2019 Darwin Airport BUILD UP recipients

Darwin Airport Build Up is Brown’s Mart’s seeding and development program. BUILD UP projects can be for research or creative development of new projects by Independent Theatre artists working and living in the top end of the Northern Territory. These projects are for any stage of development and are designed to support a fertile environment for the creation of new Northern Territory theatre.

Brown’s Mart is delighted to announce the successful recipients of this year’s round of applications:

Nicola Fearn – Girl (working title). In collaboration with Gail Evans and Sarah Cathcart.

The artistic team of Nicola Fearn and Gail Evans have a proven track record of working together to create stimulating and original work of a high standard. They have worked together creating original physical theatre comedy and visual works since 1996 and, along with Sarah Cathcart, collaborated with Wandering Moon in Thailand creating an original work combining shadow, mask and puppetry. Nicola and Sarah also collaborated on BUU productions ‘Contagion’s Kiss’, ‘Tracy’ and ‘The Pearler’. This will be Gail’s first collaboration with BUU and will extend and develop the collaborative relationship between Nicola, Gail and Sarah in the signature BUU style and incorporate Gail’s expertise in story development, humour and text.

With ‘Girl’, BUU seeks to produce a work with high production values, a combination of forms not often seen in Darwin or wider Australia and content that will both provoke and entertain.

Rachael Chisholm – Like Jim (working title). In collaboration with Shari Sebbens, Rob Collins & El Ibo.

I want to develop ‘Like Jim’ into a play that isn’t ashamed to talk about taboo subjects which have caused First Nation people grief and shame. I want to develop this play so young First Nation men know that they don’t have to sacrifice their identities to show respect to the men they idolise. I want to develop this play to encourage young First Nation women to speak up when they suffer from abuse, and no longer have to say that their abuse is “just something that happens”.

Rachael has a Bachelor of Arts in the Acting National Institute of Dramatic Arts N.I.D.A— Sydney, NSW. Cert IV in Aboriginal Theatre, Western Australia Academy of Performance Arts
(W.A.A.P.A) Perth, W.A 2009.

Sarah Reuben – The Way Things Might Go (working title). In collaboration with Jeffrey Jay Fowler.

This development opportunity will extend my abilities as a theatre maker and creative, allowing me to learn and work alongside one of the best theatre makers in Australia. Jeffrey Jay Fowler is a theatre maker whose works have been performed around Australia and the World. He
has a talent to take an audience on a journey with bold ideas that spark ethical and moral conversations that stretch far beyond the theatre walls, and that I the type of theatre I am devoted to creating.

I want to create an informative, intelligent, articulate piece of theatre that is engaging not just for a Darwin audience, but able to be toured beyond. The vision is unique, inspiring, and carves a fresh direction for theatre in the NT, which will bring in new audiences and reinvigorate existing audiences.

Stephen Carleton – Rapa Nui (working title) with Knock-em-Down Theatre

Knock-em-Down Theatre will take this opportunity to develop ‘Rapa Nui’, the companion sequel to last year’s ‘The Turquoise Elephant’ by Stephen Carleton. With ‘Rapa Nui’, KeDT will capitalise and extend upon the momentum of the first play, and develop a sequential project that pushes beyond looking at the eco-crisis that framed the first piece, exploring instead what might emerge on the other side of the eco-apocalypse.

We want to develop this work to continue a conversation we’ve begun with Territory audiences on the topic of catastrophic climate change – surely the greatest and most pressing issue facing humanity and its long-term survival at present – and to do so in a theatrically bold and iterating way, exposing our audience here to extraordinary work at the highest level.