Independent Adelaide theatre company RUMPUS has unveiled its 2020 season with a captivating lineup of five new South Australian plays and selection of shorter ‘Baby Plays’.
Led by Flinders University drama centre alumni, including co-founders Nescha Jelk and Rebecca Mayo (with third co-founder of the collective Yasmin Gurreeboo), the season of premieres was curated by a panel of four including Nescha, fellow alumna Nadia Rossi, as well as Edwin Kemp Attrill and Alira McKenzie.
“The panel was so excited to program a season consisting of entirely new works that have been written, devised, directed and performed by more over 40 professional SA artists,” Nescha says.
“We are thrilled with the productions and creative developments we have lined up and can’t wait to share them with Adelaide audiences.”
Richard Back, Drama Centre Director, congratulated RUMPUS for its expanded Baby Plays season this year and commitment to accessible spaces for all people to engage with theatre.
The Baby Plays are creative developments of new plays with work-in-progress showings. This means that the artists get together to start working on a brand new project over a week, and then they share a little bit of what they’ve created that week with an audience to test the work.
In light of changing Government health advice and restrictions, RUMPUS is exploring other ways to bring live performance to people at home through live streaming or digitising performances while audiences remain unable to gather.
“We are definitely planning to stream some of the material but not necessarily everything,” Ms Jelk says. “Some shows may be presented next year at RUMPUS (Bowden), if the artists are unable to perform it live this year. That is why tickets haven’t been released for the shows so far. ”
A bunch of Flinders graduates were part of the Facebook launch of an exciting new program of plays, which will be staged at future dates (to be decided and further promoted, currently from 8 July to December 20).
Flinders Uni talent features heavily in the double bill of new one-act plays including alumna Piri Eddy’s 2020 Jill Blewett Playwright’s award-winning tragedy, Forgiveness, paired with Flinders academic Peter Beaglehole’s black comedy Strata (winner of the 2016 State Theatre Company SA Young Playwright’s Award).
The double bill features Flinders PhD Tiffany Lyndall-Knight as director of Strata, Anthony Nicola of Forgiveness, and Antoine Jelk (sound designer), along with Green Room award-winning designer Meg Wilson.
University Medal winner Anthony Nicola has been appointed Resident Director at STCSA in his first year after graduating.
Flinders graduates Brit Plummer’s debut solo show Chameleon, the 2020 Queer Playwright Award finalist Butterfly Kicks by Jamila Main, and Eliza Oliver and Ladylike Theatre Collective’s How to Kill Your Hamster are on the program. Blood, Sweat and Karaoke is an exciting new work from actor Ezra Juanta about Joseph “Joppy” Galura, a first generation Australian Filipino struggling to find his place in life.
Among the long list of other Flinders alumni involved with the RUMPUS collective, along side two of the founders Nescha Jelk and Rebecca Mayo, are Teddy Dunn, Annabel Matheson (director of How to Kill Your Hamster), Katherine Sortini, Emma Beech, Elizabeth Hay, Hew Parham, who wrote one of the scheduled Baby Plays Symphony Du Bicyclette, and Ashton Malcolm and Josie Were – who with Meg Wilson worked on a short play Excuse Me, about an attempt to explain climate change inaction to our children.
