Aside from the glamour of swanning around on opening nights among the glitterati, being a theatre critic necessitates a lot of work and many long nights.
Tim Byrne is a critic, arts journalist and bookseller at Avenue Bookstore. He is a regular contributor to The Guardian, Australian Book Review and Time Out, and appears on ABC radio to talk theatre with Alice Zaslavsky and books with Trevor Chappell. He has been a judge of the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards (VPLA) and moderates author and artist interviews at writers’ festivals around Victoria.
I’d say I watch a hell of a lot of performing arts, from dance and theatre to opera and circus, and then try to write honestly and accurately about the experience of watching, listening and paying attention. I’m trying to contextualise and explain the performing arts to anyone who may be interested.
Thuy On is the Reviews and Literary Editor of ArtsHub and an arts journalist, critic and poet who’s written for a range of publications including The Guardian, The Saturday Paper, Sydney Review of Books, The Australian, The Age/SMH and Australian Book Review. She was the Books Editor of The Big Issue for 8 years and a former Melbourne theatre critic correspondent for The Australian.
Her debut, a collection of poetry called Turbulence, came out in 2020 and was released by University of Western Australia Publishing (UWAP). Her second collection, Decadence, was published in July 2022, also by UWAP. Her third book, Essence, will be published in 2025.
Threads: @thuy_on123 Instagram: poemsbythuy
