Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Monday 15 July
6:15 PM - 7:15 PM
Join the cream of Australia’s theatre crop for this very special event to celebrate the publication of Colin Batrouney’s second novel, Creative Writing for Beginners.
Actor Geoffrey Rush, director Neil Armfield and comedian Denise Scott have known Colin Batrouney since his early days of treading the boards as an actor – and their careers have all transformed and flourished in fascinating ways since.
Creative Writing for Beginners tells the twinned stories of an aspiring writer and his flatmate, Nomee, a budding actress who has just landed a career-changing leading role in Anton Chekhov’s masterpiece The Seagull.
The lures and limitations of fame, the tyrannical pull of audience expectations and the perilous crafts of writing and acting are at the core of both Colin’s novel and Chekhov’s classic play.
These timeless themes are well known to anyone who pursues a creative career – and especially to our panelists. Join us for a timely discussion on the transformative power of the arts, how actors embody and enliven their characters night after night in front of a live audience, and what influences these acclaimed writers, performers and directors.
Featuring
Neil Armfield
Neil Armfield is a leading Australian director of theatre, opera and film. He was co-founder of Sydney’s Belvoir Theatre and its Artistic Director for 17 years, during which time he directed over 50 productions.
Neil’s notable productions include Cloudstreet (toured to London twice, Dublin, Zurich, New York), Hamlet (toured Australia starring Richard Roxburgh), Diary of a Madman (with Geoffrey Rush, toured to Moscow, St Petersburg, New York), Exit the King (Sydney and Broadway, winning Geoffrey Rush a Tony), The Book of Everything (toured to New York), The Judas Kiss (toured Australia starring Bille Brown in 1999 and in 2012 with Rupert Everett) and The Secret River, adapted for theatre by Andrew Bovell.
Neil has directed for English National Opera, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Chicago Lyric Opera, Zurich Opera, Bregenz Festival, and regularly with Opera Australia, Canadian Opera, Welsh National Opera, and Houston Grand Opera. This year, he will direct Wagner’s Der Ring Des Nibelungen in Melbourne and Tristan Und Isolde in Washington.
Neil directed the television miniseries Edens Lost for ABC TV in 1988, which won 4 AFI awards including Best Director and Best Mini Series; 2 telemovies for the ABC in 1996 – The Fisherman’s Wake (which won an ATOM Award for Best Original TV Production), and Coral Island.
In 2005 he directed and co-wrote the feature film Candy, starring Heath Ledger and Abbie Cornish, which screened in competition at the Berlinale and played twenty other international festivals. He won Best Adapted Screenplay at the AFI Awards and an AWGIE for Best Screenplay.
Neil has won 2 AFI Awards, 8 Helpmann Awards, and many Sydney Theatre, Victorian Green Room and Sydney Theatre Critics Circle Awards. He has Honorary Doctorates from Sydney and NSW Universities, and in 2007 was appointed Officer of the Order of Australia.
Colin Batrouney
Colin Batrouney is a Melbourne-based writer. His second novel, Creative Writing for Beginners, is published by Affirm Press in 2013. He has occasionally worked in professional theatre as both an actor and director. He has never attended a creative writing course.
Geoffrey Rush
Geoffrey Rush is an Australian actor and film producer. He has won one Academy Award for acting (from four nominations), three British Academy Film Awards (from five nominations), two Golden Globe Awards and four Screen Actors Guild Awards. He is the foundation president of the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts and was named the 2012 Australian of the Year.
Denise Scott
Denise Scott first started working as a professional actor and comedian nearly thirty years ago, but it has been in the last six years that she has been selling out theatres, scoring herself a regular gigs on high rating national television shows and seeing her two books creep towards bestseller status.
Denise first started working as a professional actor and comedian nearly 30 years ago, but it has been in the last decade or so that Scotty has gone supernova – winning awards, selling out theatres, appearing on high-rating TV shows and writing two popular memoirs.
To wit: in 2009 Denise penned All That Happened at Number 26, a book which became a national best seller and a hit tour, with sell-out seasons at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and the Sydney Opera House. Number 26 was also produced as a DVD for the Warehouse Comedy Festival series.
Scotty’s subsequent solo show, Regrets, was awarded the Melbourne International Comedy Festival Directors’ Choice Award, with Scotty winning a Helpmann Award for Best Comedy Performer. She then made her debut at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and released her second book, The Tour.
Fittingly, 2013 was all about touring for Denise, hitting the stage with her dear friend Judith Lucy in The Spiral. Their stand-up-slash-book-tour debuted at the Princess Theatre during MICF and went on to sell well over 30,000 tickets across Australia.
Scotty has been and remains a favourite guest on many of Australia's favourite TV shows, including Spicks and Specks, The Project, and Talkin' ‘bout Your Generation, in addition to starring as Trish Gross on Channel 7’s high-rating drama Winners & Losers.
In 2014, Denise returned to the stage once more with a new, Barry Award-winning solo show, Mother Bare, at Adelaide Fringe, Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Sydney Opera House and the Brisbane Powerhouse. And in 2015, Mother Bare returned to MICF for a limited run at the Comedy Theatre and the prestigious Hamer Hall. Denise also guested in Please Like Me, Jack Irish and House Husbands.