is sydney's indie scene too conservative?

“Is the conservative reputation fact or furphy?
Audrey asked some of Sydney’s leading independent theatremakers for their thoughts. Scroll down and click on the link to read responses from bAKEHOUSE’s Suzanne Millar; Lachlan Philpott, Kate Gaul, Claudia Barrie, Emily Ayoub, Andrew Henry, Stephen Multari, Dino Dimitriadis

Suzanne has a few extra thoughts: RISK and money go hand in hand. If you’re investing in risky work, then you’ve got to spend money. If you don’t spend money your risky work goes unseen and unnoticed, or worse – critical response is impacted by low budget production values, and audience stay away.

bAKEHOUSE invested a lot of money (and time, but we’re talking money here) into The Laden Table and Jatinga: and not just the productions, but the expensive three year development for each project. 23 diverse artists played to 6 weeks of sold out houses, to great critical and audience acclaim. We budgeted into those productions a generous fee to actors and designers who were sharing the risk with us.”

“We haven’t yet covered the cost of staging this work.

Like many of the crits, we believe these shows deserve a broader and bigger audience. But in 2017 all our money went into these 2 productions, (and KXT, but we’re talking production costs here). So those shows need a champion. That’s how risky work becomes viable.”

“I think there’s a lot at stake in indie theatre. It’s a few people, investing their limited time and money into their passion. So it’s tempting to play it safe, to try to be the best independent – as in unfunded – version of our main stages.”