Behind the Scenes 1st December 2025

It's our last Theatre Network Australia segment for 2026 which means Yuhui Ng Rodriguez is here for a final wrap up and to tell us who our final TNA Member of the Month is… here’s a clue – multidisciplinary artist and creative producer Teneille Clerke is hanging on the line… Then, it's our last visit to Darwin for the year and Brown’s Mart Artistic Director Yvette Walker will be talking us through their recently released programme for 2026…   Then, it’s music all the way to the end of the show… First up is young singer/songwriter and mental health advocate Harley Müller (aka Capes and Crowns) who’s just released a second single from his new album – Growing Pains… …and then, Tim Richmond of the Tim Richmond Group fame has been recording songs since the early nineties and he’s just released a new solo album – The Taste…   We’ll meet both musos and listen to some of their music…   They’re all on this week’s edition of Behind the Scenes with Chris Thompson right here on Vision Australia Radio.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With International Day of People with a Disability only a week or so away, we get in early… first for a chat with Eliza Hull who’ll be hosting the Live Nation gig – One’s to Watch, an artists with disability showcase… …and then, to meet Co-Artistic Director of Rawcus Theatre Morgan Rose to chat about One Night Only, their new co-production with Jackson Castiglione for Darebin Arts Speakeasy…   After that, writer/director Demetra Giannakopoulos is here ahead of three return performances of her 2022 hit, Coming Out For Christmas a radio-play-style theatre performance about a young queer Australian-Greek woman who brings her Aussie girlfriend home for Christmas lunch… what could possibly go wrong… And finally, Jayne Tuttle has followed up her first two memoirs – Paris or Die and My Sweet Guillotine with a third instalment, The Sea in the Metro… so that seems like a good time to catch up for a chat…   They’re all on this week’s edition of Behind the Scenes with Chris Thompson right here on Vision Australia Radio.   If you’d like to hear the previous conversations with Jayne Tuttle – we spoke about My Sweet Guillotine in 2022 on the September 26 show and Paris or Die in 2019 on the December 16 show - you’ll find both on our podcast page- just put Vision Australia Radio Behind the Scenes into your favourite podcast search engine and you’ll find this and all our other episodes and bonus chats… plus if you subscribe, you’ll never have to search for an episode or our bonus material again.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For the last time this year, we’ll start the show in Perth with Boola Bardip WA Museum’s Helen Simondson who’s here for her regular round up AND to introduce her local guest artist – Kate Champion, recently appointed Black Swan Theatre Artistic Director and Director of the new Meow Meow production of The Red Shoes… Then, we meet author Roland Perry whose latest book Oliphant fills in the story of Australian Mark Oliphant whose work in nuclear physics was crucial to the development of the atom bomb – even if Christopher Nolan left him out of Oppenheimer… And finally, Genevieve Morris is here to chat about her terrific solo performance in the MTC production of Benjamin Law’s adaptation of Cory Taylor’s Dying: A Memoir… They’re all on this week’s edition of Behind the Scenes with Chris Thompson right here on Vision Australia Radio.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For the last time this year, we say welcome back to InSite Arts’ Elena Vereker for our regular Adelaide round up AND an introduction to her local guest artist – stage and screen writer, lecturer, director, and co-founder of South Australian Playwrights Theatre, Matt Hawkins. Then we’re off to Ballarat for a brand-new art experience – Sunnyside at the Ballarat Mining Exchange – and we’ll meet the first artist to exhibit there, UK based installation artist, Morag Myerscough. After that, we’re in for a bit of Shakespeare when Th’Unguarded Duncan and Theatre Works present the Prague Shakespeare Company version of Titus Andronicus. We’ll meet Co-Directors Kevin Hopkins and Claire Nichols as well as actor and Prague Shakespeare Company Associate Director, Josh Morrison. And finally, Jeremy Goldstein has been in South Africa working with Windybrow Arts Centre in Hillbrow on This Is Who I Am - an ongoing multidisciplinary, intercultural arts platform featuring live and online performances, photo portraits, exhibitions, workshops and dialogues. They’re all on this week’s edition of Behind the Scenes with Chris Thompson right here on Vision Australia Radio.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's the first show for November and so we’re swinging by the Theatre Network Australia office for a chat with Charice Rust who will also introduce us to the TNA Member of the Month, Anna Molnar, Programme Manager – Disability, Arts Access and Inclusion at Arts Centre Melbourne… Then, keeping on the topic of access, we’ll welcome Rachel Edward back to the show, this time in her capacity as Creative Producer for the Arts Access Supported Residential Services programme which is presenting Outside In/Inside Out, an exhibition of puppetry at the Schoolhouse Studios in Coburg Then it’s time for Screens & Streams but before Marc Gracie drops by to talk about what we’ve seen on our big and small screens, we’ll have a chat with Sophie Somerville about her directorial debut with the feature film Fwends. They’re all on this week’s edition of Behind the Scenes with Chris Thompson right here on Vision Australia Radio. If you’d like to hear longer conversations with Anna Molnar -Programme Manager: Disability, Arts Access and Inclusion at Arts Centre Melbourne AND Rachel Edward: Creative Producer, Arts Access Supported Residential Services Programme, you’ll find both on our podcast page- just put Vision Australia Radio Behind the Scenes into your favourite podcast search engine and you’ll find this and all our other episodes and bonus chats… plus if you subscribe, you’ll never have to search for an episode or our bonus material again…See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We start this week with Liz Rogers, General Manager of Browns Mart for a Darwin catch up before we meet Sally Crawford, Chair of Darwin Theatre Company who’ll tell us about Seventeen, their new collaboration with Corrugated Iron Youth Arts… Then we catch up with LA based Aussie comedian Monty Franklin who’s following up his highly successful Yeah, Nah tour with a new show called Is That Your Mate? After that, we’ll chat with Ross Larkin about The Last Sunday in June, Firerock Productions’ new show at Chapel off Chapel… And speaking of Chapel off Chapel, Russell Fletcher is back on the show, this time to talk about directing the upcoming spooky comedy The Haunting of Spook Mansion (by Ghosts) And finally, a bit of music to take us out when we meet David Hyams who’s currently touring the country with Human Highway, his tribute to the great songs of Neil Young… They’re all on this week’s edition of Behind the Scenes with Chris Thompson right here on Vision Australia Radio.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Rachel Edward is a Creative Producer with Arts Access and oversees the Supported Residential Services (SRS) Studios. Artists from the SRS Studios have been working with Golden Scissor Puppets to explore the many different ways in which they can create puppets. They have not only opened the doors to their homes, but also to their hearts, minds and imaginations creating Outside In/Inside Out an exhibition that explores the joy of releasing colour, movement and imagination often kept inside. In this work, that exploration takes us into a world of puppets, crank boxes, projections, and sound. The installation at Schoolhouse Studios Gallery in Coburg invites us to experience this world in many ways including tactile tours, audio descriptions and open captions.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Helen Simondson from Boola Bardip WA Museum gets the ball rolling this week with a jazzy Perth roundup and a new show at Yirra Yaakin… After that, even though it’s not our week for Screens&Streams, we’ll check out the Irish Film Festival with Festival Director Dr Enda Murray… Meanwhile, opera, monsters and pantomime will be taking over Theatre Works’ Explosives Factory when Bladderwrack opens there in a couple of weeks, and we’ll meet co-creator David Tredinnick… Then, we catch up with Professor Wesley Enoch who amongst his many hats wears one that says Ambassador for the first ever AusArt Day… And finally, a bit of music to take us out when we meet Nashville based singer-songwriter Imogen Clark to talk about her tour with Keziah Gill and her new album Choking on Fuel… They’re all on this week’s edition of Behind the Scenes with Chris Thompson right here on Vision Australia Radio.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We’re kicking of this week’s show with a walk and talk through the annual Postcards Show at Linden New Art with Curator Hamish Sawyer and Chloe Kokoris whose textile creation, Woven Abstraction I was awarded The Geoffrey Conaghan and Mathew Erbs Tertiary Award. Then, it’s our final week of Fast Fringe – our effort to cram as many Melbourne Fringe Festival artists into four weeks of shows as we can.   This week you’ll meet… Sammy J and his show Fiasco: A Burke and Wills Musical – Moira Finucane and students from Monash Uni with Chambers of the Heart – Lliam Amor who’s back to give us clues to Murder in the Graveyard, the latest Murder Village improvised murder mystery – Cat Sewell from Polyglot who’ve made Whirlwind, a new participatory arts experience for children – Sarah Bird Miller and Ria Soemardjo who are retelling the myths of Persephone and Demeter with What Lies Beneath – and, finally, Jo Raphael from Fusion Theatre who are performing The Weathering…   They’re all on this week’s edition of Behind the Scenes with Chris Thompson right here on Vision Australia Radio.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Amrit Gill gets us going this week with our regular Theatre Network Australia spot and she lets us know that the TNA Member of the Month for October is Jamie Lewis whose current show Sincere Apologies makes for a nice segue into our third week of Fast Fringe… our effort to cram as many Melbourne Fringe artists into four editions of Behind the Scenes as possible… So, our other Fast Fringe friends this week include Kamarra Bell-Wykes and Carly Sheppard in The Blok! - our favourite blind comedian Jeremy Moses who claims that he’s Hard to Work With – Stephen Wakefield from Museums Victoria to talk about Nocturnal – and Rebecca Jensen who’s choreographer and lead artist for Flesh Mirror in collaboration with Weave Movement Theatre… After that, Marc Gracie is here for our usual chat about what we’ve seen on our Screens & Streams. They’re all on this week’s edition of Behind the Scenes with Chris Thompson right here on Vision Australia Radio.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.