In Conversation with the team behind Decameron 2.0

PLEASE NOTE: Registrations for this event have now closed. If you would like to join the webinar from 7.30pm (AEDT) / 7pm (ACDT) tonight, click HERE.

In July 2020, as stages around the country remained shut, the artistic teams from ActNow Theatre and State Theatre Company South Australia embarked on a truly ambitious project, bringing together more than 100 collaborators from across South Australia to write, perform and present a series of works chronicling our extraordinary times. 

Inspired by 14th-century Italian writer Giovanni Boccaccio’s landmark Decameron, the project - Decameron 2.0 - saw ten South Australian writers create ten new characters and ten new stories each week. These were then performed by ten actors, recorded on film and digitally delivered over ten weeks. The stories came from an array of emerging and established writers, drawing inspiration from the past to deliver 100 tales of who we are and who we want to be as we head into an unknown future.

Join us next Tuesday as we hear from some of the creatives behind this pioneering South Australian project, including State Theatre Company South Australia's Artistic Director Mitchell Butel, ActNow Theatre's Artistic Director and CEO Edwin Kemp Attrill, and two of the core writers on the project, playwrights Emily Steel and Alexis West. The panel will be moderated by playwright and AWG SA Committee Chair Sally Hardy, who was a core writer on Decameron 2.0.  

WHEN: Tuesday 3 November 2020, 7.30pm AEDT / 7pm ACDT / 4.30pm AWST

WHERE: Via ZOOM online. 

RSVP: Essential for all attendees. RSVP via the link above. Attendees will receive a link to the panel one hour before the start time. 

For those who cannot attend, the webinar is being recorded and will be made available to AWG members on AWG On Demand.

Find the full playlist of Decameron 2.0  works here. 

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Mitchell Butel is the Artistic Director of State Theatre Company South Australia. He holds four Helpmann Awards, three Sydney Theatre Awards and two Green Room Awards for his work as a performer and a director over the last three decades. With an extensive career in theatre, film and television, Mitchell is one of Australia’s most prolific, versatile and awarded acting talents. From Shakespeare, Moliere, Williamson and O’Neill to musicals such as Avenue Q, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and The Mikado to AFI-nominated feature film and TV performances, Mitchell is an impressive force in Australian entertainment.

Edwin Kemp Attrill is a South Australian theatre maker. He is the founder and Artistic Director of ActNow Theatre and the former Artistic Director of the University of Adelaide Theatre Guild. Edwin’s work focuses on interactive theatre and participatory storytelling exploring social justice themes. As a community arts practitioner, Edwin has worked with people with disabilities, prisoners, LGBTIQ communities, young people, refugees and migrants. He holds a Diploma in Theatre Arts through Victoria University and a Graduate Certificate in Art and Community Engagement through Victorian College for the Arts, and is an alumni of the Salzburg Global Forum’s global ‘Young Cultural Entrepreneurs’ program.

Alexis West has worked as a dancer, choreographer, performer, writer, theatre-maker and filmmaker over the past 20 years. As a Birri Gubba, Wakka Wakka and Kanak woman, Alexis is passionate about First Nation people’s voices as well as the stories of people with disability and people from diverse backgrounds. She has worked as an artistic director, writer, and facilitator for organisations including the Karrikarrinya Theatre Collective, SA Writers Centre, Spirit Festival, Our Mob, Art Gallery SA, and Adelaide Fringe. Alexis has devised and directed new works for No Strings Attached Theatre of Disability since 2008, and worked as AD, co-writer and performer for State Theatre Company SA. She was the co-curator of the Australian Theatre Forum held in Adelaide in October 2017. Alexis has been performing in Bukal by Andrea James about Henrietta Fourmile and on tour in FNQ working and creating with kids doing theatre workshops.

Emily Steel is originally from Wales and has lived in Adelaide since 2010. Her work in Australia includes Rabbits (STCSA State Umbrella production for 2017, presented by Steel & Brown in association with STCSA and Adelaide Festival Centre’s inSPACE development program); Sepia for RiAus (Adelaide Fringe 2012 Tour Ready award); Rocket Town (Adelaide Fringe 2011 inSPACE Award); The Clock for ActNow and RiAus; Man in a Bag for AC Arts and Polygraph Collective; Impersonal Space with Company AT, an autistic theatre ensemble; and an adaptation of Ben Jonson’s Volpone for State Theatre Company of South Australia. Her work in the UK includes: Frank and the Bear, Bite and Boom Boom for BBC Radio 4. A radio version of 19 weeks was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 2018.

Sally Hardy is an AWGIE-winning playwright whose work has been produced in the DreamBIG Children’s Festival, the World Festival of Children’s Theatre, the Come Out Children’s Festival, the Adelaide and Melbourne Fringe Festivals, and has featured on the VCE Playlist. As a Dramaturge she has worked on shows in the Adelaide Festival and the Adelaide Cabaret Festival. In 2016 she won the AWGIE for Youth & Community Theatre with A Kid Like Me, and in 2014 she won the Trinity College London International Playwriting Award with her play Gone Viral.  In 2020, as well as being a core writer for the Decameron 2.0 project, Sally is Artist in Residence for Slingsby Theatre Company, where she is developing her play Night Light with funding from Arts SA, and is a contributing artist for Patch Theatre Company. As a teaching artist Sally currently works with school students of all ages, and with neurodiverse teens and senior citizens for community arts organisation Ink Pot Arts.