Flicking through 2023’s Adelaide Fringe program and wondering which shows are worth seeing? Here are our top 5 Flinders Fringe Shows involving Flinders students, alumni and staff. Ranging from science to creative arts, there’ll be a show for you.
The top 5 Flinders Fringe shows
A Curious Thing – The Story of Mary Anning
Looking for something inspiring this Fringe? On the opening night of this musical revolving around fossil scientist Mary Anning, you’ll have the chance to listen to a panel of remarkable scientists talking about their work and women in STEM.
Flinders’ Space Archaeologist Associate Professor Alice Gorman tells us more, “The panel will focus on our experiences of being women in science. We’ll talk about what makes us passionate about our fields and the importance of having role models and supporters.
“I work in Space Archaeology, so I’ll have to explain what this is to the audience. People don’t expect archaeologists to be working on something so recent, let alone sites that aren’t even on Earth!
“I love it when art and science come together, and Michael Mills (aka Professor Flint), who created the show, does this better than anyone. I was so pleased when he asked me to be on the panel. If sharing my story helps even one girl to be inspired by science, or one boy to stop thinking that girls can’t do science, then I’ll be happy.
“Mary Anning was an extraordinary pioneer in palaeontology. I hope that the show will help girls feel that they belong in science – after all, we’ve been here the whole time, but our stories weren’t always told.”
Grab your Fringe tickets for A Curious Thing: The Story of Mary Anning.
Playreading and Workshop
Presented by Assemblage, Flinders’ Research Centre for Creative Arts, Senior Drama Lecturer and Playwright Dr Sarah Peters will be reading her latest work in progress ‘An Incomplete Encyclopedia of Hugs’.
The audience will be directly involved in the play’s further development during a hands-on creative workshop led by Associate Professor in Creative Industries and Assemblage Director Dr Tully Barnett.
Sarah tells us how the play has developed so far, “This play has been simmering away for a while now and has a few earlier iterations where I was experimenting with form and style. It used to be a one-person play called ‘Like putting stockings on a corpse’, mostly about death and grief and responsibility.
“Then it was a three-person play called ‘Splendid’ mostly about intimacy, queerness and friendship. Now it’s back to being a one-person show and is actually about all of these things, while also pushing curiously at the question – ‘what’s the worst thing that can happen if you’re not honest?’’.
Sarah is looking forward to the insight she’ll gain from the reading, “You always learn something about your work when you put it in front of an audience. The very act of speaking the story out loud in a room with other people, and hearing them respond (or not respond), always tells me something about the rhythm, tone, detail and emotion of a play.
“It is a gift to have an audience. There is also something vulnerable in sharing your work in progress, but I’m all about a bit of courageous vulnerability!”
Grab your Fringe tickets for Playreading and Workshop.
Ripdrag / Ruminate
For the past five years, Ripdrag / Ruminate has been a regular feature of the Fringe. Each year South Australian Playwrights Theatre’s Artist Director and Senior Lecturer in Screenwriting and Dramaturgy Dr Matt Hawkins teaches the Flinders summer topic Dramaturgy and New Writing.
The students from this topic construct original performance pieces that really engage audiences. Matt explains, “The works are developed through the Dramaturgy topic and then rehearsed with the feedback of other students and their lecturers.
“Dramaturgy gives them the power to help steer each other’s dance pieces into meaningful presentations to a real audience. It’s where dance meets drama meets narrative. A beautiful melee of the performing arts.”
Final-year students from the Bachelor of Creative Arts (Dance), offered by Flinders University in partnership with TAFE SA, will be performing the show. In 2023 these students are Gioia Girolamo, Stella Page, Rhianna Barney and Alannah Talbot.
Rhianna is excited, “Produced by my fellow graduating cohort, this year’s Ripdrag/Ruminate highlights various aspects of struggle within today’s society. Through the eclectic use of movement and sound, these five short works will take you on an emotionally encaptivating journey.”
“Put simply, movement can express concepts that words cannot always articulate. The contemporary dance art form provides a space for the personal growth of both the performer and the viewer.
“In an ever-changing society, the subtlety of its intention acts as a gateway to greater knowledge and understanding of humanity. I am inspired by this ability to positively impact audiences through movement.”
Gioia tells us about the work she put together, “I believe movement has the capacity to educate, stimulate and restore. The opportunity for my cohort and I to share our interpretations in Ripdrag / Ruminate will make it a thrilling and unique show.”
Grab your Fringe tickets for Ripdrag / Ruminate.
Recalibrate
Produced by SAPT Artist Director and Senior Lecturer in Screenwriting and Dramaturgy Dr Matt Hawkins, Recalibrate features two Flinders Drama Centre graduates, Emma Beech and Katie O’Reilly, and contains video projections shot by Flinders’ technical staff member Todd Pursche and edited by recent graduate Angus Becke-Smith.
Nominated for the 2022 Jill Blewett playwriting prize, this play will be performed in the non-traditional performance space of The Lab, with LED screens allowing for several filmed sections of narrative and an exploration of the pervasive nature of social media and online trolling.
Recalibrate was developed over several years in collaboration with a multigenerational group of creatives, featuring transformative and frequently complex relationships between women at its heart. Notions of ‘female goodness’ are explored as well as the frequently marginalised experiences of aging, illness and disability.
Grab your Fringe tickets for Recalibrate.
Where Words Once Were
Watch Flinders’ Creative Writing PhD candidate Miriam Fietz perform in Fifth Business Theatre Company’s production of Finegan Kruckemeyer’s Where Words Once Were as the role of ‘Girl’. Besides acting, Miriam also assisted with the offstage dramaturgy of this play.
Miriam tells us, “My character, Girl, is one of the silenced people in the world of The City – an isolated and dystopian society ruled by its strict adherence to a language of exactly one-thousand words.
“Girl is fierce, and determined, and clever, and fights against her separation from the society she lives in through the love she develops for Orhan, a boy she slowly teaches to see the words beyond those The City allows.
“Kruckemeyer’s play is a love letter to words and language and the way they shape us and shape the world around us. He brings out the magic within words that we often take for granted, and playing Girl has brought back a lot of the wonder and joy I had found myself forgetting I had for the everyday magic of language and how it connects us.
“This play was originally commissioned for the Kennedy Centre in Washington DC and was a large multi-media production with a budget much greater than a small Adelaide amateur theatre company has.
“It is a show that relies on physical language devices and on visual representations of the wonder that words create, and it has been incredible to work with a dazzlingly creative cast and crew to find ways to bring those pieces of language to life without the big screens and multi-media capabilities of a larger production.
“There is a simplicity and creative joy in the way we have staged our show that we are exceedingly proud of, and we hope our audiences feel the same joy and wonder watching it as we have felt in its creation.
“’Where Words Once Were’ is a stunningly written and wonderfully moving production, and Kruckemeyer’s love for words and for the resilience of everyday people is inspiring. It is a show that is appropriate for younger audiences as well as adults, Finegan is an Adelaide-based playwright, and this will be the play’s very first Adelaide production.”
Grab your Fringe tickets for Where Words Once Were.
Adelaide Fringe not your thing?
Then maybe join us for Writer’s Week. Dr Sean Williams will be interviewed by high school students at the Fantastic Frights and Flights of Fancy event on Middle Grade and YA Day. He’ll be talking about his latest books ‘Honour Among Ghosts’ and ‘Her Perilous Mansion’ and how his trips to Antarctica and Ireland inspired his writing.
Come see Flinders’ Fringe Shows
The 2023 Fringe season is sure to thrill again. Don’t miss Flinders’ Fringe shows and support our new talent. Secure your tickets now.