Joanne Hartstone (part 2)

ID 0:02

This is a Vision Australia Radio podcast.

Matthew Erdely 0:04

On Vision Australia Radio, welcome to our conversations with emerging and experienced creative voices in our community. I'm Matthew Erdely, and our guest on today's program is Joanne Hartstone, theatre maker, actor and performer, playwright, director, producer and presenter. We spoke with Joanne last week about her early days as a performer and producer, her creative processes in both and some of the highlights of her work so far, I'm delighted to continue our conversation this week. Welcome to the program, Joanne.

Joanne Hartstone 0:49

Thank you so much.

Matthew Erdely 0:51

Speaking of shows that you love you're presenting, and you have the great honor of presenting many wonderful, many wonderful shows at the upcoming 2025 Adelaide fringe, could you give us like an elevator pitch for each one of them and why people should get excited and experience them live an elevator pitch?

Joanne Hartstone 1:12

Hey, okay, that's that's gonna be a challenge. Joanne Hartstone is presenting 14 shows in the 2025 Adelaide fringe. They are from overseas, and they are absolutely amazing. I encourage you to put Joanne Hartstone into the Adelaide Fringe website. They'll all come up, and you'll be able to choose your favourites to go and see. So where do I begin? 

I'm going to start with Wright and Granger. They did win the Best theatre award last year, so it only feels right that I can start with them returning to the Adelaide fringe is their best theater, award winning show, Orpheus. If you haven't seen it, what are you doing? Go and see Orpheus. They've also got Helios, which is coming back, it premiered last year in the Adelaide Fringe, and that's coming back. But they also have a brand new show called Grandpa Poseidon, and this is a show that they are making for families. 

So a lot of people have said in the past, I'd love to bring it... be able to bring my kids to a Wright and Granger show. This is the show that they'll be able to bring their kids to come and see. So grandpa Poseidon is about an old god and a kid and a beach and it's also about kindness and friendship and reaching out to people, so Wright and Granger - they are Fringe royalty, go and see them. 

Speaking of Fringe royalty, Guy Masterson is bringing Animal Farm back to Adelaide. It hasn't been here since 2013 and so his Animal Farm is coming back for a very limited run at AC arts, and it's being performed by young physical theatre performer called Sam Blythe. And so he's going to be playing all of the characters in the farm. But Sam is also doing his other solo show, which is Method in My Madness, which is a solo Hamlet, and I've seen it. It was in Edinburgh this year. It's fantastic. So if you like Shakespeare, and if you like Shakespeare being turned on its head and seeing it through a different lens, go and see Method in my Madness. 

At the Courtyard of Curiosities over at Holden Street, we've got an incredibly funny, deeply meaningful and anarchic show called, it is I Seagull by Lucy Millers. And this is a hilarious show about joy and failure and opera and space. It's about the Russian race to get the first woman into space. It's so amazing. I encourage everyone who loves theatre to go and see it at Holden Street. There's a reason it's at Holden Street, because Martha Lott chooses really good shows at Holden Street, and so it's there. 

Speaking of other really good shows, Hannah Maxwell is bringing her new show Nan Me and Barbara proudly to the Adelaide Fringe at AC arts. Now this is a show that went absolutely viral in Edinburgh in 2023.It was a show that was at summer Hall, and it started, typically, like other fringe shows with, you know, a couple of couple of ticket buyers, and then someone famous, I think it was Phoebe Waller-Bridge, the woman from Fleabag. She went to go and see it, and they took a photo, and then it got picked up by a newspaper. And then the whole season sold out, not because of just that one photo. It's because the show was so incredibly good, and suddenly it just caught fire. 

And I got, like, the last ticket in Edinburgh that was available. And can't see this, so I spoke to Hannah afterwards, and said, If you ever want to come to Adelaide, come back to Adelaide. She has been here before. If you ever want to come back to Adelaide, let me know, and I'll help you. And she said, Yes, and it's taken a couple of years, and she'll be coming with her show Nan Me and Barbara [?Pravi], which is it's a really like heartwarming memoir about care and and crisis, addiction and Eurovision, actually, which is great. 

She's also bringing I am Dram, which is our other solo show, which has been here in Adelaide before, is about her her family's long history with amateur dramatics in the UK. And that's at three for three performances only at AC arts, then I'm going to bounce back to the Courtyard of Curiosities, where you can find Chicken. And Chicken is by Eva O'Connor. She was here last year with Mustard. She's been here a few years before as well with My Name is Sasha and Nuclear Family... and Chicken. 

I love, I love talking about Chicken. Okay, so Eva plays a chicken who thinks he's an Irishman who is actually a talking ketamine-and-sex-addicted chicken who makes it big as an award winning actor in New York City. Isn't that the best sentence? I just love saying that. It is one of the best solo shows I've ever seen. If you want to spend an hour in a room with a chicken, a talking chicken, go and see Chicken. It's just incredible. You will have a transformative experience. And Eva is out of this world, good. So that's at the Courtyard of Curiosities. 

Also at the Courtyard of Curiosities: Casey J Andrews is coming back to Adelaide - now she won the Best Theatre award in 2023 - I've got a lot of award winners in my lineup. Just saying. So Casey's coming back. She is bringing two shows that haven't been to Adelaide before. One is a world premiere. So the world premiere is called Quiet Earth Beneath which is more of a musical show, which is a really, it's like a concept album about things that disappear the quiet earth beneath, and it, but it's, you know, delicate, but earthy and in typical Casey style. 

But the other show that she's bringing is called, Oh My Heart, Oh My Home. And one of the things that your listeners might not know about Casey is, she's an incredible designer, so she's actually one of the designers for Punchdrunk in the UK, so immersive design, and what she's done is she's taken A Doll's House. So you sit in front of the doll's house for Oh My Heart Oh My Home, and as she tells this story about family and about those familial ties and love and meteorites. You go through the doll's house, and each room opens up, and it's a totally different world. And it's it's incredible, like I was in floods of tears. My heart just felt expanded and my mind felt elevated when I saw this in Edinburgh a couple of years ago. So I'm so excited that she's bringing Oh My Heart Oh My Home,.

Right? How am I doing this elevator? This is a long elevator ride, isn't it? My goodness, okay, I've only got a couple more to talk about.

I've got Help. I think I'm a nationalist, which is a controversial comedy show. It's about nationalism all through the lens of Cornwall in the UK, and it's coming to AC arts, but it's also at the Goodwood Theatre and Studios. And this is by an incredible UK performer, Seamus Carey. And Seamus is a multi-talented like instrumentalist, but also physical theatre performer and theatre maker, and this controversial comedy really is like exploring identity and nationalism and like second homes and bagpipes. Why not? 

So I really recommend people see Help. I think I'm a nationalist because it's the kind of show that really gets under your skin, no matter which side you lie at the end of the show, no matter how you feel or think it will be invigorating and challenging, and you'll go away and have lots of discussions about it. So that would be a great one to see. 

And then I've also got a comedy show at Goodwood theatre in studios, which is Mike Blaha - International Joke. And it's a stand-up show about Mike Blaha's year being a digital nomad. So he is travelling the world, going from festival to Festival, and he's looking for the best joke in the world. So I can't wait for that to happen. 

And then finally, I think the only one I haven't talked about is my show specifically for young people, which is Meg and the Magic Toy Shop. And this is on at Gluttony this year. So it's really expanded to a whole new big audience of little people. Meg and the Magic Toy Shop is for audiences aged two or three to five or six. So it's really for the youngest people in your family, but you can take the whole family and support them and enjoying a show which is made just for them. 

So Meg is a doll in the toy shop, and she's looking for her lost glove. Before the toy shop opens for the day, and the toys come alive, and they're looking through magic boxes to try and find the glove. And you know, they go for a really lovely, adventurous journey through this these magic boxes, and they share songs and stories and colors, and it's all like designed to be really connective with these young people using like [?Makaton], signing and and all these different ways to speak to these young people who are still developing their own language skills and their own understanding of the world. 

So if you've got young people in your life, grandchildren, nieces and nephews, your own children. Or you can just take a child from somewhere, maybe don't do that one, and you can go and see Meg and the Magic Toy Shop - on Saturdays and Sundays at Gluttony.

Matthew Erdely 10:32

Wow, there is so much in there. What you just shared, Jo, there's something for everyone. Like you said, many award winners, so many great shows, a few theatre makers that I've personally seen before and can vouch for, in particular Wright and Granger and Casey J Andrews. But there's something there for everyone, that's an incredible scope of performances and shows that you're bringing over.

Joanne Hartstone 10:57

I'm very, very excited, little bit exhausted, but very long elevator ride, wasn't it? Speaking of the elevator ride to all those all our listeners, just picture that that elevator ride was taking place in the Middle East, and like the Burj Khalifa going a long way, and someone just messed with the buttons, so the elevator was going up and down and was taking a while to get to its destination. But what a journey. The view at the top incredible. Well, look, if anyone wants to go back and learn a little bit more about those, you can just go to my website, joannehartstone.com - there's a button straight at the top, it'll be able to take you to all of those shows, and you'll be able to learn more.

Matthew Erdely 11:38

Speaking of the Burj Khalifa and worldly travel, you would have had the opportunity to experience many wonderful performing arts related moments all over the world. Could you share with us a couple of your favorite performing arts highlights? They could involve you directly, or they may include moments where you are merely in awe of someone else.

Joanne Hartstone 12:00

I've, I'm really lucky because I get to be in awe of a lot of people all the time. I remember a show I saw in Edinburgh many years ago, and I'm now trying to remember the name of it... The Encounter, that was it. And it just felt like they were implanting memories in my brain of floating down the Amazon. It was an incredible performance. It was a solo show, and they were building the soundscape of the Amazon. You know, it's amazing what what they did with that show. It really, actually, it changed... me as a human being, not just as a performer. That show changed me, and it really helped me understand how transportative theatre can be. So, you know, we all sat there with headphones, you know, listening, listening to the encounter. So that was, that was absolutely amazing. That was part of the International Festival in Edinburgh. I'm really grateful that I was able to see that. 

Some other performing arts highlights, performing my shows, performing my show in London, was... really amazing. I also took an excerpt of That Daring Australian Girl to the Epsom race course, and that was for the 100 year anniversary of women becoming enfranchised in the UK, getting the vote. And that was the Emily Wilding Davidson special event. So Emily Wilding Davidson was the woman who was trying to put a sash on the king's horse during the Derby, and she was run over by the horses and killed. And there's video footage of it, very grainy footage of it. 

But Emily Wilding Davidson then became, you know, a household name, and suddenly the suffrage cause had had a martyr, and so I was invited to perform a bit of That Daring Australian Girl, and somehow made it work, even though it wasn't about Emily Wilding Davidson, she's mentioned in the show very briefly, but it was more about the endeavor. So I think that was a really, that was an amazing thing as well, to be able to do that and see the effect. I mean, I mentioned before climbing the Hollywood sign - that just stays with me as one of my bucket list favourite things to do ever. 

And just being exposed to hundreds and hundreds of theatre shows is incredible. You know, seeing... Book of Mormon in the West End, like, you know, nothing beats it. Seeing the Harry Potter shows in the West End, nothing beats it, was... just so good, you know, being able to see shows at that level, but then also seeing shows at a smaller scale, knowing that they're going to be then fed into the West End, that's really exciting as well. And having these wonderful connections with people, with artists, and just knowing them on a human level is is a real privilege. So I think they would be my very broad highlights.

Matthew Erdely 14:50

It takes me back a couple of my favourite performing arts moments or shows that come to mind, that came to mind when listening to a... I'm not sure if you ever saw or heard of Boris and Sergei's Australian Adventure, and that was, I was front row for that, and that just that blew me away. I don't know what it was particularly about it, but just incredible puppeteers and storytellers. Another one that got me was The Bakers at Holden Street Theatre. And it particularly got me because the world class, beyond world class talent of these, these physical theatre extraordinaires. So we could, honestly, we could probably talk about the shows that and people that we're in awe of for a very long time. I mean...

Joanne Hartstone 15:36

Like you're now talking and I'm going, Oh, I should also talk about The Trench by Les [?]. When I saw that, and I heard Alexander Wolff singing, and all this puppetry work building into The Trench, and that was just like, This is such a good show, you know, like there are shows that just that pop through time and space and remind you again and again of the amazing creativity of human existence.

Matthew Erdely 16:06

On Vision Australia Radio, you're listening to our conversation program, Emerging Writers. Our guest today is Joanne Hartstone - theatre maker, actor and performer, playwright, director, producer and presenter. Now, our show has a focus on writing and creative voices. What advice would you give to our listeners, or any other such person looking to explore their untapped creative writing abilities?

Joanne Hartstone 16:33

Show up! Maybe I should expend a little bit on what I mean by that. You know, just a little bit. But so in ancient Greek, the idea was that art was not human-made. It was from the gods. So actually, people would have Genii - little gods that lived in their walls and in their roof, right? And what the artist had to do is they had to prepare themselves to work. They had to have, you know, their brushes, their scribes, their, you know, whatever they would have. And then it was the Genii who would then feed them the work from, direct from the gods, right? So it was the artist's job to show up with their tools ready the Genii could not do their job unless the artist was ready to work. 

So I think one of the hardest things for the artist the writer, to do is actually to sit down and clear your mind and have your tools at hand and be ready to receive now, whether you believe that those messages come from the gods or whether they come from internally, that's a whole different story. But no matter what, you have to sit down and you have to show up. So that would be the first step, is to show up.

Matthew Erdely 17:49

That's advice everyone can get behind. Speaking of advice, and considering all the wisdom, experience and knowledge you have gained over the years, if you could write a letter to your younger self, what would it say?

Joanne Hartstone 18:04

That it's all going to be okay, and you're going to achieve things beyond what you thought you were going to, and it's not going to be easy, it's going to be really hard work, and it's not going to look exactly like you think it's going to look like, but it's great, and it's exciting, and as I'm writing this to you, young Joanne Hartstone from the past, I'm also only halfway through, so I wonder if I'm going to receive a letter from 80 year old Joanne Hartstone, passing it down to 40 year old Joanne Hartstone, who could then pass it down to 20 year old Joanne Hartstone... and be like Just get organised, find systems for things, and just trust. 

And the other thing I guess I'd, I'd say to my younger self, is.. to not worry quite so much about how you feel within yourself when in regards to other people, and in fact, have some harder boundaries with when you say yes to things, when you say no to things, and remember that you should always have power in situations. Because I'm bit of a people pleaser, you see, and I'm starting to learn that I can still be a people pleaser, but I need to do that with with boundaries implies so that I'm, I'm able to achieve all the things that I that are really important to me, and still pass those things on. So have some boundaries, few more boundaries, and that will help with all of all of the other stuff.

Matthew Erdely 19:33

Joanne, would you tell us about some of the challenges you have faced along the way and how you overcame them?

Joanne Hartstone 19:39

Yeah, this is... actually a difficult question, because there are varying levels of challenges. I've had personal challenges and I've had professional challenges. The personal challenges, I don't think we need to talk too much about. I mean, they're just, you know, like Ye Olde Human stuff. Wait till I put it in a show (LAUGHS). The professional challenges. I think it's more... often it's more about things that never actually come to pass. 

You know, like I've done so many auditions in my 20 years of being a professional performer, and I might have been successful in like three and yet I've done so many, and that's one of the things that I think is a real challenge, because they take so much time. They take so much time to prepare for auditions, and then you go in, you either do it in the room, which takes time out as well, or you're doing self tapes, which is also hugely time consuming. And I always get very nervous with auditions, like, after a while, you should just stop being nervous with auditions, but I just, I still do get nervous, and I never seem to get them. I don't know I'm, you know, been told lots of lines as to why I don't get them, but, yeah, I think that's a challenge. 

And so how do I overcome? Well, I make my own work. That's how I overcome it. I keep working by being the maker of the work, rather than relying on other people to give me the work. So that's a that's a pretty good challenge in a way, to overcome it is to kind of bypass, bypass it and not make it the most important thing. You know, money is always a very boring challenge, but a real challenge in the performing arts, you know, how do you make things financially viable? How do you buy the costumes before you've got the ticket sales? 

You know, it's always, always a bit of a challenge. And I overcome it by being sensible and living very frugally, yeah. And then, you know, then there's just being time poor. An organisation helps with that, and collaboration helps with that as well. I'm, I'm not so great at asking for help, but I love collaborating with people, so as long as everybody's on board and we're all working towards the same thing, I think that's a really lovely ever way to overcome being time poor.

Matthew Erdely 19:39

Now you aren't just a theatre extraordinaire. You've also performed on television in Deadline Gallipoli, a mini series about courageous war correspondents in World War 1 as they follow soldiers during the Gallipoli campaign. What was it like working on the show? Who were your favourite people to work with on the show, and is Charles Dance as intense in person as his infamous character, Tywin Lannister in Game of Thrones.

Joanne Hartstone 22:30

(LAUGHS) So deadline, Gallipoli, I played Clementine Churchill, Winston Churchill's wife - and... I remember they wanted to dye my hair. I had blonde hair, and they wanted to dye my hair this beautiful, kind of reddy-brown colour. It's the first time I'd gone dark, and it took a long time to dye my hair. They had to do it in in phases, because they wanted to do a real hairstyle on me, because Clementine Churchill was obviously a woman of stature and wealth, but this, she was young in this... 

And so I was only in a couple of scenes, but because my hair took so long to do, I was the first person in the makeup trailer at the beginning of shoot days and the last person to leave. And so all of the men in the scene would come in and out. And like, Charles Dance came in because we didn't really, or, like, we didn't really have any lines together. We had one scene together. And so he came in and sat down next to me, and I said, Hi, I'm Joanne. And he says, Call me Charlie. And I was like, Hi, Charlie. Charles starts, Oh, my God, that's exciting! 

So definitely not as intense in person. Actually, really lovely. Because who am I? You know, I'm just some South Australian actor who got a bit part in this series that he's working on, but we had a lovely chat about things, and he was actually very positive about Adelaide. And I don't remember very much, but I do remember him looking at me and saying, Call me Charlie. And I just melted. That was great. 

And I worked with Rachel Griffith in those scenes as well. And it was great. And also a whole bunch of children. I felt a little bit like Maria von Trapp, because in the second scene I was in, I was, I was cajoling all of the children to sing a special song, maybe for Christmas, I think. And so I had to sing with them. So I remember, I've got this picture of me with like six children in these period costumes. And it's, it was really great. So, yeah, that was, that was fun. It was only over, over a week, I think, over a couple of days the filming. But the, it was the hair that took such a long time, but it got me into the makeup trailer with all these fabulous people.

Matthew Erdely 24:59

Call me Charlie. Hah!

Joanne Hartstone 25:00

(LAUGHS) Call me Charlie.

Matthew Erdely 25:04

All right. Word Association. Time again. Are you ready? I'm ready. Hit me All right, so please freely associate with the following words and share what comes to mind. Okay, here we go. Playwright.

Joanne Hartstone 25:17

World builder.

Matthew Erdely 25:19

Director.

Joanne Hartstone 25:20

World actualiser.

Matthew Erdely 25:22

Producer.

Joanne Hartstone 25:23

Money.

Matthew Erdely 25:24

Clowns.

Joanne Hartstone 25:25

Scary.

Matthew Erdely 25:26

Presenter.

Joanne Hartstone 25:27

Useful.

Matthew Erdely 25:29

Before we finish this thoroughly engaging chat, would you please share with our audience again, any shows that you're involved with, and how they can go experiencing them.

Joanne Hartstone 25:41

So I'm not going to do the whole elevator pitch again, but I have got shows in the Adelaide Fringe coming up by Hannah Maxwell, Sam Blythe Seamus Carey, Casey J Andrews, Wright and Granger, Guy Masterson, Lucy Mellers, Eva O'Connor, Vintage Vendetta Productions and Mike Blaha, that's enough anyway. And you can see them at various venues across Adelaide Fringe.

Matthew Erdely 26:12

Is there a website where people can go to to access all of this information?

Joanne Hartstone 26:18

All people need to go to is www.joannehartstone.com ... so it's J, O, A, double N, E, H, A, R, T, S, T, O, N, E  dot com. And there's a button right at the start which says, Click here to learn more about these shows. Or you can click on the Adelaide Fringe icon and it will take you to a listing of all of the shows on the Adelaide Fringe website. The other thing you can do, of course, is, if you're already in the Adelaide Fringe website, just put in Joanne Hartstone, and it will come up with all my shows.

Matthew Erdely 26:50

And to all of our listeners, you can go to that website to follow Joanne and her career and what's going on and happening.

Joanne Hartstone 26:59

Yeah, like follow me on socials and keep up to date with all of my news. You can join my mailing list, and I send out like discount codes and things like that through my mailing list. So if you like some cheap tickets, that's where you can sign up and you can follow along with the adventure. 

Matthew Erdely

Thank you so much, Joanne. Our guest on Emerging Writers today was Joanne Hartstone - theatre maker, actor and performer, playwright, director, producer and presenter. This program is produced in our Adelaide studios, and can be heard at the same time each week here on Vision Australia Radio, VA radio on digital, online at varadio.org ... and also on Vision Australia Radio Podcast, where you can catch up on earlier episodes. 

ID 27:56

Thanks for listening to this Vision Australia, Radio podcast. Don't forget to subscribe on your preferred podcast platform. Visit VA radio.org for more.

Vision Australia Radio... blindness, low vision, opportunity.