STAGES with Peter Eyers

The STAGES podcast returns in 2024 for it's 7th Season - conversations with creatives about craft and career!

Season 7 launches on March 7th.

We’ve arrived at the end of season 6 of the STAGES podcast and we celebrate with our annual Christmas episode.
It’s been a huge year for the podcast - delivering 99 episodes! Every one a super conversation with artists and creatives and support staff across all disciplines.
Old friends return to spread the Christmas cheer. STAGES catches up with Trevor Ashley, Rhonda Burchmore, Mark Humphries and Geraldine Turner - and of course, the episode wouldn’t be complete without the wonderful Kate Fitzpatrick.
A perfect episode to finish the year, to say thank you for listening, and to wish you a very Merry Christmas!
We’ll be back in March 2024!
The STAGES podcast is available to access and subscribe from Spotify and Apple podcasts. Or from wherever you access your favourite podcasts. A conversation with creatives about craft and career. Follow socials on instagram (stagespodcast) and facebook (Stages).www.stagespodcast.com.au

It’s the time of year where folk are jetting off on holidays - a key destination for many theatre fans is to head to the West End of London or the bright lights of Broadway - theatre precincts which guarantee excitement and awe.
Two gentlemen who make their own annual pilgrimage to the Great White Way or the West End -  are ‘Man in Chair’ Simon Parris, and Publicist Ian Phipps. The two theatre afficionados joined the podcast last year to offer a round-up of the shows they’d seen on recent trips to New York and London. 
Many listeners reported that they enjoyed the abundant tips offered in the conversation regarding what to see and how to secure tickets … so, we’ve invited them back again - almost to the year when they joined us last.
No London round-up this time - but a delicious appraisal of what is on, and what has been celebrated, in the theatre mecca of Broadway.
The STAGES podcast is available to access and subscribe from Spotify and Apple podcasts. Or from wherever you access your favourite podcasts. A conversation with creatives about craft and career. Follow socials on instagram (stagespodcast) and facebook (Stages).www.stagespodcast.com.au

Award winning vocalist Emma Pask, has firmly established herself as one of Australia’s favourite voices in Jazz. Her effortless, honest stage presence combined with her powerful vocal ability, leaves audiences spellbound and inspired whenever she takes to the stage.

While Emma’s voice and style are unique, and individually her own, her performances are reminiscent of the classic era of jazz, when swing was top of the charts. Her talent was first spotted by internationally renowned Jazz great James Morrison, when she was just 16 years old. She joined his band as the lead vocalist and went on to spend a solid 20 years touring the world with Morrison.

On request Emma performed the Bridal Waltz for Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban at their wedding. More recently she played support to Legendary Guitarist/Vocalist George Benson when he toured Australia. Emma opened for Grammy Award winning American vocalist Kurt Elling, on his 2018 Australian Tour.

Emma is a “Mo’ award winner for Jazz Vocalist of the year, and has received two ARIA award nominations for Best Jazz Album of the Year in 2014 and 2016.

Emma has had the honour to sing for VIP audiences including the late Diana Princess of Wales and Princess Mary of Denmark. She has sung in London at The Queen Elizabeth Hall with the BBC Concert Orchestra, the Sydney Opera House with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Emma has performed in China with The Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, Auckland with the NZ Philharmonic, and with the WA Symphony Orchestra in Perth. 

In 2019 the Emma Pask Band headlined at the Havana Jazz Festival in Cuba. Emma has toured her band throughout Europe, Asia and Australia. She has received rave reviews for her performances in Uruguay, South America, and is a regular at the prestigious Ascona Jazz Festival in Switzerland. 

Despite her achievements and the international recognition of her talent, Emma retains her natural, refreshing and unpretentious, positive approach to life. 

Jazz virtuoso James Morrison says of Emma, “Whilst it’s fashionable to be a jazz singer these days, she is the real thing!”

In 2020 amidst the Covid 19 lockdown, Emma was chosen by The Sydney Opera House to launch the first of their concerts live streamed from the stage of the hallowed Joan Sutherland Theatre. This performance won the offical Time Out (in) award for favourite Arts livestream. In 2021 The Emma Pask Big Band brought Sydney’s music scene back to life after lockdown, as they featured with a sold out performance at Sunset Piazza.
The STAGES podcast is available to access and subscribe from Spotify and Apple podcasts. Or from wherever you access your favourite podcasts. A conversation with creatives about craft and career. Follow socials on instagram (stagespodcast) and facebook (Stages).www.stagespodcast.com.au

Mark Kilmurry is a writer, director and actor for theatre, film, television and radio. His writing credits for theatre include Mercy Thieves, Happy as Larry and Viv, The Light Comes Up, Bruised, The Mime Artist’s Wife and Arthur and Amy. 
Aside from his own work, he has directed Retreat from Moscow (Ensemble Theatre); The Lover (Belvoir Street Theatre); and Hammerklavier (Stables Theatre) and as an actor he has appeared in The Dumb Waiter (Studio Company); Japes, Aunty & Me, The Yalta Game, Afterplay and Art (Ensemble Theatre); What a Piece of Work (Stables Theatre); One Shot, John Wayne Never Slept Here, Neville’s Island and Tartuffe (Santa Fe Stages Theatre Festival); and Cyrano de Bergerac (Sydney Theatre Company).
He co-founded the Snarling Beasties Theatre Company in the UK with Debbie Isitt. Mark first came to Australia in 1991 with The Snarling Beasties, and moved permanently in 1996.

He is currently the Artistic Director of the Ensemble Theatre in Kirribilli after first working there as an actor in 2002, then becoming associate director, co-artistic director and from 2015 sole artistic director.

The STAGES podcast is available to access and subscribe from Spotify and Apple podcasts. Or from wherever you access your favourite podcasts. A conversation with creatives about craft and career. Follow socials on instagram (stagespodcast) and facebook (Stages).www.stagespodcast.com.au

Jo Litson has been one of the Nation’s treasured Arts Journalists for some 37 years. She is the Print Editor of Limelight; the magazine that celebrates music, arts and culture. Jo originally joined Limelight magazine as Deputy Editor in August 2016 after more than 25 years working as a freelance arts writer for publications including The Australian, Limelight magazine, The Bulletin, the Qantas magazine, POL Oxygen, the Sydney Theatre Company’s Backstage magazine, and the Sunday Telegraph where she had been the arts writer/theatre reviewer since 2006.

Fascinated by the magic of theatre from a young age, she sought and navigated a career in the performing arts in a range of roles. In tertiary study, Jo completed a BA (Hons) in English/Drama from Birmingham University in the UK. And so the adventure begun.

After working front of house in several West End theatres, and as an Assistant Organiser in the Theatre Department at British Actors’ Equity, she moved to Australia in 1982. Initially based in Melbourne, she worked as an Assistant Publicist and Front of House Manager for Melbourne’s Playbox Theatre Company, and as an usher and then Box Office Manager at Her Majesty’s Theatre. She was also a dresser on several musicals including La Cage Aux Folles and Guys and Dolls.

In 1986, she moved to Sydney and managed the Halftix Booth before embarking on a career in arts journalism. Jo was Arts Editor of Vogue Australia in the late 1980s and an on-screen reporter for the ABC-TV arts magazine programme Review. From 1998 – 2000, she edited the Australia Council magazine Artforce.

Jo has written the extended labels for the Archibald Prize for the Art Gallery of NSW for over 20 years and wrote the programmes and media kits for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 15th Asian Games in Doha in 2006.
Her appreciation of all arts is extensive, informed by a life-time working in and around stages. How fortunate we are to have Jo celebrating performance, investigating craft and shining the light.
The STAGES podcast is available to access and subscribe from Spotify and Apple podcasts. Or from wherever you access your favourite podcasts. A conversation with creatives about craft and career. Follow socials on instagram (stagespodcast) and facebook (Stages).www.stagespodcast.com.au

Anthony Yangoyan was born in Sydney, where he grew up in Sydney’s inner west. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting from The Victorian College of the Arts. 

In 2019, Anthony co-wrote and performed in a new work titled ‘Tiger Cage’ at The Victorian College of the Arts student run Discord 879 Festival.

Anthony aims to create work that promotes both inclusion and diversity amongst the acting industry and is passionate about working with fellow creatives to communicate meaningful and intricate stories.

Over the course of his career, Anthony has played a part in multiple productions including: for Griffin: Dogged (for which he was nominated for a Sydney Theatre Award) and an acclaimed performance in Jailbaby; for Sydney Theatre Company/STCSA: The Dictionary of Lost Words; for ATYP: A Clockwork Orange; for Red Line Productions/Critical Stages: King of Pigs. Anthony has also featured in Play in a Day for Bell Shakespeare. 
Other stage credits include: for Company Clan: The Shape of Things; and for VCA: A View from the Bridge, The Cherry Orchard, The Comedy of Errors, Doctor Faustus, Mad Forest. 
Anthony also worked on the original web series Frank’s Patch where he played the lead role of Frank. 
The STAGES podcast is available to access and subscribe from Spotify and Apple podcasts. Or from wherever you access your favourite podcasts. A conversation with creatives about craft and career. Follow socials on instagram (stagespodcast) and facebook (Stages).www.stagespodcast.com.au

As we draw towards the end of our 6th Season and chalk up 450+ episodes, it’s time we reach into the archive to feature conversations and creatives previously featured on STAGES. We spotlight such episodes, in case you missed them first time ‘round - or so you can simply savour a second listen. 
The STAGES podcast opens an essential doorway to access precious oral histories from the people who were, and are, on and around our stages. Conversations with Creatives about Craft and Career!
John Waters is one of Australia’s most recognised and favourite actors. His theatre credits span productions in Australia and the United Kingdom. Demonstrating terrific versatility, John has taken lead roles in an array of plays, musicals, television and film.  He was featured on the STAGES podcast in October, 2020.
He made is debut as Claude in Harry M. Millar’s production of Hair. Subsequent performances include Godspell, Jesus Christ Superstar, They’re Playing Our Song, An Ideal Husband, The Woman in Black, A Little Night Music, Talk, The Sound of Music, The Graduate, Oliver!, Rocky Horror Picture Show, My Fair Lady and The Addams Family. 
As well as his 20-year involvement with the iconic Australian children’s show Play School, his other television credits include City Homicide, The Mystery of a Hansom Cab, The Man from Snowy River, Singapore Sling, All The Rivers Run, Rush, All Saints, Underbelly: The Golden Mile, Offspring, Mystery Road and Division 4 for which he was awarded the TV Week Silver Logie for Best New Talent in 1975. 
His impressive list of feature film credits includes Stealth, The Sugar Factory, High Country, Breaker Morant, Eliza Frazer and Pino Amenta’s Boulevard of Broken Dreams for which he received the AFI (AACTA) Best Actor Award.
The STAGES podcast is available to access and subscribe from Spotify and Apple podcasts. Or from wherever you access your favourite podcasts. A conversation with creatives about craft and career. Follow socials on instagram (stagespodcast) and facebook (Stages).www.stagespodcast.com.au

Joanna Murray-Smith’s plays have been produced and translated all over the world, in over two dozen languages, including on Broadway, the West End and at the Royal National Theatre in London. Joanna has worked across many forms, from plays to novels, journalism, opera libretti and screenplays. 

Her plays include Three Little Words, Switzerland, Pennsylvania Avenue, True Minds, Songs for Nobodies, The Gift, Rockabye, The Female of the Species, Ninety, Bombshells, Berlin and Flame (Melbourne Theatre Company); L’Appartement (Queensland Theatre); American Song (Milwaukee Repertory); Day One-A-Hotel-Evening (Red Stitch); Fury (Sydney Theatre Company); Rapture, Nightfall, Redemption, Love Child and Honour (Malthouse Theatre). 

Both Honour and Rapture won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Best Play.  

Joanna has also adapted Hedda Gabler (for the State Theatre Company of South Australia) and Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage for Sir Trevor Nunn (Coventry/London). 

Her adaptation of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya will be seen at the Ensemble Theatre in Sydney next year; as will Switzerland. While a tour of her extraordinary examination of our female Prime. Minister, Julia will play in Melbourne, Adelaide and a return Sydney season.

The STAGES podcast is available to access and subscribe from Spotify and Apple podcasts. Or from wherever you access your favourite podcasts. A conversation with creatives about craft and career. Follow socials on instagram (stagespodcast) and facebook (Stages).www.stagespodcast.com.au

As we draw towards the end of our 6th Season and chalk up 450+ episodes, it’s time we reach into the archive to feature conversations and creatives previously featured on STAGES. We spotlight such episodes, in case you missed them first time ‘round - or so you can simply savour a second listen. 
The STAGES podcast opens an essential doorway to access precious oral histories from the people who were, and are, on and around our stages. Conversations with Creatives about Craft and Career!
In this return episode, we spotlight a conversation with Maureen Elkner. Maureen joined the podcast in our very first year - in fact, hers was episode no:18.
Maureen has been singing since the sixties. Carving out a career as a rock/pop vocalist she began her professional career in a trio called The Chiffons.

Singing back-up for John Farnham and providing some of the vocals on Russell Morris’s classic The Real Thing, Maureen found her great success with the chart climber ‘Rak Off Normie’ – the follow up single to Bob Hudson’s novelty hit ‘The Newcastle Song’.
Maureen released 7 singles and two albums through the 70s and also found success as an actress and comedienne in the original Australian productions of Jesus Christ Superstar and The Rocky Horror Show.
A short-lived season (only two performances!) of the musical Oh Calcutta! saw her arrested along with the rest of the cast.
Maureen also entertained the troops during the Vietnam war, venturing into enemy territory to relieve our soldiers from the horrors they were navigating.
It’s a fascinating story and STAGES was delighted to sit down with the inspiring Maureen Elkner.  This conversation was recorded in October, 2018.
The STAGES podcast is available to access and subscribe from Spotify and Apple podcasts. Or from wherever you access your favourite podcasts. A conversation with creatives about craft and career. Follow socials on instagram (stagespodcast) and facebook (Stages).www.stagespodcast.com.au