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In Focus - Kim Edwards
24th May 2009
By Lizzie Matjacic
 The
art of cabaret is becoming ever more relevant and important in
today’s performance scene. Cabaret is its own art form and is also
an important vehicle to enable the exceptionally talented performers
we are blessed to have in Melbourne the opportunity to strut their
stuff and show us the full range of their capabilities and their
imaginations.
In light of the exciting new directions that Cabaret is taking us
in, I thought I’d have a chat with Play Right Theatre Productions
producer, writer and director Kim Edwards about her inspiring work
in the field of cabaret. Kim has been directing, writing and
producing cabaret for the last six years, from large-scale shows
with her production company Play Right to festival shows for
Melbourne Comedy, Fringe and Midsumma, and three years of creating
solo cabarets with numerous artists (of which I was lucky to be
one!) at The Butterfly Club.
How did you get started doing Cabaret work? What inspired you to
take that direction?
I'd been doing lots of performing myself, and was chatting with too
many talented Melbourne artists about the problem in music theatre
where you were either fighting it out with everyone one for one
wonderful lead or lamenting how few roles actually suit your
performance style and skills. Of course, there were concerts and
corporate gigs that allowed you to sing stuff you normally wouldn't
have a chance to do, but they mostly lack the whole story-telling
and character-development excitement of theatre. So firstly, I got
into cabaret because it opened out as such a great space for
performing everything and anything you want to, the way you want: it
gives you real creative control over your art, and I was coming
across more and more performers who wanted that kind of
experience.
Plus, with cabaret being so versatile and popular in Melbourne
particularly, lots of friends were interested in the increasing
opportunities for regular work, from regional arts programs and
suburban arts centres to corporate and restaurant contracts,
festivals tours and private gigs, and of course The Butterfly Club
in South Melbourne which hosts hundreds of cabaret shows all year
round.
Finally, I knew so many people looking for a chance to really
showcase their talents - being able to perform cabaret adds another
string to your performance bow, but it's also a good opportunity to
gain some exposure and critical interest as a performer. For artists
looking to move into professional work, solo cabaret can become a
useful way to attract agents and other job offers, gather up reviews
and critical attention, and acquire a public profile and build up a
fan base for future projects.
How do you find performers to work with and create cabarets?
To begin with, it was these friends and colleagues, and occasionally
some particularly impressive performer I'd see on stage (with an
obvious flair for possible cabaret) who I'd approach about doing
shows. More recently, performers are seeking me out to write,
direct, script edit, block and produce for them, and a lot of
graduates from my course want to continue working with me in
launching their own solo cabaret.
What is the process of helping someone create a cabaret? How do you
find and how do you go about directing cabarets?
Bad cabaret can often be self-indulgent, clichéd and
under-scripted. Good cabaret is edgy and unexpected and eclectic
and entertaining. It is always a craft, not a confessional: it
should be about reaching out to your audience, not about a
self-centred self-examination. So I work with performers to
develop a unique and marketable core idea to drive their show, to
merge songs and scripts in innovative ways, and to polish and
present their work creatively. Cabaret necessarily makes me some
kind of sounding board and dramaturg and script doctor and
theatre/musical director composite.
 Do
you enjoy directing? More or less or the same as performing? What
do you enjoy most about directing, producing and creating cabarets?
Directing has its own charm apart from performing, especially in
cabaret. There's never going to be anything like treading the
boards yourself, but directing cabaret means helping people create
performances you yourself would never have thought of or
performed. Having a vision of someone's words or music and making
it come to life on stage as a musical or play is a thrill of
directing, but getting a glimpse of someone else's performance
possibilities and helping them find the words and music to bring
their own creative work to the stage is the delight of cabaret
directing.
Tell me about your cabaret course. How did the idea come about?
How does it work? Have you had graduates from the program go on and
create full cabarets?
I
finally developed the Creating Solo Cabaret course after the number
of artists asking me how to write and develop their own shows began
increasing exponentially! I've been running the course regularly
now for two years, and while I only take a very limited number of
performers at a time, more than a dozen full-length solo shows have
since been performed at The Butterfly Club by graduates from my
course (though the numbers just keep growing!) The course itself
is pretty intensive and rigorous: five to six weeks is not long to
put together a workable cabaret extract, but the concentrated time
frame really helps students push through any mental blocks about
writing and performing material and keeps everyone in that first
creative burst of energy where the best work is done. Each week
covers an area I've found to be a major concern for people coming
into the industry: creating a show concept, choosing and shaping
songs, writing script, performing and connecting with an audience.
Although there's lots of information and discussion, the course is
geared to be 'hands on' and practical. It's not about me just
sharing the knowledge I've acquired - that might be kind of
interesting, but it's not very useful. A cabaret course should be
about teaching performers how to use what they learn themselves - in
their own way and for their own purposes. Otherwise it's just not
cabaret.
Shows that Kim has produced and directed:
2007:
Repeat seasons and sell-out shows for The Divine Miss Z Sings the
Divine Miss M with Vicki Zainal, Hangups, Heartaches and Headcases:
A Psychologist’s Cabaret with Lizzie Matjacic and Highly Strung: A
Soprano’s Lament with Kathryn Turner.
2008:
Little Miss Nice Makes a Mess and Daisy’s Kitchen with Emma Wyndham,
Kiss Me Nate with Nathan Illes, The Witness Protection Social Club
with Vikki Doig, and Happily Ever After: The Princess Fifi Way with
Fiona Elmore.
2009 (thus far!):
Where Was I? with Short&Sweet award-winner Tom Dickins, From Here to
Maternity with Lizzie Matjacic, and In The Dead Of Night, a gothic
late-night cult show!
As a director, Kim also has a variety of other theatre credits to
her name, including the recent January production of In Camera at
Chapel off Chapel, plus award-winning productions of South Pacific,
The Real Inspector Hound, Suburban Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s
Dream, Trilogy of the Nine Rules, and The Last Dance of the Plum
Sisters. As a writer, she holds a PhD in English Literature and
teaches Academic Writing and Fantasy Narratives at Monash
University; reviews cabaret, theatre, films and books for various
publications and online resources; and writes, produces and directs
full-scale school musicals with casts of over two hundred. Among
other theatre skills, she is herself a professional singer and
performer, and an experienced lighting operator and stage manager.
She finally created the Creating Solo Cabarets course after so many
performers had approached her in the past, asking how to go about
creating a cabaret show – she hopes that the intensive curriculum
and performance opportunity she has now developed for Creating Solo
Cabaret continues to be a comprehensive and encompassing answer!
Creating Solo Cabarets Course 2009
Aim
All the participants will come out of the course with a fundamental
understanding of how to put together a solo cabaret, and the
foundations of a working script, song list and unique show
concept. They will also have had the opportunity to produce,
promote and perform some of their developing material in Australia’s
premiere cabaret venue, and the chance to earn a professional fee
for their ticket sales and receive constructive criticism from
industry professionals.
 Course
Venue:
All sessions and the Performance Night will take place at:
The Butterfly Club
204 Bank Street
South Melbourne
Dates:
Workshops (Two hours)
Session One 2.30-4.30pm, Sunday June 14
Session Two 2.30-4.30pm, Sunday June 21
Session Three 2.30-4.30pm, Sunday June 28
Rehearsal (Three hours)
Session Four 2:30-4:30pm, Sunday July 5
Performance Night (A 75-minute performance plus follow-up
discussion)
Session Five 8.30-11:00pm, Sunday July 12
Cost:
$480 inclusive
This includes:
-
three two-hour sessions of workshopping, writing, developing and
editing your own solo cabaret
-
the cabaret ‘Starter Pack’ and ‘What Next? Pack’ and week-by-week
extensive workshop handouts, your own clipboard folder for course
materials and homework, and tea/coffee/refreshments during sessions
-
approximately one half-hour rehearsal session with the accompanist
during the fourth session, and personalised direction for your
specific show from the course co-ordinator
-
all the accompanist and technical/lighting operator costs for the
rehearsal and subsequent Performance Night
-
guaranteed small classes for individual attention, advice and focus
on your specific show and requirements
-
final graduate certificate upon course completion, and personal
written critique of your final performance presentation
Creating Solo Cabarets
Curriculum
Week One:
The first week will be dedicated to discussing in detail the genre
and expectations of cabaret, learning about marketing and
advertising a solo production, and exploring methods for creating a
unique concept for your own show
Week Two:
This session will be about song choices and scripting: how to
incorporate a good variety and balance of music, arranging and
crafting songs for your own specific purposes, skills for writing
and developing workable dialogue, and methods for linking songs and
script together.
Week Three:
This session will be about direction and blocking, performance
skills, and script editing: what to do on stage to make your
material/characters/songs work better, how to polish and hone your
dialogue and timing, and performance ‘tricks of the trade’ for
rehearsing and preparing material.
Week Four:
This rehearsal session with an accompanist and director will be
workshopping a fifteen-minute excerpt from the material you have
been creating, to gauge audience reaction and receive more
personalized direction, more detailed staging suggestions and
specific performance advice for your show.
Week Five:
The final session will be performing this extract from your
developing show as part of a Performance Night event. As a
professional performance experience, you have the opportunity to
receive a 50% profit share with the venue for the ticket sales you
generate. You will also be provided with an accompanist and
lighting operator, lots of support and encouragement before and
during the performance, and constructive critique and feedback
during the discussion class afterwards.
 From
the 2007 and 2008 graduates…
“I’ve always wanted to do a course about putting on a cabaret show
but I didn’t imagine that it would be so successful on a personal
level.”
“Most courses don't live up to expectations, but this one exceeded
them.”
“I found the course to be very useful and user friendly. I
particularly enjoyed and appreciated working with Kim, drawing upon
her vast skill and knowledge of the genre, and of the mechanics of
writing, scripting, and executing a show. Awesome.”
“A brilliant course for everyone who wants to do a cabaret show.”
Contact Information:
Kim Edwards (Course Co-ordinator)
Ph: 0424 425 438
playright@optusnet.com.au |