What Did She Think?

What: What's Yours Is Mine Where: The Butterfly Club When: 22 Nov - 4 Dec Directed by: Yvonne Virsik Performed by: Hayden Burke, Simone French, and Tom Halls Designed by: Owen Phillips Stage Managed by: Anastasia Ryan Hayden Burke, Simone French and Tom Halls - photo by Theresa Harrison What's Yours Is Mine is a hilarious show being presented at The Butterfly Club as part of the Poppyseed Festival. Not quite agit-prop, not quite drama, not quite sketch comedy, this devised show is a mix of side-splitting laughter and pierced through the heart social commentary. It is angry, it is loving, it is self-deriding, and it is 'not to be missed' theatre. Are you following the Australian dream? Can you see it? Can you feel it? Can you taste it? Do you even know what it looks like anymore? These are the questions constantly being interrogated in What's Yours Is Mine . You may remember Syd, Millie, and Olly from the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Well, they have come

WHAT: Australian International Tattoo Expo WHERE: Melbourne Exhibition Centre WHEN: 18 - 20 November PYROHEX - Photo by Sarah Ernst The Australian International Tattoo Expo is on at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre and it is full of unexpected surprises and brilliant body art. Aisles and aisles of tattoo artists from around the world are displaying their designs, their style, and doing live tattooing all day long across the three days of the Expo. To make the event even more exciting, performance artists take the stage throughout the event to astound the crowd. There are competitions and roast pork rolls...the list goes on! I admit to not being a body art afficionado - there is not a drop of ink on me except where my pen leaked in my shirt pocket. What I do know is art and let me tell you, these tattooist are true artists. Yes, there is an overabundance of skulls and proportionally distorted women, religious iconography and roses. Beyond that though, there is true art. I was

WHAT: The Removalists WHERE: Metanoia at The Brunswick Mechanics Institute WHEN: 17 - 27 November Written by: David Williamson Directed by: Lara Kerestes Performed by: Brendan Barnett, Emma Cox, Josiah Lulham, Hannah Monson, and Patrick Durnan Silva Design by: Daniel Moulds Lighting by: Jake Jobling Sound by: Tom Backhaus & Russel Goldsmith Stage Management by: Allyson Bong David Williamson's very early play The Removalists is the latest offering by inspiring young theatre group Baker's Dozen. This play (written in 1971) was one of the early works which formed part of a movement to bring an authentically Australian voice and lived experience to what had been an English dominated arena up to that point. The scary thing about Baker's Dozen staging this show is how relevant the themes and behaviors still are. Watching this play I kept thinking about David Mamet which is really no surprise as both Davids were emerging in their cultures with a very similar

WHAT: Choice WHERE: The Owl and Cat Theatre WHEN: 14 - 25 November Devised by: Carolyn Dawes and Fiona Scarlett Directed by: Carolyn Dawes Performed by: Gemma Flannery, Clancy Fraser, Victoria Haslam, Ben Santamaria, Fiona Scarlett,  and Ryan Silwinski Sound by: Mybro Photo by Emmanuell Aroney Choice  is the play which kicks off The Owl and Cat's new season, 'Still'.  Choice  is an immersive work which investigates the lived experiences of people connected with abortion. Using verbatim techniques and placing the audience in amongst the confused and searching souls makes this theatrical experience much more intimate than most, but it is the tone and treatment of such a controversial topic which makes  Choice  stand out as one of this years great pieces of theatre. We are all sitting in a waiting room. It is not a cold, sterile room but it is a waiting room none the less. We sit beside other people already waiting - watching them flick through magazines, shu

WHAT: The Carnival of Lost Souls WHERE: Melba Spiegeltent WHEN: 11 - 12 November Written by: Graham Coupland Artistic Direction by: Terrence O'Connell Choreography by: Yvette Lee Performed by: Circus Trick Tease, Graham Coupland, Anthony Craig, Madotti & Vegas, Lucy Maunder, This Side Up, and Hannah Trott Costumes by: Clockwork Butterfly Lighting by: Jason Bovaird Music by: Platonic The Carnival of Lost Souls is a new production on the Spiegeltent circuit and has all of the style and panache we have come to expect from these offerings. It is not circus, it is not a magic show, it is not a concert. It is all of these and more. It is Carnival! As the deathly pale figures emerge into the space in their 19th century garb, the ghostly apparitions made me think of All Hallow's Eve just gone. These lost souls, caught between being and not being are called to gather in this place by the ring master and search for that which they are grieving by reenacti