Originate is where ideas start. An ensemble of emerging theatre makers collaborates to create a new show about the here and now. Guided by a professional Director, the group moves through a workshop process that generates a new performance from the ground up. A performance based on the thoughts, beliefs, hopes and fears of the ensemble.

SOPHIE KELLY

Originally from Melbourne, Sophie is a director, actor and theatre maker with a particular interest in creating new work. Now based in Western Sydney, Sophie is a graduate of VCA (Bachelor of Performing Arts (Acting) and the University of Sydney Law School (LLB).

As a director, Sophie has worked for Bell Shakespeare, NIDA, ATYP, Newtown High School of the Performing Arts, North Queensland Academy of Dramatic Arts, Somebody’s Daughter Theatre and Little Trojan. Her most recent directing credits include Just Romeo and Juliet for Bell Shakespeare’s Players (2019 and 2020 National Tours). In 2019, she directed the highly acclaimed ATYP National Writer’s Studio production Intersection: Arrival at Griffin Theatre and a new Australian work Rosaline written by Joanna Erskine at KXT. In 2017, Sophie directed the Australian premiere of ATYP’s Foundation Commission play Wonderfly, written by Nick Atkins and in 2013, she worked as assistant director to Fraser Corfield on the Australian premiere of Spur of the Moment, originally written as part of the young writers program at the Royal Court Theatre in London. Sophie is also currently involved in the creative development of Donna Abela’s new play Stella Started It.

As an actor, alongside numerous short-film and television guest roles, Sophie’s performance credits include Tattoo and Motortown (Griffin Theatre Company); After All This (Elbow Room, Green Room Award for Best Independent Production and Best Performance at the Melbourne Fringe, 2011); The Waiting Room (STC Rough Drafts); Titus: The Ultimate Murder Ballad Musical (Darlinghurst Theatre); Hamlet and Measure for Measure (Complete Works Theatre Company) and her acclaimed solo-show Miriam and the Monkfish (The Old Fitz, Melbourne Comedy Festival, Melbourne Fringe Festival).

Sophie was part of the 2014 PWA Dramaturgy Internship and is also a recipient of the 2002 Pratt Foundation Award.

Adisti Anindita Regar

Adis Regar, a native of Jakarta, Indonesia, began her theatre journey at university in the United States. While pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Film Production, she worked as a scenic designer on independent and summer stock productions in Utah and Illinois. She then spent several years in Jakarta as a university lecturer in film and visual arts, while also managing a digital advertising firm. This led to an academic and professional interest in the intersection between theatre performance, digital media, and experience design. Adis moved to Australia in 2016 and received a master’s degree in Interaction Design from University of Sydney. She is currently a Ph.D candidate at University of South Australia, and her work with Q Theatre forms part of her practice-based research on Transmedia Theatre.

If you are attending a performance of Our House on Lorikeet, please consider becoming a participant in Adis’ research. This involves completing a short online survey and/or attending a focus group discussion after the performance. By participating, you would contribute to the continued exploration of new forms of digital storytelling and performance in theatre scholarship. For more information on the research and to register your participation, please click here.

Just as Sydney settled into its first week of lockdown, the artists of Our House were faced with a dilemma: do we proceed with a live show in the knowledge we might be cancelled or do we ‘pivot’ and create a fully digital show?

It was no small decision to make. After a year where so much theatre was cancelled, these young theatre-makers were hungry to make something together – in the flesh. Most of us admitted to some form of digital fatigue. Did we really want to add to the cacophony of digital work created over the last 12 months? Did we even have the capacity (both technical and creative) to do it? Did we even want to?

In the end, we held off making an immediate decision and instead spent time exploring the concept of the Originate project: Our House. We spoke in detail about the difference between a house and a home, especially the idea that while a house may be a sanctuary for some, it can feel like a prison for others. We talked about the fact that you can make a home within a building but also outside it; and the small, often infinitesimal details and memories that make up a home. And perhaps most importantly of all, we talked about the way the Australian experience of COVID-19 has forced us into a relationship with our homes unlike any we’ve had before – transforming our homes into schools, gyms, restaurants and in our case, a digital theatre.

After much deliberation, the artists decided they wanted to forge ahead and create an interactive digital share-house. The premise of Our House is that, at some time in the post-COVID future, the housemates of 75 Lorikeet Lane have decided to throw a birthday party for Nigel – the larrikin lynchpin of their share-house. Using only the technology available to them at home, this show is the collective effort of 8 emerging theatre-makers who want to take you out of your lockdown low and make you nostalgic for a time when we can gather together again in loungerooms and kitchens to laugh and dance with unabashed abandon.

Ultimately, this show is an experiment. It is an experiment in narrative, in form, in storytelling and in digital technology. It is an experiment in creating intricate and detailed relationships when your storytellers/creators have never met in real life. It is an attempt to approximate the warmth of a house and the intimacy within in it.

It is no coincidence that theatre terminology refers to an audience as ‘the house’. The ‘house is live’, ‘the house is warm tonight’, ‘let’s open the house’.  Recent research has revealed that when watching theatre, the heartbeat of the audience begins to beat in unison. What an extraordinary image for the house we have attempted to create for you in Our House. One of our artists, Leighton Chen, put it perfectly: “We want the show to mirror the inner dynamics of a house or a home. Nigel is the centrepiece for five housemates and their individual fears, beliefs and experiences of living in a share-house. It shows the warmth of friendships, the trials of love and the lingering shadow of loneliness that can exist in the crevices of a home.”

So, our house is open, our house is live and our house is warm. Why don’t you come join us?