We went dark for a while so that the two of us could take some time to think and talk seriously about what it was that we wanted in both our practice and our business.

The following are what we landed on with an overwhelming sense of imperative:

1. To dedicate ourselves to a practice, ensuring new work is constantly being made.
2. To create a safe space to teach and practice with people who are hungry for the work.
3. To build, nurture and celebrate a strong and rich community of enquiring like-minds.

To this end, let us tell you what we are now in the process of doing:

Creating a medium-sized studio space: It’s humble in fit-out, but highly functional – and the heart of the physical and metaphoric space in which we’re re-building The Public Studio. It will house workshops, development labs and studio showings.

Re-building TPS – the business and brand: We’ve hacked our hows and whys back to basics, and are laying the groundwork to practice and work with people in far simpler, but also far deeper ways.

Preparing for the development of a new work: At present, we’re about to schedule our first development laboratory and showing for The Public Studio. Full details will unfold from here on in.

Amalgamating The Melbourne Town Players and The Public Studio: We’ll slowly archive TMTP as we find the time and help to do so, but effective from now, The Melbourne Town Players will now be creating and presenting work as The Public Studio. This is probably the shift that has at core, driven all others.

This change, while wonderful and joyfully all-consuming is a fairly labourious and time-intensive one. It will take us a while before we’re at full-steam. However, what we hope to be able to do is share the creative, morphing process with you, while still keeping a lot of TPS activities functioning (and slowly introducing more) as we move along.

What can you do?

1. Volunteer. We can always use like-minded hands on deck. At the moment we need help from Melbourne-based friends and allies who possess any or all of the following qualities:

• An understanding of the back end of a WordPress website, with a fairly keen sense of aesthetic, and who don’t mind a bit of digital archival work.
• The willingness to do a bit of dusty, heavy lifting, and/or the posession of vehicles that can transport boxes and bags of garbage to tips.
• The ability to sit and shred a mountain of paper, and sort and file piles of manila folders and their contents.
• The desire and drive to gain a little experience in low-budget studio theatre, and installation, video and art film making.

If this sounds like you, and you’ve got a little after-hours or weekend time to spare, let us know by writing to us here. Payment in wholesome organic food, small presents and enormous thanks will be made.

2. Come and work / study / play / train with us. We’re going to run our first round of workshops in the new space as soon as it’s complete, and full announcements will be made then. In the mean time however, Nick is still running one-on-one coaching sessions, and you can get your hands on some immediate training with him by contacting us here.

3. Donate your old theatre or studio stock. If you have old studio or theatre blacks (heavy, black woollen curtains), lamps, lighting, or PA equipment that are in good, non-hazardous working order, and you’re looking to send them to a new home, we’d love to add them to the small studio kit that we’re putting together. Get in touch with us here. 

4. Sign up to our mailing list. We’re going to start sending email updates again very shortly, and these will be the primary way in which we’ll be communicating what we’re up to. It will also be the only way of receiving invitations to witness our private seasons of studio showings (and for now, they’ll all be private). By joining the mailing list, you join our community. This means so much more now than it has before. Click here to join.

To say that we’re excited about TPS v 2.0 would be a rather crazy understatement. It’s like a homecoming – a wholesome obsession – the heart of what we’ve both been working towards for years. And we’re so grateful for your vitally important role in the Studio’s ongoing development.

Thank you.

Ming-Zhu & Nick.

Not in order to teach others but to learn with them what our existence, our organism, our personal and unrepeatable experience have to give us; to learn to break down the barriers which surround us and to free ourselves from the breaks which hold us back, from the lies about ourselves that we manufacture daily for ourselves and for others; to destroy the limitations caused by our ignorance and lack of courage; in short, to fill the emptiness in us: to fulfill ourselves.

Art is neither a state of the soul (in the sense of some extraordinary, unpredictable moment of inspiration) nor a state of man (in the sense of a profession or social function).

Art is a ripening, an evolution, an uplifting which enables us to emerge from darkness into a blaze of light.”

- from Jerzy Gratowski‘s Statement of Principles