Videos

The final episode of Robert Reid’s first series of Witness Histories looks at the past forty years, bringing us up to the present day

In this episode of Witness Histories, Robert Reid covers the emergence of the New Wave of theatre makers in the 1960s and 70s, including La Mama, The Australian Performing Group and the NIDA production of The Legend of King O’Malley.

Video: Art for young people is often marginalised and dismissed in the wider culture. In this lively and passionate Witness discussion at Arts House, part of the Melbourne Fringe XS program, our panellists discussed everything about art for young people – what it is, how it is discussed and evaluated, and why it matters.

“The wedding dress was a character in its own right”. This month Sayraphim Lothian brought along her iPhone and asked some our of Witness Live Nighters to record their thoughts on Melancholiafor posterity.

The beginning of theatre as we know it now. In Video Histories: Episode 5.1: Witness historian Robert Reid looks at the beginning of the era of subsidised theatre.

Video: Robert Reid talks to Claudia Funder from the Australian Performing Arts Collection about their astounding collection.

Before the era of government subsidies, Australian colonial theatre was dominated by a production behemoth, JC Williamson Theatres, or “The Firm”. Robert Reid lays it all down.

Witness Histories, Episode 3 Part 1: Robert Reid tracks Australian theatre through the 19th century, through the often disreputable careers of the early actor-managers.

Witness Histories, Episode 3 Part 2: Robert Reid tracks Australian theatre through the 19th century, through the often disreputable careers of the early actor-managers.

There were plays! There were riots! There were offended clerics and government shutdowns! Robert Reid traces the fascinating, troubled and largely forgotten history of convict theatre after the First Fleet arrived in 1788, and ponders why so much of it seems so familiar.