know how many of our listeners have ever been to a show and been only one of maybe two or three or six in the audience, and it really doesn't matter whether the space is made for it or not, it's the kind of intimate journey that your body recognizes, and this is something that we realized, and we actually had to rewrite and rewrite and rewrite to accommodate uh so that the line between the performance and the completely currently happening and living in this now with you moment could find its balance. We discovered you can't have it one way or the other. And the reason behind it I know now is because when you're um let's say you have to get up and sing in front of people, or someone asks you to listen to them sing, and it's just you and them in the room and they're gonna sing to you. Either way, it activates the same part of your brain that makes you feel um untethered, really, really vulnerable, like when you're naked in front of someone, unvulner really vulnerable. And because you're working within that, your your brain, you can't make a choice, your brain just does it. If you're because you're working within that deeply vulnerable space of creating and music and art and theater, uh it it is too much for a lot of people. It's overwhelming to be uh in that tiny space with so few people and one person giving everything to you feel like your attention needs to be on fire, you feel like you need to be reacting the appropriate ways, whatever the fuck they are, and all of those things. And uh, and so I think that's a really, really valid point. There's some people love that, they love that, you know. But the there's a lot of people that really struggle with that kind of really and that's why, because it's activating deeply intimate parts of your brain, and then it's also acting, uh it's also making the activation of connection happen, and it's just very vulnerable.

SPEAKER_00 16:03

So if I can give a different kind of a metaphor or example of what that means, do it. We're trying to Mr. Anthropologist. We're also trying to explain a performance without describing what happened either, which makes it difficult. So I guess if you think about it like when you go to watch a stand-up comic and you're in a big audience, right? And you're in the dark, because that's the way big theaters work, the audience sits in the dark and all the light is on the performer, right? So space is determined by light and and environment, the audience the actor or the performers on a stage and the audience is down low in the first few bleaches. But you're lost, you you're safe in the in the aggregate of the audience because you're all there in the dark. It's still your individual experience, but you're in a collective and you're part of a group, so you're kind of hidden and safe in that. And then the comedian might pick someone out of the audience and do one of those bits where they just pick on them for some reason or whatever, you know.

SPEAKER_04 17:05

You can sit somewhere further away.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

Yeah, you can choose to sit somewhere further away, but then that that becomes a moment of awkwardness, and that awkwardness becomes a point of humour, and that's sort of the purpose and the premise of how that interaction works, right? When you're doing some of these parlour plays and these intimate performances, where there's maybe only 10 or 12 of you in in total in the room, including the performers. There is a um there is a very thin line, I guess, between that relationship of audience being lost in the aggregate and being constantly seen and vulnerable because it makes you vulnerable when you're not seen. They're sitting right next to you on the couch like you're sitting next to me now.

SPEAKER_04 17:53

Don't get me wrong, being seen is wonderful, it just depends how you're being seen. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:57

Yeah. And so that's what makes it it it turns out that it worked for the particular performance we were doing, but well, it didn't.

SPEAKER_04 18:04

Um it did it, but but we realized as we went on that the that the um the glitches were always in the moments between the phase in and out of between that awareness active it's not participation because we never we never we we always preset the show explaining that they they are actively in the show. They've come here to hear what we have to say, and we're gonna tell them what we have to say, and we're gonna take them on journeys, and and as far as we're concerned, um you're part of it. So you wear you wear colour codes, kind of like going, I don't know if anyone's ever been to a um exotic ball or a um Just a party or something. You know, whatever. Where you wear bands that let the um performers know whether you're really into you're deep into the show, which is you know, green, do anything, talk to me, you know, within reason, always with consent. Um, and then you've got your orange, which is like I'm okay with some things, but like check in with me. Check in with me before you actually uh come and hang with me or touch me or sit near me or whatever. And then you've got your pinks or your reds, which is I really don't want to interact, I'm really just here to observe, which is completely fine. And so that the introduction of that made it a whole ton easier. Two, we uh so even prepping the audience beforehand doesn't give you that uh fluidity, even with uh permission to to work enough quickly enough in between the two worlds of reality and the play that you're performing.

SPEAKER_00 19:53

We all working quicker than the audience are, obviously, because you're aware of you become aware of those wristbands. And we realized me, and you're working, and so you're phasing in and out of because there were moments in the play that did have a kind of fourth wall performance aspect scenes, and then there were others that were directly almost interactive, and so you you're phasing in and out of that all the time because we and the reason we did that is because we realized that if you did a performance that was entirely with the fourth wall, like that example from the fringe, then it felt kind of ridiculous in such small spaces where you could where everyone could see each other quite clearly. It was like, and so it ironically, the fourth wall created a kind of a distant an emotional distance with an audience where we knew they were right there. So we that's where we and started the phase in and out of that relationship.

SPEAKER_04 20:52

Yes, and we realized every glitching point was because the old the audience felt too vulnerable because they didn't understand their space or they didn't understand the tempo or whatever that was. So every gap we had to fill was all about that idea of releasing and reducing the amount of distress caused by the actual thing they were there to get, and being able to perform it at three different levels while then coming back to them. You see, as actors we say, and as writers we say, and directors, whatever, we go, oh we just want to share our story, and this project taught me how egotistical the idea of that is. Don't get me wrong, ego is great. But it did teach me that the idea of sharing your story is great, but if you actually want to share, then you have to like genuinely share, then you have to open up the space, and you have to be open. To what that will create. And at the same time, you do have an agenda and an objective to get to the end of the story and give space. Sometimes these shows would kind of end but not stop until midnight. We might start 9.30.

SPEAKER_00 22:17

9.30 was usually the start.

SPEAKER_04 22:19

And then we'd still be there at 1.30 in the morning, unpacking, discussing, disclosing. The show hasn't really stopped. We've never really stepped out of character because we are the people we're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 22:31

The other thing we realized is that the show needed like a um a debrief session, a uh not a kind of QA, a kind of because of the content and the material, it needed a little bit of unpacking at the end. I mean, and you couldn't just leave an audience and say, okay, that's it, good night. See you later. Best of luck. And anyway, um, aber it was a bit more and the reason behind that too was that say you tell a kid off, right?

SPEAKER_04 22:59

And you you really have to hit you not hit them with it. I mean, you have to hit them with the idea of what they've done. You have to really be out. This is the cause, this is the effect, and you have to apologize. It it is cruel to leave the kid at that point. You've got to go when you realize that they have fully understood the depth of uh, you know, and the and that and they are vulnerable, at that moment you need to remind them they're not bad. They're not bad at all, they've just learnt a boundary, they've learnt something that pushes someone too far. And you know, we can make up for that, and we can make that better and we can learn from it kind of thing. You can't leave an audience in this really vulnerable place where you've shared that place that creating music or singing or standing naked in front of someone feels like you and then go, right? That was lovely. See you later.

SPEAKER_00 23:57

Need aftercare.

SPEAKER_04 23:58

Uh yeah, it need aftercare.

SPEAKER_00 24:01

You need catharcism and aftercare.

SPEAKER_04 24:03

Aftercare. Uh and so it was very interesting. The amount of uh script rewrites and rewrites and redevelopments and tweaks and tweaks and tweaks were um insane, but worth it every time because each experience actually became fluid and and more refined. And we even took it to lots of other venues.

SPEAKER_00 24:30

There were experiences with audiences members that were as profound as some of those experiences we were talking about last episode with the bullying. Some of the stories and and and and expressions of uh uh, you know, in that sense, theatrically, for me, it it was complete fulfillment in that these people felt seen, they felt represented, they felt they had an identity that they could be proud of and not ashamed of.

SPEAKER_04 25:01

Well, they didn't feel as confused or they felt more they felt like they could actually it's there were a couple of people own their identity. Um, and then there were a couple of people that I remember being coming up and saying, like, I I I d I'm not involved in this anymore, like I'm not in that place anymore. But this show really helped me reconcile where I was when this was happening in my life, in which case I feel like I can breathe and I've kind of bookmarked it and understood it, and I can move forward. So it's really, really profound from one end to the other.

SPEAKER_00 25:42

Um life stuff, you know.

SPEAKER_04 25:47

Um, but what is the most incredible thing about this is never once did we advertise on any of the usual theatrical platforms.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

Well, it's a complete um neo-tribe of people.

SPEAKER_04 26:04

We we found other ways of finding audience and we found um community and the networks, and we went out that way instead of going out the the traditional way.

SPEAKER_00 26:17

We went to meet them where they were, as people say, you know, you went to meet them where they were.

SPEAKER_04 26:22

In the end, we actually really did do a parlor play. We applied all the tactics uh that that has. Ages later. Um, like you know, you it still still probably has some muscle to it, the idea of it. But then I was saying we were walking one day and I said to Mick, um I think I get that it's all about the taboo or politically taboo or any kind of taboo or whatever, but like I can't help thinking about it in terms of people with disability and sex. Like, I worked as a support worker, which is a um disability sport worker for a long time and had a sister who was fully disabled physically. Uh, and I've had so many candid conversations with so many disabled people about these things, but I'm the sort of person you can have that with, and it's not the sort of thing you happen to just have a chat about at the bus stop usually. So I I said, what about something like that? I mean, what if you could not for the sake of bringing them together at all, but to bring them together to know that they're there's no gr there's nothing bad or wrong, or that there that there's um all this access to other empowerment and that there's like-minded people and God knows what that could create. Two like minds come together in a room and they have this and boom. And so, and Mick and I got chatting about it, and then ages later I realized that it's kind of like um like a zine. It's the closest thing that theatre's got to a zine.

SPEAKER_00 28:18

Which is a term I've only just heard of.

SPEAKER_04 28:21

I think small, yeah, intimate. You don't put it out there to everyone. No, it is either it is either very much situated around a b a topic, a group, a fandom, or very personal. And I went, shit, I think we just zened theatre a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 28:47

Like yeah. Because where we're getting to with all of this is the what led us to all of this conversation about a zine, a theatrical zine, is is a shift that we've noticed um in and around the different places that we communities we interact with, that there is a push away there's a push away from so much AI-generated slot. There is a search for authenticity. Now that could be authenticity in terms of people getting dumb phones and getting rid of their smartphones. It could be authenticity in terms of listening to vinyl records instead of digital music or even CDs. Show you people um stuff that you can handle and touch. Getting a walkman back and using that. Doing things like zines, which are small folded pieces of paper with short, you know, intense um small groups, very small groups. And ideas and thoughts that can't be replicated through AI or can't be regenerated. And maybe this is parlour plays are what Nick was saying, is that the theatrical version of the zine now small, they're impactful, they're not big and theatrical. Not advertised everywhere. Advertised everywhere. They're for the people who are looking for it. There's small community stuff.

SPEAKER_04 30:03

Like there's in theatre form, so it's educational, and then there's the aftercare. Well where we all just sit and chat and then we're just a social group after it.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

Show it's a it's about authenticity with real humans in small spaces where something that is crafted. The relationship is much more intimate with whatever the subject matter is. And whether it's political or ideological or not for money. And that's where it well, you've always got to make money.

SPEAKER_04 30:32

I mean, yes, but the idea isn't about yes, you've got to make a living.

SPEAKER_00 30:38

But yeah, do you have to buy into the whole but it's a it's a it it's a potentially interesting pathway for uh for theatre moving forward in a in an era of massive disruption with what AI is bringing to our craft and our industry, you know, where AI generated actors can be cast in a movie. Yeah. Uh where your casting is kind maybe dependent in certain circumstances, maybe dependent on your social media profile. Yes. Where rather than your performance. Where theater, theatre, uh what depends on. How many followers do you have? Theater, theatre generally is um, you know, people think of musicals, West End, and they're all great, they're all fantastic, they're absolutely amazing.

SPEAKER_04 31:29

Yeah, I want to go see Heathers.

SPEAKER_00 31:31

Don't get me wrong. Um But um but theater in terms of uh you know that kind of that kind of impact, that kind of impact at that level, I think this kind of theatre that uh and the audience.

SPEAKER_04 31:49

Why why am I doing this?

SPEAKER_00 31:51

Well it's that truly reflective kind of conversation that there's both a mirror and a creator. It's that relationship that happens in the room with real people that can't be replicated by AI. It's that it's that's where maybe theatre has its zine quality areas like phones and music and and uh and how does AI find it if it's small, intimate, and not publicised in those places, and in that sense, there's a power in it, that's where it can be powerful because it's real small ideas, and I'm not just talking about politically or the the evil, you know.

SPEAKER_04 32:28

Honestly, people uh use the good force, not use your powers for good, not evil. Uh, but you know, I'm saying to the amount of change and help and care and support. That's the bit that excites me.

SPEAKER_00 32:47

I think there's an aspect to this which is like you know how people that have these lifestyles are off-grid. Yeah, yeah. It's kind of like a social off-grid. Yeah. It's it's not an it's not a it's not an on-grid. I don't want to say online because your life online is your life offline. There's they're just merged and intertwined so much now you can't separate them like that anymore.

SPEAKER_04 33:10

But to uh to some degree, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:12

But yeah, you can have a kind of off-grid social um identity, uh an on an off-grid social existence. But it's a kind of it's I I reckon I think that's gonna be an interesting space to watch over the next disruptive period of the next 10 to 15 years.

SPEAKER_04 33:34

I can't be the only one thinking this way, and Mick can't be the only one thinking this way. There's gotta be more of us out there, yeah. We can zine theater.

SPEAKER_00 33:43

I reckon we can. It's kind of it's it's the similar to the it's similar to the ground that the fertile environment in which cabaret started, because cabaret has a similar kind of um anti social kind of anti-social underground rocky horror, yeah, kind of um quality to it, or at least where it came from and fermented from. Yes, it originally and I think the same qualities are going to be valuable in the next era of change that we're currently in.

SPEAKER_04 34:17

Oh, it happens at every turn, like, oh what a lovely war. It's not just a happy, lovely music, it was bloody brilliant. Yeah, yeah, and and it's brilliant because it's a it's a it's a slap back at all of it.

SPEAKER_00 34:33

Clever. I think it also invites a shift to the way we think about what we're doing. Like, as much as we want to, we cannot separate the economic realities of producing and performing and putting yourself at risk to do anything. Absolutely that has to be taken into account. So I think what this might also invite is a shift in the business model of how we think about theatre rather than volume, rather than big tours and big theatres and multiple performances a week and sort of turn for we might have to think about this as a different economic model because our audience and our ideas and our performance model is different. So that's an interesting space to look at as well.

SPEAKER_04 35:17

Because like what we did was surprisingly people on Etsy don't give away their things for free, but it's handmade, yeah. And you pay for it because you actually want it to be handmade, you don't want that perfection. I think that we're, you know, the more we drive towards the search for authenticity, the search for authenticity.

SPEAKER_00 35:38

This is where it can live. And we did on paper make did surprisingly well financially in that self-funded.

SPEAKER_04 35:46

We got it, it got us through Christmas without having to go on the dole. Like that really helped us out, and we could have grown and we traveled to we went to Melbourne with that, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:57

Yes, we performed the people who recommended we travel overseas.

SPEAKER_04 36:01

There was a huge opportunity we just didn't have the infrastructure finances to follow it through.

SPEAKER_00 36:09

Yeah, it got to that point where this little project had taken off so well it needed actual some investment to take it to the next stage, which is a business model consideration. So again, this it's a tricky thing.

SPEAKER_04 36:21

I don't actually I think that Michael, I'm gonna put something to you here. I think that we actually fell into the trap of thinking it needed investment. What it actually needed was a shit ton more um portals of small intimate audiences for a longer period. So the question wasn't how do we get a producer to get this bigger, which was what we fell for. The question actually was who do we get that can market this underground to all the right places and is a is is a whiz on that line of connection. And so, you know, I recognize in hindsight, my looking in the wrong direction.

SPEAKER_00 37:06

In some degree that point that is still a definition of investment. We had to find we had to invest more intellectual property.

SPEAKER_04 37:15

But if we went into that in the traditional ways, I think we would have come across many dead ends.

SPEAKER_00 37:20

Yeah, it yeah, yeah, yeah. What we learned is that it needed a different model of operation.

SPEAKER_04 37:26

The only people that understood pilot theatre turned out to be the people that wanted to come to it, and that was the superpower that we didn't we didn't see and we couldn't grasp. But I can see that someone somewhere it's going to go somewhere. It's got to, because that's what theatre does. It evolves every time. And I can kind of see how this evolution's gonna go. And I'm liking it a lot. I think the power for good the potential for good is enormous.

SPEAKER_00 37:56

I think creatively too, it was a really potent time and really valuable in like a bookmark kind of moment in the career for me, in as much as any any process of theatre by its nature is ensemble and requires a lot of people coming together doing time and resources, and decisions have to be made. It's almost very almost democratic, except we've got directors, and it's a very yeah, that's the nature of it, right? And so the there's there's a absence of immediacy making theatre that you might get in music or painting or photography. There's an absence of immediacy between creative thought and expression and and output. You've got to go through all these other uh processes of production meetings and da-da-da-da-da. But with this particular performance, that gap between the thing you wanted to express or communicate and the ability to just process it and output it was very, very short. Very it was just us. We didn't have to go through levels of communication or hierarchies or other authorities.

SPEAKER_04 39:12

I probably should have told our family we were rehearsing a show. Especially some of the nobody. Because uh that Christmas I remember she came over and she said, Oh mate, I just want to check in on you. That's how Aussies talk. She's from Sydney, so very thick accent. Well, mate, I just want to check in on you. Are you two alright? And we're looking at each other backwards and forwards, thinking, What? And then she says, I hear an awful lot of yelling. Like, are you two hanging out in this area of the house and yelling a lot? And we just cracked up, we knew exactly what it was. We said we're just very excellent actors and we're rehearsing, and we'll let you know next time. Um, yeah, it was definitely uh, I don't think anything you do is ever wasted, no matter how much of a failure it seems to be, no matter how much of a potential success that never got off or whatever. Um every everything that we did with that show, like I know Mick had a sniff of like there's more to it, there's more to it, there's more to it. And I let it sit for a long time, but what I came back with wasn't this idea of success for us so much, um uh, but more of a realization that this could be good for so many, so many people, and it could be exactly what they're looking for. And let's be honest, how often have you gone to see something that has deep meaning to you only to feel like you were mansplained to or like you know, there were some things that were really good about it, and at the same time, like, I wish they didn't portray everyone with their DHD like this, or do you know what I mean? Like it it it was it's the chance, this is the difference. That's where you get to go, they do do something, and then you get to have a conversation about that. That you know, is this really sad that that happens, but then there's five other people in the room going, yeah, but you know, this and that and the other, and wow in those places and spaces magic does happen, and I don't just mean healing and and resolution and I mean that people see gaps that they haven't shared with other people because they weren't in the same room with other people. It's about being in the same room, and that's why parloatre is seen as a very potentially dangerous thing. It's a very Hamilton thing. You want to be in the room where it happens, kind of thing, you know, though those spaces.

SPEAKER_00 42:06

It's where ideas that are powerful, powerful and intimate and uh and unspoken generally can be expressed. And whatever that idea is, um it's immediate in terms of it's low production value, it's immediate in terms of you can get from page to stage pretty quickly without a lot of line, a lot of levels of sort of you better be good at what you do though, right?

SPEAKER_04 42:34

Oh, yeah, you gotta be good. Trust me, yeah, you gotta be good at what you're doing.

SPEAKER_00 42:37

It's all right. It requires a different way of thinking about the business model. So that needs some thought.

SPEAKER_04 42:44

Yeah. Still developing that idea.

SPEAKER_00 42:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 42:48

Um hit us up if you've got a great one.

SPEAKER_00 42:51

And it is, and it is, I don't want to say AI proof, but I I I I can see how it is AI absent.

SPEAKER_04 42:59

Yep. AI struggles to break the article.

SPEAKER_00 43:03

The only thing AI is going to maybe tap into is however you promote or advertise. And like we said, the content and nature of this kind of work by its nature is very sort of underground and small and bespoke. It's very targeted and unique sets of individuals. Yep. So the so you can probably bypass a lot of what AI is observing and looking around for anyway.

SPEAKER_04 43:29

In Japan, people are favoring zines. Yeah, it's like because it's AI can't replicate it, can't track it, can't read it. They're small publications, very individual groups or very personal. But absolutely brilliant. The other thing I wanted to just quickly say before we sign off is that I did some research just before we began. And um, top five contributors to young people who are wanting to become artists uh And well, I'm gonna say actors, I specifically looked at actors.

SPEAKER_02 44:06

Is competition which is nothing new, that one's never gonna change.

SPEAKER_00 44:14

Two, not not in the nature of the work, really, is it?

SPEAKER_04 44:18

Yeah, no, no, that will never change. There's always gonna be competition. Um, and number two, and that's the same in any fit, like you can take on any sports person, yeah. That's do you thrive or do you die in it, you know? That's one of the defining factors of whether you'll cope. And number two is surprisingly AI. Because we have AI actors now, and they can and they don't even have to pay, you know, when you go on set on a big film like Mortal Kombat, and I'm speaking from experience, and all the actor, all the extras are there, they have these little white um kind of like igloo tents, which is where they cut they come along and they grab any and every extra, and they go, Do you mind if we take like footage for you so we can replicate you in the film? So you want like a thousand extras, and they don't even take all of them in, they might take 30 a day over three days, and then they replicate and replicate and replicate that actor. Now, none of the extras get paid extra, pardon the pun, for allowing the AI replication of themselves over and over again in a film, let alone wherever the hell they want to use it else, and um, and then you know, there's just so many other that's that's a really, really simple, really basic everyday film kind of thing. And I do remember sitting there and thinking, don't ask me, man, because no, um, I'm not, you know. I remember thinking that uh the people that were lining up for it, extras for the for that film, I don't even know if we'll get in trouble for it, but uh ex extras for that film didn't have to have any acting training.

SPEAKER_00 46:28

Extras don't really.

SPEAKER_04 46:29

Um and they often don't, right?

SPEAKER_00 46:31

The cattle.

SPEAKER_04 46:32

And so it's it is literally what we like to call the cattle call. And they get treated very much like a cat the cattle on the set as well, herded, told to stay, you know, and fed. Uh and so yeah, it's one of those really odd things where you go in so many ways, you can see that their their um use of AI is becoming more of a threat to every young actor that's out there, not just in the sense that AI could take the their job or their role, but in the sense that AI will find out how many followers you have. So now we've got actors so busy trying to get their followers full that they're not following the craft, they're not learning, not really, they're just trying to fulfill a career and hope for the best. And in this day and age where anyone can be an actor and you could get plucked off the street, you've got to be in it to win it, lotto style. It's yeah, it for those people who feel called to be an actor, who who just can't manage to be anything but and have to fulfill the call, I can see the psychological damage. And that was number three. Not only psychological psychological damage from all the other stuff, but from having to manage this world of competing with AI and being on top of everything because AI will know, and that will be a determinator of whether you get chosen for a role. It is, you know, and in some cases I'm sure they just choose and all the rest of it, but it really is taken into account in so many areas in so many ways, quietly, and we're starting to be more and more aware of it. The toll of that alone. I've been online and done influencing, and I man, burnout. So I really, really appreciate those top three being the most significant things that young actors are facing.

SPEAKER_00 48:57

The thing I hear in that is the Go back to your craft, find a way. The thing I hear about in that, which is a thing I'm dealing with is in this job I've got at the moment, is the constant um the the how can I put it? It's it's the quiet surveillance. No, no, no, it's not that. It's the it's the being it's like an unawareness, it's a presence of being unaware that there is a difference between value and volume. That rarely ever do you create meaningful impact with uh people at the same time you are achieving high volume and in that sense. So what people want is they want events or they want like let's take YouTube, like you're saying, YouTube is an influencer for the moment, right? It's about volume. You need likes and followers, right? Volume of eyes on you, right? That that creates a demand or a kind of workplace demand to behave and and act and keep producing content. And it's not just filming it, but it's editing it, it's posting it, it's doing all that sort of stuff.

SPEAKER_04 50:23

Yeah, and you have to be aware of how the content is being received. That's another big job.

SPEAKER_00 50:28

Yep, so you've got to do you know, monitoring, you've got to research, and you've got to answer every person that has an opinion or wants to check us and customer relations, it's it's massive, it's huge. And the the only way that then the success, anyone who has real success in their model is always up in the hundreds and thousands of millions of followers and likes and subscribers and all that. And they've done that through creating a web. And they've got a web and they've got a team, and they've got the whole thing it's like a production factory.

SPEAKER_04 50:57

Now, if that's what you have to do, or at least do a sort of And then there are others that get it just because they're authentic and people just can't get enough and keep referring and referring.

SPEAKER_00 51:07

Sure, but they still have to be keep producing.

SPEAKER_04 51:10

Oh, otherwise everybody get all the fans get annoyed. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:13

Get forgotten. And they get annoyed and forgotten.

SPEAKER_04 51:15

And your numbers go down, you want to die.

SPEAKER_00 51:17

I was saying to um one of our kids the other day, I I reckon in about five or so years we're going to have you know how we have bands from the 80s doing reunion tours and for all the old, you know, um boomers and stuff, they go. Beach boys, all that stuff. Yeah, we're gonna have a generation of um, you know, old-time reunion nostalgia YouTubers soon.

SPEAKER_04 51:43

We already have doing tours and Trisha Paytos is considered an old timer in that field, and yeah, there's probably a heap of more.

SPEAKER_00 51:52

So the demands of the individual person pursuing being an actor in a commercial environment.

SPEAKER_04 52:02

Where an actor is a very broad term now, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:06

Um, so it gets back to yeah, how do you want to affect if you if you want to be the sort of actor who wants to affect meaning in in your audience through the work that you do, then you have to with the biggest company or state, or is it with the people? Yeah, yeah, it it's it's a landscape you have to navigate. And I'm not everyone's journey is their own journey is their their own. All I am saying is that this thing that this experience we had with creating a parlour play out of nothing, and we created it out of nothing, except our own imagination and hard work and just access our own lived experience.

SPEAKER_04 52:55

It was a cheap operation for um research.

SPEAKER_00 52:59

Research cost money because you had to go out into the world to do it, and stuff, and we had to pay for a little bit of advertising, but not a lot.

SPEAKER_04 53:06

Where, yeah, all that stuff. So, yeah, yeah, that sort of stuff. So and even then we saved Christmas and then some.

SPEAKER_00 53:15

And we went for about 18 months, and like I said, we we could go on, and there's a business model there, I think, that is absolutely worth pursuing. But it for us at the time and where we were at and all the rest of it, we weren't in a position to be able to pursue it and and oh yeah, I was working a full-time job, and yeah. You know, maybe we'll get back to revisiting that one day, I don't know. Who knows? But it's certainly an interesting um aspect in this future of AI and what it means, and an impact for an actor and their career and their industry, and just broadly performance in general, because it it is going to change so many things. So and and acting in these kinds of cap encapsulates that authenticity that it's because it's just not on it's just not online. It's just it's anonymous from an online world.

SPEAKER_04 54:10

And it doesn't matter whether you're a star or seen as a um as some sort of known celebrity, or whether you're no one, if what you're deli you're no one they know, but you're authentic, your performance is and your storyline, you know, editing, everything is peachy, and it actually shares with feedback and response. It doesn't diminish in the current flow.

SPEAKER_00 54:50

It doesn't diminish the requirement of being good at your craft, no being professional.

SPEAKER_04 54:56

In fact, I think you have to be at a certain level uh to really, really hit this or just be naturally gifted. Yeah, it's accidentally kind of fall into it, you know. Like it's one of those sort of factors. And look, as an actor who's done some pretty bloody terrifying live stuff, this was hard yakker, hard work, highly attentive, highly distracting, overly stimulating, overwhelming. For an undiagnosed ADHD as well, and it was um it would probably be differently now, and for a massive empath, uh a little bit too much, and too many people who wanted to remain friends forever after. And to be really honest, that that wasn't what my focus was on that, and that was really hard. You just don't you don't misunder misinterpret or miss no, not misinterpret, don't misunderestimate that deep and honest and authentic power of connection if you're not ready for it.

SPEAKER_00 56:14

Well, I think that is maybe a coda to what we were saying about the authenticity and the performance and feels like a big job and that slippage and that phasing in and out between the relationship of audience and the and the roles and the intimacy of it. Likewise, to you to use that going to see a stand-up comedy analogy again, when the show's over and the lights come out, 5,000 people walk out of the venue, and you're all just en masse and that's it, and maybe you stand by the stage door for an autograph, but you're just a random, no disrespect intended. I'm not going to say assumed relationship between audience and actor. But again, because there isn't that um uh that sort of relationship that's established through distance, physical distance, aggregate mass, anonymity, those things are absent, so a different relationship bond happens between the audience and the actor. And that is again another space that needs to be navigated and thought about in a very clear bound different way. Yeah. You know, and maybe in ways that we haven't as actors and performers had to think about before.

SPEAKER_04 57:31

I think if you're going to endeavor into things like this, it's really important to have your own um help available because you are intimately going to connect with people, which means that um there will be cause and effect. Um similar to anyone in every other workplace. However, I would say these other warnings are important as well. You are not a counselor, regardless of your intimate knowledge of whatever you experience.

SPEAKER_02 58:10

Number two, your experience is yours and yours alone, and cannot speak for anyone else.

SPEAKER_04 58:23

Um I think the last one is that you have to have very clear boundaries around yourself, others' expectations, and you need to be able to say them. And you need to be able to say them with kindness and generosity and without guilt or shame at not being able to accommodate something. You're only a human being, and you've offered what you've offered for this price, and you're given more than that, and you don't owe anything more. I think there's significant takeaways from that experience as well. And it is a really great idea. I've done it with many other shows to to link up with counselors and other support services that might actually be really bloody interested in being a part of these connections.

SPEAKER_00 59:22

Well, I think if you're doing anything like that with um They don't have to be in the room, they can just be in the foyer.

SPEAKER_04 59:28

But they're there if you need them, you know.

SPEAKER_00 59:30

I think it's probably just good practice that if you're doing anything that's got content where minorities and vulnerable people are looking for support and safety, then you connect with groups or businesses or services that are part of that network so that you become that conduit for professional support because you're not you're like you said, you're not there as a professional count in a professional counselor.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:00

And if you want to be really underground with it, you don't have to go through any big um government services. Um and you can always run your show past some of these people, lived and real experience before you actually open it up to a to an to a potentially volatile, open you have no idea who, even if there is only seven of them, audience.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:27

Well, get safeguards in. Putting my capitalist producer hat on for the moment, right? Go on then. Regardless of the emotional or social fringe element or political fringe element or any kind of fringe element to the community and network that you're performing with, and two, regardless of what that is, you will always find a codependent codependent economy. There's people selling things, there's there's people selling things, there's people buying things, there are services, there are things available for those people, there are specialists, there are you are always there's always that codependent network of things. So it's just tapping into that more broadly, which gives you authenticity with your audience and shows you as a genuine contributor and participant with good intentions to the community that you are attemptingly essentially trying to exploit by getting them to buy a ticket to your show. Like it it makes you a more responsible citizen within the community of the audience that you're trying to pitch to because you end up connecting with these other services and businesses and support networks for the people who are vulnerable minorities.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:58

These things particularly come when you've you, the creator of it, have had a lived experience. The audience will find so much empathy for whatever your lived experience is, because it's in the same place theirs was or is. And everyone's experience of this place is fascinating when your world is very much embedded in that. For example, disability, or um I've used that a couple of times, or look, swingers, or um BDSM crews, or political movements. Uh political movements, uh quiet youth advocacy advocacy, advocacy, I was gonna say advocacy, and activists, and then you've got like your your quiet cultural groups that that don't uh want any attention. All of them are cultural groups, like for example, within one of those groups, there might be one thing, one thing that is just no one talks about.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:15

It could be it could be it doesn't have to be complex or sexual or crazy, it's it could be a subculture of people under mortgage stress, totally in a cost of living crisis.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:26

Honestly, but you could be doing but you're not in a counselor's room and you're doing other people and you've actually got a connection for the first time in five years, and yeah, it's it's that idea of small um groups and cultures that share something but feel alone for the producers out there.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:47

That's a fragmented market segment, really, not an aggregate market segment, if that helps anyone out there listening. Different way of thinking.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:57

Oh, look, I'll be looking it up. I have no idea what that is.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:59

But again, that it's that very quality that again I really liked about it because it was the immediacy between me as a theatre maker and to and to my audience without having to go through months of production and and you know convincing producers and arguing with designers and and paying ticketing people, yeah, and fucking wrangling, you know, schedules and calendars. And you know, it was a much more immediate, it felt much more I felt much more as a theatre maker. I felt kind of like what I imagine a painter must feel when they see something and they just put a stroke on the page, and it was like felt almost that kind of immediate as a theatre maker to to what I was trying to express as a person and an artist. So that's another question.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:48

We have had many ups and downs and conversations about this, but at this point in time, my theory is it's the potential future of the type of theatre that is um the type of theatre that is meaningful and representative, not just meaningful and representative, but so part of an entertainment industry or sector? A catalyst. I'm not gonna call it a disturber or a what's the bloody word that's not a disruptor. But it could be of course it's a disruptor. Anything anything that creates change is gonna be called a a disruption. Um and I think that word is crap because disruption and uh for me makes me go, that's annoying. I'm trying to do this and you keep disrupting it. I also guess that's the point. It just doesn't feel positive. I think this kind of theater is not disruptive. It's

SPEAKER_01 1:06:00

Empowering.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:01

Empowering and connective. People putting dots together. It's very exciting. Everyone running around following the following the um algorithms can't see those things. It's kind of exciting. It's like a whole new game. Which is also kind of what makes It's like looking for the fairies.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:24

It's also what kind of makes it really kind of cool is because you are on the fringe, offline, subversive, you go under the radar. The people who need to find you find you.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:42

And subversive doesn't mean bad.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:44

No, it doesn't. It just means that you just you've got other ways of doing things.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:48

You go the other way.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:59

And that more equals more equals more equals more. It's just work against that. Work with the bespoke work.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:06

Instead of saying if you don't have it, you're not good enough. This is more along the lines of if you don't get it, then you don't good. Oh no, no, no, no, no. I wouldn't say that at all. I'd say I'd say this is much more along the lines of not that whole idea of if you don't have it, well then you're not good enough. How do you not know about it? Oh my god. No, no, it's not. Everyone does. This is that quiet one where someone goes, Oh my god. If you know how do you know all this? And you go, if you know, you know, I just know. And you know, it's cool, man. And the other person is left for the next month going, what do you mean? How do you know? What do you know? Where do you go every Tuesday? Just yeah. It's it's a really, really, really beautiful uh reaffirm affirmation of self-belief rather than the huge hive mind uh kind of collective. And I think you can't tie one belief within a group that have like-mindedness. Sorry.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:20

No, that's all right. You can't you can't tie one without the other and also go, I think it represents a a a potential um business model shift if we can apply ourselves to thinking about how how this um apply ourselves to thinking about now. How it develops there. Instead of instead of as a responsive mechanism to what's coming down the pipeline with AI, yeah, and going, oh shit, how do we respond to what's happening?

SPEAKER_04 1:08:46

Let's make a play about how we're liveness is really important.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:50

Oh my we can maybe be considering it now as it's happening to us.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:55

You're already behind if you're making plays about how AI and life are recon are connected. Oh, you're already way behind.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:02

Yeah, yeah. You're right. Which again, in terms of that responsiveness aspect I was talking about, this is a model of theatre and performance which where you can be much more immediate with issues that are contemporary and in the and in the zeitgeist.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:15

It doesn't have to go through that much.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:17

It doesn't have to go through processes of creative development before then everyone's over it. Yep. You can be much more immediate to what's being talked about in the like like my drama teacher who who And refine it as you go. Like my drama teacher who who and the group of people who used it as a as a communication network through a of hope of a of perseverance for and resistance for the resistance movement against apartheid. So it's kind of has that potential.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:48

Anyway, it's been a bloody blast talking with you about joyful, strong, and strong and free, wonderful ideas.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:56

We um hope there's something in there for you, and we didn't keep good on our promise, and we didn't leave it so long between episodes. So um hopefully we won't leave it so long again either. And um take care everyone. See you soon. Bye.