EP 12: How to 'Make It' - On Your Own Terms' with Declan Greene (Theatre Writer & Director, MTC/STC)

The Creative Coach with Dan Brophy

What does it take to make work that is excites people on a national and international level?

What are you prepared to do in order to make work you are truly proud of?

My guest this week is theatre writer and director Declan Greene. He has a body of work that spans every major theatre institution in the country.

He got his start in Melbourne’s literal and figurative underground - staging plays in underground carparks and building sites - and is now of the best regarded theatre makers of his generation. But that doesn’t mean he’s lost his edge.

Declan's work still crosses genres and formats and merges high-brow and low-brow culture, queer performance art, multimedia, in-jokes, bad language, pop art and surrealist absurdity - but always with a view to comment on society or humanity or the profanity of culture - or all of the above.

His recent direction of Blackie Blackie Brown - written by Nakia Lui and currently showing at the STC - is no exception.

It melds Japanese manga iconography with Tarantino themes for a tale of aboriginal revenge on white-settler injustice.

The play is simultaneously visually astounding, shocking, thought-provoking funny and tapping of some current-day zeitgeist that makes it feel truly progressive.

Next up, in July this year, the MTC will stage Declan's adaptation of the Lars Von Trier film, Melancholia.

And it is Declan’s tenacity that I am most admiring of. In the decade, he has amassed a huge body of work - averaging the release of two plays a year.

When I sat down with Declan for this interview last year, around the time of the release of his play The Homosexuals, I wanted to find out what his creative process looks like in a practical sense - how does he manage to average multiple major works in a year… and before someone was paying him to do so, how did create a lifestyle in which he could get good in the first place?

This episode is great for anyone looking to get active in a their ideal career space by pooling passion and resources amongst your creative community. There’s never been a better time to ‘screw it - just do it’.

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