CURRENCY HOUSE: Robert Reid analyses one of the most dizzying examples of the transformative power of the Internet - the self-broadcasting websites and individual blogs.
19 May 2011 12:00
Robert Reid
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Writing and Publishing
I am not a journalist. I don’t go digging up sources, corroborating facts and claiming to be unbiased. I am not objective. I will tell you what I like and why, let you make your own decisions based on whether my tastes and yours seem to match. Steve Smart
Though Alison Croggon might object to use of the word ‘influential’ to describe her work, she can hardly deny that over the last decade her blog Theatre Notes has become one of the most talked about, linked to and read blogs concerning Australian theatre. In a post entitled On Turning into a Crrritic, she characterizes her impetus to begin blogging as an irresistible loquacity, a desire to talk about the art stuff I see, which is married to the desire for interested interlocutors. It’s this desire for conversation that separates the practice of blogging from traditional ‘authorized’ criticism.
Robert is Artistic Director and a founding member of Theatre in Decay in Australia. He has written all but one of it’s plays and has had work produced by other companies through out Australia also. Robert’s works produced by Theatre in decay include Noni Hazlehurst is Dead, Customers, The New Scum, All Dressed Up and No-one to Blow, Screaming in America: The Bill Hicks Project, All of Which are American Dream, A Mile in her Shadow, Sweet Staccato Rising and Empire. With theatre in decay Robert has toured to the Wellington Fringe, NZ, the C+ season in Canberra and the Adelaide Fringe. His works produced by other companies include Pat Sabatine’s Eighth Birthday Party, presented by St. Martins Youth Arts Centre and Australian Theatre for Young People with Blind Girls Play, The Fat Black Pussy Cat and Comfortably Dumb presented by Lunchtime Theatre, Gone broadcast by 2SER FM, The Man Who Had Gout broadcast by 3RRR FM, The Battle of Bourke Street for St. Martins Youth Art’s Center’s Scattergun project and September presented by MAKEbeLIVE at the Darlinghurst Theatre. Robert directed Tyranny by Barry Dickens at La Mama, An Actor Prepares by James Adler at Theatreworks and Oedipus for Eagles nest theatre. Robert won the St Martin’s Playwright of the year award in 2000 for Pat Sabatine’s Eighth Birthday Party. His play, Empire, was given a special commendation by Melbourne Fringe in 2004. He was given the R.E. Ross Trust Playwright Development Award for his play A Mile in her Shadow in 2005. His play Sad Bird Boy and the Scalpel Fingered Girl won both the Best Independent Theatre Company Prize and the Best Overall Performance Prize at Short and Sweet Melbourne 2005. Robert is an Affiliate Writer at MTC this year, an Associate Artist at The Storeroom and is a Masters Candidate at QUT.
