We’re kicking off at Footscray Community Arts this week with Gideon Wilonja for a chat about the new show I Met an Angel Named Jaques, a story set in a real world that’s completely made up…

Then we meet Damon Branacki who’s here to talk about the Thursday Group whose latest production Falling Heads will follow up its Melbourne debut with a tour to Denmark…

After that, we catch up with Nancy Black from Black Hole Theatre who’ve been working hard on three new projects performing in regional Victoria – Journey of the Karen – Someone in the Dark - and the third – Sky Could Be Blue - provides a nice segue into our second week of Fast Fringe, our attempt to meet as many Melbourne Fringe Festival artists as possible in a short space of time…

After Nancy, the Fast Fringe chat just keep on rolling with first time playwright of A Guide to Being Immortal, Shane Woon - producer of The Cabinet of Dr Caligari with a live score, Johannes Luebbers – choreographer of The Break, Zoe Bastin – Creator (with FUZEensemble) of Beneath, Fleur Dean and young performer Mitchell Gee – and QiQi from Elysian Blues II

Whew! That’s a lot… and they’re all on this week’s edition of Behind the Scenes with Chris Thompson right here on Vision Australia Radio.

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We’re up north for the start of this week’s show with Darwin correspondent Yvette Walker, Artistic Director at Brown’s Mart, who’s joined by their Honorary Elder in Residence, Dr Richard Fejo Snr better known as Uncle Richard.

Then it’s a chat with author Rhonda McCoy about her new novel Crow…

…before we launch into this year’s Fast Fringe – quick chats with as many Melbourne Fringe artists as we can fit into the three weeks of the festival...

Melbourne Fringe CEO and Creative Director, Simon Abrahams, along with Deadly Fringe Programming Coordinator Peta Duncan are here to kick us off with our annual overview of the festival…

…before we get into it all with Alex Walker from House of Muchness and their Fed Square event – The Square…

…followed by a bit of unscripted mayhem with friends of the show, Sam Lohs and Rosie Burgess, better known as The Tuck Shop Ladies…

They’re all on this week’s edition of Behind the Scenes with Chris Thompson right here on Vision Australia Radio.

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Helen Simondson from Boola Bardip WA Museum gets us going this week with her regular Perth round up and, of course, a local guest artist… this time it’s flash fiction specialist, Gillian O’Shaughnessy who’s part of Freemantle’s Totally Lit Festival…

Then, we stick with literature for most of the rest of the show, catching up with Alison Booth whose eighth novel is Death at Booroomba, her first venture into historical crime fiction… and then much loved multi-award winning author Kate Grenville whose new book Unsettled takes her on a road journey into her own past and the often denied past of our own country post colonisation.

And finally, we’ll wrap up the show with a couple of the filmmakers - Sally Newman and Violeta Abarzua - whose short films are finalists in this year’s Focus On Ability festival again celebrating ability in all forms through the works of a diverse group of international filmmakers.

They’re all on this week’s edition of Behind the Scenes with Chris Thompson right here on Vision Australia Radio.

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Elena Vereker from InSite Arts gets us going this week with her Adelaide round up…

…and then introduces us to Ben Francis who’s part of the retro vocal group The 60-Four who are celebrating their tenth birthday with a gig in Shepparton…

Meanwhile, back in Melbourne at Arts Centre Melbourne’s Fairfax Studio, playwright Daniel Keene, director Matt Sholten and actor Noni Hazelhurst have reunited after the success of Mother, to present The Lark, and we’ll catch up with the entire cast of the show, which is to say, with Noni herself…

Then it’s time for the Arts Projects Australia open day again, so we’ll drop in on their studio to meet artist Mark Smith and Jo Salt who’s Curator of their current exhibition Embodied, showing at their Collingwood Yards gallery…

And finally, it’s RUOK Day this Thursday, which means it’s time to catch up with RUOK Day Ambassador Aislinn Sharp and to listen to Replacing Feelings the new song she’s released for this year’s event…

They’re all on this week’s edition of Behind the Scenes with Chris Thompson right here on Vision Australia Radio.

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Theatre Network Australia CEO Amrit Gill is here to kick us off this week AND to let us know that Western Edge Youth Arts is the TNA Member of the Month for September, and we’ll meet Artistic Director John Mark Desengano…

Then, it’s a bumper edition of Screens & Streams starting with director Kate Woods who, 25 years after directing Looking for Alibrandi, is back on the big screen with the captivating family film; Kangaroo…

…and after that, Marc Gracie joins in for our usual round up of what we’ve seen on our big and small screens…

They’re all on this week’s edition of Behind the Scenes with Chris Thompson right here on Vision Australia Radio.

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Brown’s Mart Artistic Director Yvette Walker gets the Darwin ball rolling tonight and introduces us to her local guest artist, Writer/Performer of We Keep Everything, Lisa Pellegrino…

Then it’s Spring in Darebin and that means it’s time for the FUSE Festival and we’ll meet this year’s Ganbu Gulin Curator in Residence, Ethan Savage…

Meanwhile, Bangarra Dance Theatre is back in town with a new work – Illume, and Daniel Mateo, one of the dancers for this performance is dropping by for a chat…

After that, much loved comedian John Clarke left us way too early and never wrote down his life story. So his daughter Lorin Clarke has done the job for him in her new doco – But Also John Clarke - and she’s here to tell us about it AND him …

And, just in case we didn’t get enough of McClelland Sculpture Park and Gallery’s Music Curator Monica Curro at the start of the month, she’s back to tell us more about her last few Music on Sunday events for the year…

They’re all on this week’s edition of Behind the Scenes with Chris Thompson right here on Vision Australia Radio.

If you’d like to hear Shane Carroll talking about Bangarra’s innovative audio description for dance, you can find her on the August 12 show from last year (2024) as well as a special longer conversation on our podcast page- just put Vision Australia Radio Behind the Scenes into your favourite podcast search engine and you’ll find this and all our other episodes and bonus chats…

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Helen Simondson from WA Museum Boola Bardip is here to let us know what’s going on in the west AND to introduce us to Daniel Schoknecht who’s the Curator in charge of the visiting Terra Cotta Warriors…

Then Chamber Made is taking over the public and hidden spaces of the Melbourne Recital Centre when they present Listening Acts – a programme of three live performances and six sound installations – and we’ll meet one of the artists – Aviva Endean – to find out what we’ll be listening to…

Meanwhile, the Bowlines trio is back with another live, improvised performance that could include echoes of classical, Norwegian, Indian, blues, klezmer, Balkan, Turkish , Greek, Irish, Scottish and jazz music styles. How do they fit all that in? Ernie Gruner is here to explain…

And finally, it might be our week to focus on Perth, but we’re sneaking in an artist from Adelaide when we meet young singer songwriter Zara Chantelle who’s just released a song about breakups that, oddly, is called Happiness…

They’re all on this week’s edition of Behind the Scenes with Chris Thompson right here on Vision Australia Radio.

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Well, our Adelaide correspondent Elena Verker’s lost her voice, so we literally won’t hear from her this month – BUT, she did see the State Theatre Company’s new production Dear Son adapted from the book by Thomas Mayo by Isaac Drandic and John Harvey and if she was here she’d be saying how great it is and that you should see it before it closes on August 16 AND she also managed to line up a local guest artist, Bridget Alfred who’s head honcho of SALA – the South Australia Living Artists Festival…

Speaking of festivals, MUDfest – Melbourne Uni’s biennial student arts festival is back and one of its Co-Directors – Riya Gupta – will tell us about how this year’s theme – Refraction – has influence the programme…

Meanwhile, at Theatre Works Briony Dunn is adapting and directing The Machine Stops from a 1909 novella by EM Forster that predicted the internet, TED Talks and video calls…

And finally, Screens & Streams may be a week late, but we make up for it with a bumper edition when Marc Gracie drops in for a look at three movie franchises that are trying their best to maintain our interest…

They’re all on this week’s edition of Behind the Scenes with Chris Thompson right here on Vision Australia Radio.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.