DIRECTOR
Presented by Underscore Productions
Mechanics Institute Performing Arts Centre (as part of 2018 Midsumma Festival), February 2017
Featuring
Stephen Amos, Natasha Bassett, Adam Canny, Nick Casey, Joachim Coghlan, Brendan Cosier, Melissa Harrington, Rachel Juhasz, James Malcher, Elliot Roberts, Chanelle Sheehan, Candice Sweetman and Grace Travaglia
Musical Director & Conductor: Kellie-Anne Kimber
Piano: Owen James
Producer: Melissa Harrington
Production Designer: Nathan Burmeister
Lighting Design Brendan Jellie
A/V Design: Justin Gardam
Choreography: Patrick Cook & Daniel Lammin
Lighting and A/V Operator: Douglas Rintoul
Publicity Material: Daniel Lammin, Nick Casey & Natasha Bassett
Photography: Jules Kaddatz
Directors Notes
It’s very easy to take your history for granted. For most of us, the AIDS Crisis in the 80’s and 90’s is just a series of statistics, that terrible thing that happened a long time ago that might inform how we live now, but which we barely think about. It staggers me though that within my lifetime, the human race faced a plague of such magnitude that the scale of it and its impact on the way we live is so hard for us to comprehend, and yet something most people of my generation know nothing about.
Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens was written at the height of the crisis in the US as a kind of concert or cabaret fundraiser, but it was written for such a specific purpose that initially, it was hard to see it as anything other than a museum piece, an artefact from a very particular time and place. In approaching this production though, we went back to what inspired it, the Names Project AIDS Quilt, and found in it the voice of protest, of minorities and cultures demanding acknowledgement and assistance from a government so wilfully ignorant of their struggle that it constituted criminal negligence. Suddenly, seen through this lens, Elegies began to sing with a very contemporary relevance, and went from a memorial celebration to something akin to a history play. The catalyst may have changed, but the fight hasn’t, and we’re still seeing those same people fighting desperately and passionately to be heard.
We must remember our history. The AIDS crisis may be over for us in Australia in 2017, but the lessons we can learn from it haven’t stopped resonating and rippling across the decades. We are entering an uncertain future where we can’t be sure those that govern us have our best interests at heart. If we hope Elegies leaves its audiences with anything, it’s that we must speak, be heard, be angry and remember those who fought and died before us.
