Sydney Theatre Awards ignore half the industry

Local writers and productions beyond the comfortable Eastern Suburbs are glaringly absent in tonight's award nominations.
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Anthony Gooley, Andrew Henry, and Andre de Vanny, in Sport for Jove’s Of Mice and Men, which has received 10 nominations in the 2015 Sydney Theatre Awards. Photographer: Marnya Rothe. 

The 2015 Sydney Theatre Awards feature 140 nominations across 36 categories of achievement. Out of all of those nominations and categories, only one production west of Sydney has been included.

The Sydney Theatre Awards are presented annually by a group of leading theatre critics to celebrate the strength, quality and diversity of theatre in Sydney. The Sydney Theatre Reviewers consist of Elissa Blake (Sun- Herald), Jason Blake (Sydney Morning Herald), Dee Jefferson (Time Out), Deborah Jones (The Australian), Jo Litson (The Sunday Telegraph), John McCallum (The Australian), Ben Neutze (Daily Review), Diana Simmonds (Stagenoise), Polly Simons (Daily Telegraph) and Cassie Tongue (Aussietheatre).

The most recent 2015 nominations for outstanding theatre, independent and youth theatre in Sydney suggest that only East Sydney and Circular Quay are sites for theatre excellence in Sydney. Despite this, Western Sydney produced an extraordinary amount of notable theatre work and received only one mention out of 140 nominations (Shellshock, Parramatta Riverside in Best Production Youth Theatre category).

The 2016 nominations include Ivanov from Belvoir leading the main stage productions with seven nominations, followed by the Sydney Theatre Company’s Endgame and Suddenly Last Summer, which both received six nominations. In the independent theatre categories, Sport for Jove’s Of Mice and Men dominated the field with 10 nominations, followed by Heathers with nine nominations and Violet with eight, both presented by Hayes Theatre Company.

While these predominantly European and American plays and musicals are valuable and worthy, it is what is not told that is of note here. What incentives do these awards give to local writers and artists to tell the challenging stories of Australia and its people?

Luckily there are theatre directors telling these important stories – many of them in Western Sydney.  There is a cultural explosion going on – you just might need to travel more than 30mins to find out about it (which many Sydneysider’s have long become accustomed to). Currently Western Sydney has several of Australia’s most outstanding arts and cultural leaders working in organisations such as Urban Theatre Project, Powerhouse Youth Theatre, BYDS, Campbeltown Arts Centre, Parramatta Riverside, and Blacktown Arts Centre. These companies are working across multi lingual texts and finding innovative ways to engage and progress the potential of theatre to tell diverse stories of Australia, to equally diverse audiences.  Theatre critics who do not watch and review the complex and diverse offerings of Sydney’s theatre, risk losing relevance and will fail to see, recognise or appreciate new culture as it is being created.

The Sydney Theatre Awards represent a narrow feedback loop that is as self-perpetuating as it is unsustainable. Recently I contacted several publicists to get them to work on a project for my company in Western Sydney, Powerhouse Youth Theatre. One publicist explained it is almost impossible to get a critic to Western Sydney, ‘they just don’t come’. When I approached a very notable critic to come to my theatre in Fairfield to see a show, they physically cringed. Feeling a little vulnerable I offered “Oh don’t worry you can go to the Opera House. It’s playing there in two years time” to which they readily agreed.

This narrow feedback loop might reward the cultural productions of the Eastern suburbs for now, but it undermines serious critical engagement with local culture and runs the risk of irrelevance in the long term. Western Sydney is not waiting for its nominations – it is out there making interesting new Australian theatre.

In my opinion The Sydney Theatre Awards need to rapidly develop a more sophisticated and complex view of theatre in Sydney if they are to avoid being reduced to the “East” Sydney Theatre Awards and losing relevance in a cultural environment that is finally waking up to the cultural and demographic might of Western Sydney.

The 2015 Sydney Theatre Awards will be presented Monday 18 January at Paddington RSL. Visit www.sydneytheatreawards.com for details.

This article has been slightly amended to reflect the fact that one out of 140 nominations in the 2015 Sydney Theatre Awards originated in western Sydney.

Karen Therese
About the Author
Karen Therese grew up in Mt Druitt in Western Sydney, her cultural heritage is Hungarian-Australian. She is an interdisciplinary artist, creative producer and cultural leader. Her practice is grounded in performance, political activism and community building with a particular focus on underground youth cultures. In 2010 Karen was awarded the inaugural Cultural Leadership Grant by The Australia Council’s Theatre Board to investigate innovative curatorial practices across diverse cultures and art forms, with a vision to embed her practice within Western Sydney. Since then Karen has created and produced significant works for the region. As the recipient of the Creative Producer Fellowship from the Australia Council’s Community Partnerships Board she created ‘FUNPARK’, a large-scale site based event in Mt Druitt for the 2014 Sydney Festival. Karen also directed the youth led performance Mt Druitt Press Conference performed at ‘FUNPARK’ and the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA). In 2013 Karen became the Artistic Director of Powerhouse Youth Theatre (PYT) in Fairfield, developing a dynamic new arts program for the Western Sydney region. Alongside this Karen is the current 2015 Studio Artist for Griffin Theatre and works independently as an artist and curator. She has worked extensively both nationally and internationally as an Artist and/or Creative Producer for companies such as PS122 (New York), The Centre of Performance Research (New York), The Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Campbelltown Arts Centre, Performance Space, Blacktown Arts Centre and PACT Theatre for Emerging Artists. She is a graduate of the Victoria College of the Arts (Animateuring) and holds a Masters by Research (Creative Arts) from Wollongong University and was the recipient of a Post Graduate scholarship.