Toorak Times: ENCORE
See article in its original context here by Jo McMahon for The Toorak Times.
ENCORE is breathing new life into Melbourne’s performing arts
ENCORE is the new creative partnership between two of Melbourne’s most successful independent performing arts venues, La Mama and fortyfivedownstairs.
Creative director of fortyfivedownstairs Mary Lou Jelbart explained that the program intended to give another run to some of La Mama’s most successful shows, this time being George Tabori’s Mein Kampf and Maude Davey’s My Life in the Nude.
“These two shows weren’t just picked because of their popularity, but more importantly because of their superior quality and their originality,” Mary Lou Jelbart said.
However, the high demand for these shows also played a part. Liz Jones, the Artistic Director of La Mama explained that, “these shows had almost one hundred per cent of the seats filled every night, but for every person in those seats I’d say another one had to be turned away because we just couldn’t fit them in.”
The collaboration between these two iconic Melbourne performing arts venues is one that has been in the works for a long time.
“When fortyfivedownstairs started twelve years ago, the first show I saw there was one from La Mama that I just fell in love with. And ever since then we’ve talked about having these shows that do so well at La Mama and giving them another chance to be seen by even more people – a hundred people a night here, rather than forty or fifty at La Mama. That was the dream, and that’s what’s happening now,” Jelbart said.
Their relationship is one that is built on a mutual respect for one another, as well as a passion and commitment to bring quality theatre to Melbourne audiences.
“I realised early on how much Mary Lou and I had similar loves and aspirations for the theatre, she was one person that really supported and appreciated what we’ve been doing for all these years at La Mama,” Jones said.
The collaboration is a new way for Melbourne audiences to get the chance to see these performing arts pieces come to life once more, in a fresh and exciting venue, fortyfivedownstairs.
“It’s my second favourite theatre space in Melbourne, and I think that is has the most exciting theatre in Melbourne. Every show is something that you want to see, I get so frustrated if I miss anything!” Jones said.
Both Liz Jones and Mary Lou Jelbart expressed a desire to continue this exciting new collaboration into the future, and hope to find even more shows that could be shown again at fortyfivedownstairs under the ENCORE partnership.