In just under a week, the students of the MFA Directing program at NIDA will have their work premiered at the Festival of Emerging Artists. Run and founded by NIDA, it is an opportunity for young Australian talent to share their work with the industry, a taster of the greatness that is to come.
The Scoop had the incredible privilege of speaking to two of the Directors whose work will be featured as part of this exciting line-up, Harrison Simmons, Director of Medusa, Uncut and Nic Puni, Director of Duplexity.
On a personal note, from the short time I spent with them, both of these creatives are incredibly passionate about their work and were extremely generous with not only their time but also their insights. I wanted to honour their words, which were so candid and well-articulated, so the story is the transcript of our meeting in its entirety. I want you to hear their perspective and passion, in their own voice.
If you haven’t already, support your home-grown creatives and get tickets to NIDA’s Festival of Emerging Artists. I can say with absolute certainty, you won’t regret it.
Harrison Simmons, Director of Medusa, Uncut
Would you be able to describe for me the project that you’re working on for the Festival?
So the Festival has seven shows. I’m doing one of them called Medusa Uncut. It’s a show written by an MFA writer, Krishna Patel, but created in large part by me with her kindly writing. It’s a show that is a not quite retelling of the Medusa story from a more queer, anti-religious lens. The show is largely about these two gods, Athena and Pegasus, who are trying to find a way to retell the Medusa and Perseus myth for a contemporary audience. Athena very much believes the traditionalist standard version, where Medusa is assaulted and then killed, is the proper version to tell this story of hero’s good, God’s good, monsters bad.
Whereas Pegasus has a more contemporary view of the story, and is more interested in kind of what will be TikTok popular and what will gain the most social media followers. Importantly, neither of them are particularly interested in what’s good or right. They both represent the same side of this institution of religion. And we have the two sort of mortals, Perseus and Medusa, who, throughout the play, are getting yanked and dragged around and forced to enact various scenes of violence and intimacy somewhat against their will…until things kind of go off the rails and everything falls apart.
You were talking about collaborating with an MFA writer on this piece. I know that NIDA exposes you to a multidisciplinary working environment and this Festival is an extension of that. Could you talk to me about the collaborative experience of building this piece?
It’s a bit interesting, because while I’m working with Krishna, that’s not officially part of the course. She’s just willing to do that outside of the course. That being said, I’ve loved working with her. She’s an incredibly skilled writer and collaborator, and finishes my thoughts. It’s really wonderful. You don’t get that many opportunities to work with someone that talented.
Aside from that the more structured collaboration is working with the designers and Tech students, who I’ve been very lucky to work with, really excellent skilled people. My designer, Joey McKenzie, it felt like they were in my brain. It’s been wonderful that we’ve been able to really bounce off ideas, finding the kind of campy queer lens they’re very open to, which I was really excited about.
Our Lighting and Sound Designer Chaii Ki Chapman and Matthew Phillips are both also very open and excited about exploring a more, shall we say, avant-garde piece, and really kind of pushing the limits and testing things. I think that NIDA was very smart in the way that they paired some people who are newer to their discipline with some people who are more experienced as mentors to guide them. We move into tech next week, which is when everything comes together. But so far, it’s been a real joy to work with all of these different departments.
How did you even go about mounting something like this? Taking it from just the, I guess, the dream or the idea that you had, and then now going into tech week, and then the following week onto stage?
Well, like most things in theatre right now, it started in COVID, frankly. The idea of this Medusa story, and the connection to modern religion was something I’d been considering for a while. And now that I’m towards the tail end of the of the MFA program we were told we were going to be directing a show of about 40 minutes. And 40 minutes is kind of a weird amount of time for a show. So I found that it was better to try to build something for that 40 minute period, as opposed to trying to squish a two hour play, or to, elongate a 15 minute one.
But in terms of how it was mounted, we actually started back in November where we started to do pre-production and early designs. Then design presentations all the way up until December, when we had our final design presentation. At that point, the costume and set were largely locked in. Then we had a long break where we weren’t directly working together, but we did have a lot of time to mull over various things, different problems that we hadn’t solved. When we came back in Term Two at the beginning of February, we immediately started with rehearsals.
So we moved kind of from pre-production in November to formal production in February, and then we’ve had this long, six/seven week rehearsal process, where we’re having sort of shorter rehearsals of four hours for a longer period of time. Our directing mentor Ben has said it’s kind of based on a Robert Lepage style of directing, which I’ve found, as a person with ADHD, very useful to work in smaller sections for longer times. But I would be interested to know if everyone has found it to be useful. I don’t know. It’s an unusual way to work from what I’ve done.
I know that you graduated from Brown and that you’ve been working in the States for a long time, and now you’re obviously here doing the directing course. Can you talk to me about this course and more broadly what you feel it’s offered you?
Yeah, absolutely, it’s been really interesting. There’s definitely a lot of real positives. I think the biggest takeaway I have is the specific style of directing that’s being taught is sort of a NIDA blended directing style called contemporary active analysis. It is based on a number of directing practices, all culminated into a clear methodology.
For the first term, we learned, quite rigorously, this methodology. At that point, Ben and others basically say you can take it or leave it. But it was really nice to have that basic understanding of one effective directing methodology down. It can be tricky with various show sizes and various lengths of time to go into every show with the same sort of process. So to have a place that we can start from, has been really useful for my practice. And then getting to work with the third year actors has been really great.
I think the biggest thing, I would say, if I could wish for one thing to change, it would be even more collaboration with the acting students. But I think that the structure of the course. Teaching the methodology and then finding your own methodology. And then putting the methodology to use with this project is effective and yeah, amazing.
And for you, when did you know? Did it come over you one day that you needed to direct? Or is this something that’s been in you for a long time?
Not at all, actually. I’ve been doing theatre since I was very little. My mom put me in theatre camps when she wanted me out of the house and I just fell in love with the theatre, to sound as, you know, as stereotypical as anyone. But it’s true. And I started wanting to be a singer. I realised I wasn’t good enough to be a singer. It happens to the best of us.
Then I wanted to be an actor. I went to a performing arts high school back in Dallas, Texas. And while I do love acting, and it will always be a love of mine, I had this teacher who basically told me, you need to stop trying to direct other people. You should just be a director. I was like, well, I’m going to do that then.
So I took the directing course at my high school, and yeah, that’s when I was like, oh, this feels right. And then when I went to Brown, I had the really great chance to study a lot of theory. Brown is a big theory school. It’s less practice-based in terms of the BFA program. So it was a lot of theatre history, theatre historiography. And then from there, I actually studied abroad at the University of Sydney.
Funnily enough, the first full length show I ever directed was actually at SUDS, a production called Boom, which was an absolute blast. Then from there, you know, COVID happened and I really realised that I wanted to learn more about the practice of directing. So I knew I loved Australia, and I wanted to do something outside the US, so NIDA felt like a natural avenue.
I’m biased, but I feel that NIDA is very much a reflection of what the Australian industry is going to be in about five years. Everyone there is so talented and so at the forefront of their craft. I was wondering, in working so closely with so many people across all of these different disciplines, how do you feel about the future of the arts?
Really great question, and one that I think could have a lot of answers. In terms of the future of the arts, I am a person who really believes that theatre is intrinsically tied to politics and that the two are inseparable. I had a teacher back in high school who told me something that’s stuck with me which is, as a theatre artist you lose the right to be disinterested in anything. And it’s really fundamentally changed how I view the world.
So I think the future of theatre is very bright. Because I think the future of art is continually a future of resistance and a future of pushing back against oppressive institutions. Unfortunately, in the world that we’re in, we’re seeing a lot of these institutions taking advantage of people. And I think people have a habit of forgetting how much change in the world has happened because of the arts. It’s very easy to attribute it to various individuals and things. But at the end of the day, it largely comes down to young people. And artists using that art to make change in a way that people can understand and ‘vibe with,’ for lack of a better term.
But in terms of practically, I think the people here are very talented. From a less sociological view, I think practically the people are very talented. Talking about Joey, my designer, they’re 19. They’re eight or nine years younger than me, and they’re far, far more equipped to enter the industry than I was at that age. I’m seeing that across all of the disciplines, which is really exciting, because I think we need more theatre people. I also think theatre is one of the things that’s perhaps more resistant to the rise of AI than other things, because you need people. I say that, but I may be out of a job in four years.
(We both laugh)
But I really think that we’re going to see a resurgence of theatre. I really do. I think that people want that physical connection on stage. To see people doing things and to be able to feel them. Their breath, the warmth of other people in a theatre, I think it is very powerful.
I totally agree. I have one more question, it kind of ties in to what we were just talking about. On the NIDA director’s profile it states that you have a special interest in presenting queer stories on stage. I was just wondering what it means to you to have your say, and what art, I guess it’s so broad, but artistically, what this show means to you?
You’ve been asking really great questions. And it’s funny, because I’ve thought a lot about this and it’s a conversation that I went back and forth with my designer and the other queer people working on the show. And I’m very, very happy to say that it is a largely queer show, something that doesn’t always happen with these kinds of stories. So it’s very exciting, but to specify that, yes, the story has a queer lens, but not because the story is inherently queer. It’s because the people telling it are queer. It’s because the people telling it are doing it as an act of resistance.
So it’s tricky. Yes, it’s a queer show. But it’s queer in that it’s being made by queer people, as opposed to showcasing queerness. So I think it’s a fine line in that distinction. But I think an important one in that its inception is brought about by gay and trans people working together as opposed to saying ‘here’s a story about being gay, about being queer, about being this, this or this.’ But I love to work with queer people. I do. We’re incredibly smart people. Like, sorry to everyone else, I guess.
Nic Puni, Director of Duplexity
Could you give me the elevator pitch for the piece that you’ll be presenting at the Festival?
Duplexity is about two women. They’re both influencers, and they’re navigating the contemporary modern world of women and the choices they’re about to make in their careers. Now they’re at a stand between each other to decide what it is they really want in their lives. What led me to it is the play Overtones which was written about 100 years ago, about the subconscious coming in. So it’s also about how we communicate in the social media world as well.
Could you talk to me about the process from the idea or the conception of the work until now. What’s the whole Festival experience been like for you?
It’s new to me. This is my first time that I will be doing a play. My background is film, so it’s been a wonderful experience. But also so many learning curves and so many experiences that I’ve had to reflect a lot on my practice. But it’s been fantastic. I’ve had a lot of support from the staff and students at NIDA. In terms of development, we’ve been inspired by the original play but brought it into a contemporary context. And that’s also been a new thing for me as well, which I’ve been really excited about.
What’s been the biggest difference for you coming from a film background? How is theatre different, as in, what does it offer as a medium?
I was learning in terms of directing performance, which was so interesting. They both intersect in very different ways and very strong ways. The rehearsal process is longer in theatre. Even the processes with how they collaborate within their departments and teams is quite different. But they do have similar goals and interests, and that is always to make sure that the end goal of the production is staged in a sense. It’s been great learning this other way of being, this other way of doing and knowing and understanding in theatre. So, yeah, enjoying the process.
You were talking about collaboration. Could you speak to the collaborative efforts of the show that you’re putting together?
We’ve got everyone, starting from the cast. They were our BFA students who have come on board, which has been fantastic. Then we have the crew. We have a Lighting Designer, Video Designer, we have Sound Designer, and we’ve also got our actual designer who’s collaborating with me directly, as well as looking after sets and props.
So all of those departments come together and try to establish and help create the vision collaboratively. That was very interesting from the start. Usually in film, you’ll have probably a Director and Producer and they’ll work together. But this model of working collaboratively with the designers from the start has been very interesting and a wonderful experience for me, because I really enjoy collaboration, its beautiful.
More broadly, how has your time at NIDA been so far? What do you feel you’ve gotten out of the course?
The most important thing for me, from the course, was just establishing your goals and your creative vision and just being comfortable with that creativity. And that’s something that, as a woman of colour and also First Nations, that’s always been something that made me reflect on how I work within collaborations and in teams. You know, how your vision is received and responded to and collaborated with. So that’s what I really appreciate, that allowing for you to have that space to devise, to envision, and just not to be afraid, to just go out there and do it.
There’s a lot of fear that comes in with, you know, putting your work out there because it’s going to be critiqued. But here you’re in a space that allows you to say, ‘Hey, let’s go enjoy, let’s play, let’s put something on and let’s be proud of what we do.’ And that’s just a wonderful energy. You have this space where you can just go out and be like, let’s try that, oh, that didn’t work. Let’s go here. Let’s pivot here. If there’s a problem, we can find a solution. That’s what I love about it.
I totally get it. I’m an actor, and sometimes it’s like the dream where you have no clothes on, and everyone’s looking at you. I’m just so glad you’re having that safe, playful experience.
(We both laugh)
You know there are days where you feel like you’re doing it right. There are other days you don’t know if you’re doing it right, but the fact that you have that support. It’s my favourite thing when I go down into the cafe, and there are so many people who know each other. The networking, it’s organic, you know what I mean? People just come over to you have a quick coffee, and then you have a chat. There is a whole debrief thing. Decompression is part of the culture there, everyone just allows you to have that space. So I’m really, really appreciative of that.
Beautiful, I’m so glad. I wanted to ask when was directing something that you knew you wanted to do?
I don’t know if it’s because I’m the eldest out of four siblings. Maybe it’s just because I used to be like ‘okay, let’s go here, let’s play right there.’ You know what I mean? I felt like I just enjoyed the whole idea of being in a team. I’ve always played team sports. I’ve always enjoyed the team culture, even in workplaces.
So I think that whole idea of, yes, I’m a director but at the same time, I feel that we can work and do this together because every department has an equal footing in terms of how they respond and how they work in in the environment. So even though it’s hierarchical to some degree, the way it’s structured, I still feel like everybody has that equal footing.
How did, how do you captain that ship? Did people bring you their ideas and you decide on the vision, or did you have, from the beginning, a very clear understanding of what you wanted to do with this project?
I had a very clear understanding from the get go, and then I will allow the creatives to come in with ideas. One of the things I like is what we call ‘Yarning’ or ‘Talanoa’, which is like, what we call understanding. Levels of understanding and knowledge, which is both my cultural backgrounds. That’s why I like to talk about things.
I think in the past where I have kind of just told people my vision from the get-go, I feel like it limits things, and it just kind of brings it into like a silo. So, allowing people to collaborate from the get-go is my process. It takes people time to understand that. But once they see the curated and final product, they’ll understand that it has been a process of understanding each other and working together to make the best outcome for everyone.
Did you have any advice for people who maybe want to follow along the path that you’re doing, who are sitting at home or are going to come watch the show and have a dream of doing the directing course at NIDA one day?
Don’t wait. Just jump in and go for it. I waited for about 15 years. I did get my undergraduate in film. But in terms of directing, actual directing, don’t wait. Just go for it. If you have that draw to direct and create projects and a vision, and you feel like you want your voice and all those stories that you have, just go for it.
Don’t get permission from anyone. Just go ahead and just go for it, and you’ll be so surprised at what you come up with and what you do. There are so many voices, so many stories, so many things for people to understand and experience. So I think the more you can encourage it, the better.
In your directing, do you have people that you look up to? Or specific styles that you love?
For me there has to be honesty, I feel that’s always been my motto, my mantra. Even in the absurd, even in surrealist work, there can still be some form of truth and honesty to it. I think the way we communicate is quite interesting, which is my lure to this and how we communicate in a contemporary environment, has changed significantly over the last 100 years. So I’ve always been curious about those stories, and particularly diverse stories as well. Both of my characters are women of colour, so that is my draw as well – being represented, and to see how we navigate that in a digital environment.
Just about the digital environment, your show is tackling very contemporary issues. What do you hope that this piece gives to people at this time, which I think, for a lot of people is feeling a little overwhelming?
I think the play itself, there are points of entertainment in it, and of course, that helps people to able to digest and understand the content. But it’s a reflective piece on how we respond to each other. It’s very much in line with what’s happening in the world right now.
So one of my goals is to ask how do we communicate to each other? Even in the most difficult times, communication is absolutely key. How do we respond to each other? How, in times of uncertainty, you know, who can we lean on to? Who can we support? Who needs that support? And I feel that it’s a reflective piece in that sense. We need as much support as we can for each other, in every way, emotionally, physically, spiritually. Be kind to ourselves and each other so we can get through this whole period.
The Festival of Emerging Artists runs from 2 -5 April at NIDA. Tickets are free but bookings are essential.
Tickets: https://collections.humanitix.com/foea-by-production
Website: https://www.nida.edu.au/
Socials: https://www.instagram.com/nidacommunity/
Photo credits: Ruby Lorraine, Clement Rukundo, Harrison Simmons, Lucy Rossen, Nic Puni and Nelson Blake. Image supplied.
The full line up for the Festival of Emerging Artists:
THIS SUPERQUICK RESURRECTION OF STALWART THE BUSHRANGER
Directed by Nelson Blake
A fun, rollicking romp featuring the condensed, never-performed manuscript by Australian poet Charles Harpur (1813–1868) ‘Stalwart the Bushranger.’
THE EFFECT
Directed by Lou Quill
Featuring excerpts from Lucy Prebble’s script. Set in an abstracted space of ‘The Experiment’ where Connie & Tristan meet and fall in love in a world devoid of stimulus, as participants in a medical drug trial.
AGAIN, I SEE YOU
Directed by African Australian Clement Rukundo
An original work, also written by Clement Rukundo. A poetic and reflective tale exploring the journey of two survivors of the horrific 1994 Rwandan genocide.
MEDUSA UNCUT
Directed by New York City based Harrison Simmons
A raunchy and campy not-quite-retelling of the Greek myth of Perseus and Medusa. Written by Krishna Patel, it examines the dangers of blind faith and religion.
SWINERIVER
Directed by First Nations artist from Perth, Ruby Lorraine
It explores the beginning of a ten-year battle between a mining company and an Aboriginal community. Written by acclaimed First Nations playwright David Milroy.
DUPLEXITY
Directed by Nic Puni
An adaptation of the script Undertones, written by her sister Annidette Puni. It follows Fidela, a lifestyle influencer, and Dolion, a struggling artist. Together the two high school acquaintances, supported by their online alter egos, Fidi and Dolly, forge a viral path of no return.
À LA CARTE
Directed by Lucy Rossen
A three-act window into the hospitality experience, where consumption, service and class collide. Written by Lucy Rossen, Morgan Owen and Sophia Benjamin.
