Nat Randall

I am making a new durational performance and cinema experiment, THE SECOND WOMAN and it's been selected to appear in the Next Wave Festival 2016. 

THE SECOND WOMAN:
The Second Woman is a theatre project combining live performance and cinema in a durational event, created and performed by me, Nat Randall. This project is a stylised performance experiment, a repetition of one scene, inspired by the rich performance lineage of Gena Rowlands, the American film and stage actress famous for her role in John Cassavetes’ film Opening Night, a meta-theatrical-film. I will repeat the exchange continuously over a 24 hour period with each of 100 male leads, to explore the trade of emotion, intimacy and chemistry in performance. 



In this project, which plays at the border of intimacy and public imagery, I will invite 100 men of a range of ages, backgrounds and acting abilities to participate in the exchange of a short scene. The performative style of The Second Woman will emulate that of Cassavetes in both live and live-feed forms, exploring the blurred lines between scripted dialogue and improvised moments, the meta-quality of the dialogue and the focus on emotional, physical and relational connections, above action and narrative.



Audiences are invited to enter and exit the performance space throughout the duration of the performance and are encouraged to return multiple times over the 24 hour performance.




I have a stellar bunch of people working on this project including Nina Buchanan, Anna Breckon, Emily O'Connor, Anastasia Zaravinos, Adena Jacobs, Sophie Roberts and Jade Muratore plus many more hands along the way. 

Your support will go directly towards paying the my creative team and crew and participants. 

>> 1/3 of this campaign will go towards contributing fees to my creative team and crew <<
In addition to the number of development hours, the presentation of the work spans across 24 hours and the team will be 'on' for that whole time performing a bunch of functions in order for the project to flow smoothly - operating cameras, vision mixing, sound mixing, man wrangling, audience wrangling, feeding me, giving me water, production managing, directing and generally keeping the beast alive and kicking for 24 hours.  

 >> 1/3 of this campaign will go to paying the participating men <<
Conceptually and aesthetically I want to pay all participating men in this project as part of an exchange in the scene. A monetary offering in exchange for their time, intimacy, performance, image and presence. To do this though I need real money. So in every exchange in every scene I perform in, I am giving every participating man a pineapple, a Banana, Fiddy-Bom-Biddy, One Thousand Red Frogs, a 'Halfa-Hunge', a Gramble and a Cowie, a $50. So 100 men at $50 per head is A LOT of money. Without them it couldn't happen. 

>> 1/3 of this campaign will got toward the travel, freight and accommodation costs <<
A portion of the funds will be used to support the travel and accommodation for my creative team (6 people) to travel and stay in Melbourne for the project. It will also pay for the freight of my set. It turns out freighting big objects costs a bomb, so funds will also be used to pay for the transport of my set.

In return you can receive a bunch of gifts including GIRLS TO THE FRONT T-SHIRTS donated by Hissy Fit, grass heads made by me, a VIP seat for the final hour of the 24-hour presentation and drinks post show, signed copy of a faux movie poster of me pretending to be Gena Rowlands (lol), a Cassavetes movie marathon watching 'Opening Night', 'Faces' and 'A Woman Under the Influence' with yours truly.

Your support will totally make this project happen.  And for that I'm really bloody grateful. 

The biggest challenge to this project is the scale of participation. The project relies on it, so I need men, and lots of them. 

If you or someone you know would be interested in participating, keep your eye out for our call-out for participants beginning Tuesday 15 March. No performance experience necessary.