Phil Thomson

Having been awarded the WA Dramaturge Development Initiative I am about to travel to Europe to develop new skills and experience cross-cultural creative adventures. My journey is book-ended with work involving world-class artists, with work experience in London in-between. My Pozible crowd-fund is to allow me to experience the final segment of my explorations to the fullest… to let me travel deeply into remote Russia with famed English theatre director Tim Supple. His journey will include Moscow, St Petersburg, Perm, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Tbilisi, Kiev, Tashkent, Minsk, Yerevan, Baku, Chisinau, Astana, Dushanbe, Bishkek and Ashgabat. I will accompany him as far as I can. A successful Pozible campaign will allow me to travel the whole way safely.

My full program includes…

· The International Network for Performing Arts Conference in Dublin,

· Be a Good Little Soldier - A Dance Theatre Piece by Animal Farm Collective, Berlin – April/May

Based on the life experience of the Australian international Lighting Designer Mark Howett (Secret River), this new work deals with the infectious affect on families of men damaged by war. It is being made by the brilliant Animal Farm Collective. I will be serving as dramaturge, Mark’s assistant director and “theatre coach” to assist the dancers with characterisation and vocal work. AFC is an internationally acclaimed company.

www.animalfarmcollective.com

· Endangered

I will complete a final performance draft my new play Endangered (“an Australian aid worker discovers a grief crazed African academic on a Perth jetty… her twin brother is worried by his sister’s deepening relationship with the wounded Moslem lion”). I will ensure my character’s beliefs and cultural outlook are plausible, potent and respectful byconsulting with Nigerian writer and actor Inua Ellams and Senior Research Fellow
 M. Afifi Al-Akiti, MA, MSt, DPhil (Islam and Arabic) at the Faculty of Theology and Religion at Oxford University.

· Moon Man

After extensive travels in PNG I wrote Moon Man, a play revealingthe extraordinary life of Nikolai Mikloucho-Maclay, Hero of the Russian People and first European to live in New Guinea. He was a self-taught anthropologist who died with a broken heart for having led imperialist Europe to his beloved Archipelago of Contented Peoples. He died of malarial fever during a blizzard in St Petersburg in the arms of his Australian wife. The play is a two-hander for a Russian and a New Guinean actor. I aim to complete a new draft as a result of my imbedding in Russian culture, history and theatre (with Tim Supple) and to develop an international partnership to stage the play. I have been invite to examine Mikloucho’s extensive collection at Saint Petersburg’s Kunstkammer, the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography.

· London

I will also be working on the West End in a variety of casual theatre positions and enjoying the splendors and challenges of UK theatre.

· Dash Arts new Russian project

Created and directed by leading UK theatre director Tim Supple this new work of theatre will involve actors, musicians, writers and designers from Russia, the Caucasus, Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, and central Asia. Ambitious in scale and content, it will investigate and bring to the stage the experience of the last one hundred years in the region: from the revolution in 1917, through the years of the Soviet Union and the two decades since its collapse, to the present. It is intended that the work will be multi-lingual and performed in Russia and the region, in the UK and London and in subsequent tours worldwide.

I will accompany Tim during his initial exploration of Russian landscape, history and culture. The purpose of the journey will be threefold: to research the project, to gather and cast the team of artists who will create the project, and to search for the key producing partners who will be part of the creation and presentation of the show. Tim says my job is to absorb and provoke.

This will be the third major large-scale international work of theatre created by Tim Supple & Dash Arts following the hugely successful multi-lingual A Midsummer Night’s Dream made in India in 2006, and the all-Arabic One Thousand and One Nights devised in North Africa and the Middle East in 2011.

In seven years Dash Arts has played to over 280,000 people internationally, and worked with 1800 artists from many of the world’s cultures.

www.dasharts.org.uk/index.html

Budget

I have been granted $10,000 to travel to Europe to work with Tim Supple. I am covering the cost of my other travels through personal funds (another $10,000+) and the support of Animal Farm Collective (accommodation and per diems in Berlin). However the depth of the promised Russian adventures have the potential of busting my budget.

Research has suggested I budget $100 a day (plus the costs of internal flights) along with strong advice to have sturdy travel insurance and access to emergency cash. I have thus estimated that an extra $5000 will afford me the chance to travel an extra month with Tim (inclusive of insurance and travel costs).

Should my Pozible bid fail I will travel Russia with Tim until my funds run out.

Should my Pozible bid attract extra funds over my target I will use them to cover the costs of having one or both of my plays read professionally in London and/or Russia.

The Rewards

I will return to Australia with new skills and methodologies in cross-cultural theatre making. I belief these will be of great value to our multi-cultural nation.

On return I will create a new one-man show about my travels in the style of my highly regarded play Wantok (which shared my PNG experiences).

I have a great chance to develop international creative partnerships that will lead to future work opportunities in Europe.