The Blue Room Theatre Presents Winter Nights 2019

Political provocateur and playwright Vanessa 'Van' Badham be a featured guest of The Blue Room Theatre's second Winter Nights festival of experimentation and ideas beginning later this month.

Van will arrive in Perth days after the world premiere of her new play, Banging Denmark, at Sydney Theatre Company, to be a featured conversationalist, discussing theatre and art in our current climate of political anxiety and social injustice. She will lead Perth artists in a workshop inspiring "political badassery" in art making.

Winter Nights is a jam packed two-week program bringing artists and audiences into the cozy confines of The Blue Room Theatre for a deep-dive into what's next in theatre craft and culture in Perth and beyond.

Former Perth Festival Artistic Director and current Chamber of Arts and Culture Shelagh Magadza will the inaugural opening night lecture for the festival 'On Theatre', live broadcast on global theatre commons Howlround and taking Western Australian theatre culture to the world.

Unpacking the big idea of theatre as a ritual essential to our humanity, the lecture will lay the groundwork for a festival with work and events that push and explore that ritual in our current state.

The Ground-Up series of five new works will be shown and made across three presentations on intermittent nights of the festival and in response to real-time feedback. There are new and familiar voices taking on subjects including gods and ghosts, motherhood and fluid gender identity.

A series of Unexpected performances and events offer up delectable tastes of theatre experience, including:

The Punch Up Club, which sees a team of Perth's best theatre comedians take on the big issues of world and Australian politics with only 24 hours to write and rehearse their show.

Saga Sisterhood, a performance project for women from South Asian communities about love, friendship, family and identity; and The Lion Never Sleeps is a walking tour of Northbridge

The Lion Never Sleeps, a walking tour of Northbridge moving through the spaces and places where the queer community gathered, danced and fought during the AIDS crisis in the 1980's.

Suddenly 30, a fundraiser for artists suffering hardship with loose acts paying homage to The Blue Room Theatre's 30th anniversary in 2019.

These take place amidst a plethora of playreadings by the hottest young WA playwrights and talks opening up important conversations about mental health and queer representation in theatre-making.

Everyone is invited to come get immersed in the warmth of theatre at The Blue Room Theatre this Winter Nights.

For full show details head to: winternights.org.au