About Things That Fall Over

2

Things That Fall Over is an epic new actual-meets-virtual conceptual-meets-theatrical work for a huge all-female-bodied pro-am-community ensemble. Part celebration, part provocation, Things That Fall Over: an anti-musical of a novel inside a reading of a play, with footnotes, and oratorio-as-coda is in an ongoing preparation and manifestation stage. Written by Peta Murray, with music – original and arranged – by Peta Williams, TTFO saw Creative Development in 2012 supported by The Australia Council Theatre Board, The Besen Family Foundation, ABAF and The Victorian Women’s Trust. The work continues to evolve through 2013. It is being co-directed by Peta Murray and Robin Laurie, with Jo Trevathan as musical director, and Tracy Bourne leading its Quire. Partners and supporters in 2013 include The State Library of Victoria, La Mama, The Besen Family Foundation and The City of Melbourne.

Of the women, by the women, for the women AND more…this perverse pop-up pantomime is bringing together an extraordinary and diverse group of Melbourne’s most experienced  cross-genre artists with gifted amateur-performers from women’s community choirs, queer and fringe arts, and community musicians. New media appendices to the work invite participants and audiences behind the scenes of the making of the making of, as well as opening windows on its literary, popular and visual content – its footnotes – in other platforms.  Our detachable “oratorio-as-coda”, to be previewed this year, is not only designed as this extravaganza’s glorious finale, but a detachable free-standing work in its own right, confirming emerging and late blooming composer Peta Williams as a glorious new voice in the Australian musical firmament.

Sustainable, replicable, portable performance-building models are being employed to allow us to imagine re-mounting modules of this epic in smaller, more discreet chunks and in dispersing aspects of the “show” in different platforms, both in metropolitan Melbourne, regionally and beyond, with the involvement of new communities, different participants and unexpected locations.

Things That Fall Over is an idea, as much as it is an extravaganza. It proclaims that art is for everyone, that creativity fuels vital individuals and engaged communities, and that freedom of expression must be defended at all costs. It sends a call to arms to late bloomers of all persuasions even as it stakes a claim for all women for a more equitable share of the cultural “cake”…

Things That Fall Over: an anti-musical of a novel inside a reading of a play, with footnotes, and oratorio-as-coda…

See it once and you need never go to the theatre again!