Lally Katz & Chris Kohn: Vaudeville in Melbourne Between the Wars
Playwright Lally Katz and director Chris Kohn discuss their new play, about Melbourne's lively vaudeville scene in the Edwardian era, which they researched during their 2006 joint Creative Fellowship at the State Library.
Commissioned by the Malthouse Theatre, and intended for production in 2009, the play focuses on the theatres and artists of the city's 1913-14 Vaudeville milieu. During their research in the Library's collection, Katz and Kohn discovered fascinating original theatre programs, photographs, sound recordings and scrapbooks.
This lecture was held at the State Library of Victoria on 30 August 2007 as part of the Fellows' Lecture Series.
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Playwright Lally Katz is a graduate of the School of Studies in Creative Arts (VCA/Melbourne University)and has studied writing at the Royal Court Theatre in London. She has been the recipient of two playwrighting awards from Playworks and one from St Martins, and has had two plays presented at Playbox' Theatre in the Raw.
She has written a varied body of work, including The Eisteddfod (for Stuck Pigs Squealing Theatre Company) and co-written site-specific multimedia work Agoraphobe (Next Wave Kickstart). Lally's first screenplay, A Familiar Lullaby, This Time in German, was filmed in 2004 in Hamburg, directed by Ben Chessell. She is currently writing Lally Katz and the Terrible Mysteries of the Volcano for SPST, Missing Link for Arena Theatre Company, and will be co-writing with Tom Wright Criminology for Arena Theatre Company and Malthouse Theatre, to open in 2007.
Chris Kohn graduated in Directing from the Victorian College of the Arts in 1998 and is currently enrolled in a PhD in Theatre Studies at Monash. He has worked for a variety of companies as a director, dramaturg, video artist and writer, and is a co-founder of Stuck Pigs Squealing Theatre Company (SPST). His shows with SPST have been nominated for 10 Green Room Awards and received five, including two for Best Production in the Independent category. In 2004 he received the George Fairfax Memorial award for Outstanding Achievement open to graduates of the VCA School of Drama. He has been Affiliate Director with the MTC and on the review panel for the Next Wave festival. He is developing new projects with Downstairs Belvoir (B Sharp Boiler Room) and Malthouse Theatre. Chris is currently Artistic Associate at Arena Theatre Company.
Katz and Kohn have collaborated on a number of productions, including the award-winning The Black Swan of Trespass, based on the Ern Malley poetry hoax.
Where possible, a transcript or speaker's notes can be provided upon request.
Unknown photographer, 'Caught in the Act', gelatin silver photograph, undated, Pictures Collection, State Library of Victoria (H41417)
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