Artspace

The Critic

Thank you to Lila Gould for her article about The Critic.

At the end of Term One, the TCE Theatre Performance class performed Gabriel Bergmoser’s 2016 play, The Critic at the BMOT Theatre on the 30-31st of March. It is an immersive, entertaining and humorous story that explores the moral dilemma of Jamie, a young Melbournian theatre critic, who has to review her best friend’s awful play. We follow the consequences of her choice, and explore the idea of having a public and private face, as well as questioning whether it is best to be nice or be honest. It was directed by Marty Crerar and the cast included Elsa Double as Jamie, Ilona Hansson as Susan, Lila Gould as Ellie and Aya Gibson as Emma.

At the start of rehearsing, we had the incredible privilege to speak with the playwright, Gabriel Bergmoser. We all gained so much from this interview and were grateful that he generously shared his personal experiences that led him to write the play. It was fascinating to hear from someone who has been on all sides of the theatre world, from acting and producing, to review as a critic and finally writing plays himself. We learnt a lot about what it is like to be in these roles as a professional and could definitely see this portrayed through this very personal story. We had the opportunity to ask questions about the characters and the story, which was extremely helpful when working on characterisation. It was obvious how passionate he was about these characters and their story, which inspired us and made us even more enthusiastic about the play. It was truly an invaluable experience.

It was so rewarding getting to put this play on as an ensemble and explore these real, raw and often hilarious characters with the help of our amazing extras and lighting and sound designers/operators. We could have easily spent months developing these characters and their story but are looking forward to what’s to come in the world of Theatre Performance!

Art2Words Writing Prize

The Art2Words Writing Prize is an annual writing competition at The Friends’ School. Established in 2021, the Art2Words Writing Prize is based upon the Ancient Greek practice of ekphrasis (responding to an artwork in words) and involves students writing either a short story or poem in response to student artwork. The artwork which is the inspiration for the creative writing is that of the winner of The Visual Arts Prize of the previous year. The Friends’ School’s Visual Arts Prize is an annual award, granted to a senior Art student for their consistently exceptional approach to their practice, the rigour of their research and ideation, complexity and sophistication of the ideas and issues they explore, and the professional quality of their exhibited works. The 2020 winner was Year 12 Art Studio Practice student, Georgina Davy, whose striking series of mixed media works titled, Opulence, will be the stimulus for the inaugural year of this writing prize. The competition, held in Term 1, awards short story and poetry prizes in both Secondary(Years 7-9) and Senior Secondary (Years 10-12) sections. Prizes are sponsored by The Hobart Bookshop and, in community partnership with FortySouth Publishing, the work of The Friends’ student-artist and winning entries from student-writers are published on the ‘Young Tasmania’ page of Forty South’s online magazine.

We are very excited to see the entries for this first Art2Words competition and sharing them with our community in Term 2. 

Clemes Twilight Concert

Our first public concert for the year took place on Wednesday 17 March, featuring TCE, IB and UTAS Music students. The student performers were accompanied by Kelly Ottaway, Michael Power and Dave Wilson. It was a delight to start our concert season with such a strong lineup of solo performances, with the students looking remarkably comfortable on stage given the few performance opportunities that existed last year. 

Our next Clemes-based concerts will take place on Wednesday 12 May (UTAS and IB Students) and Thursday 13 May (TCE students), commencing at 6pm in The Farrall Centre. All are welcome to attend.