PAST AND FUTURE PRODUCTIONS

2010 Melbourne Arts Centre - workshop for children and adults animating vegetables. Hatters' Mad Tea Party and mask workshop at Heide Museum of Contemporary Art; Real2Reel - film project with 12 adolescents from Brimbank; they wrote, shot, performed, directed and edited their own 8 minute film. Other workshops being planned for regional centres. 2nd stage development of morFing in October.

2009 Workshops at ArtPlay and with the students of Merrijig and Jamieson Primary Schools - developing themes and content for morFing. Supported by Arts Victoria, 3 week creative development of morFing in November with partners ArtPlay and Kazzum (London). Early development of musical using junk food and vegetables.

2008 Coop premiered at 45 downstairs in Melbourne and then travelled to the UNIMA (Union Internationale de la Marionnette) International Puppetry Festival in Perth, receiving critical and public acclaim. Green Room Awards Alternative Theatre Category: Best Production, Best Lighting, Best Sound!

2006-07 In the Beginning....uhm (early version of Coop) presented at International Puppetry Carnival, Federation Square, Melbourne and at the Melbourne Fringe Festival, winning Nancy Black a Green Room Award nomination for Best Direction in a New Form. The piece began as a musing on the extraordinary triptych by medieval artist Hieronymous Bosch – but evolution took it some distance from its ancestor! Supported by grants from the Australia Council and Arts Victoria, the Company undertook its first creative development of a children’s piece, SealsKin. The work is an adaptation of an ancient Celtic myth about selkies, seals who turn into human beings. It will use puppetry, mask and performance to explore the emotional journey of a boy who loses his mother when she returns to the sea.

2004: The Company toured Caravan for 6 months, playing to critical and public acclaim in festivals and key venues throughout England, Scotland, the Czech Republic, Poland and Germany.

Supported by a Creative Development Grant from Arts Victoria, the company spent 3 weeks in Cork collaborating with Dowtcha Puppets on a multi-layered work about the exploits of John Mitchell, proposed title: Rowing the Atlantic.

2003: Caravan return season in the upstairs gallery at Dante’s, followed by a tour to Ireland and Hong Kong. Caravan won a Green Room nomination for Best Design (Paul Newcombe/set, Ben Grant/music, David Corbet/sound) and was awarded Outstanding Direction in Independent Theatre for Nancy Black.

2002: Redeveloped by Paul Newcombe and directed by Nancy Black, with original music by Ben Grant, Caravan played for two weeks to sell-out crowds in the back bar at Dante’s in Fitzroy.

1999: Paul Newcombe conceived and designed a number of miniature rod puppets, sets, props and brief scenes that became the core of Caravan. First directed by Sue Giles, many people subsequently added to its development. Using overhead projection, low-tech effects, and lashings of sly raunchy humour, the scenes played with film noir notions of greed, treachery, lust and revenge. The style and subject matter were perfect for the small pub audiences to whom the work first played.

1997: 100 Hours – Paul Newcombe and Cliff Dolliver set themselves up in a shop front window and painted continuously (alternating with one another) for one hundred hours, producing 100 paintings, designs and objects for visual theatre.

1995-1999: Various short pieces for street processions and outdoor festivals.

1995: Punter – a huge 3 m. high grotesque puppet “punter” dances drunkenly through the streets before exploding in flame. This was a street theatre piece (until the fire department vetoed it), which was then incorporated by the Melbourne Workers’ Theatre into their production Tower of Light for the 2000 Melbourne Festival.

1993: And the Ass Saw the Angel – Adapted from Nick Cave’s book of the same title. Music by Mick Harvey. Directed by Ariette Taylor. Napier St Theatre. Produced and designed by Cliff Dolliver.