Malthouse Theatre is at once a treasured building, a theatre company, a creative site and an engine for change.
It is also the imaginative expression of 32 full-time staff reaching out to an even bigger number of local, national and international artists, all dedicated to an ongoing conversation with audiences from all walks of life.
This conversation chooses contemporary theatre as its vehicle: an annual program of adventurous multi-disciplinary work inspired by writers, directors, designers, choreographers, audio artists and performers. Here the combined possibilities of all the theatre arts are offered centre stage.
The quality, depth and longevity of this relationship between artists and audiences are at heart of everything we do. To that end our creative aspirations are driven by a number of values:
Risk
Works created at Malthouse aim to test and extend the boundaries of our art form.
In order to be vital, a culture needs to be challenged and renewed. By acknowledging otherness as part of our day-to-day work, our assumptions are tested and our practise is constantly rejuvenated. A celebration of difference, a desire to reach beyond our known limits and a willingness to venture into the unknown are how we define creative risk.
Rigour
Malthouse Theatre is committed to research, creative development and the ongoing examination of our practise.
A work of art is created in the time and space between the first idea and its realisation. Its potency is the measure of how ideas are tested, developed and supported over time. While we have permission to fail, we have the right to create the best conditions for achievement- the strongest platform from which to leap.
Quest
Malthouse Theatre lives its values both onstage and off-stage: diversity, access and social inclusion are at the core of the world we want to represent and shape.
Theatre allows us to imagine and interact with the full spectrum of human possibility: it allows us to picture a different world and know that it can be one of our own making. Through theatre, we participate in an ongoing quest to define who we are and what we value.
Malthouse’s core artistic team is made up of its Artistic Director Marion Potts, and Associate Artists Van Badham (writing), Paul Jackson(design), Matthew Lutton(directing). These artists along with Executive Producer Jo Porter and the extended Malthouse team program a combination of new commissions, local collaborations and national/international co-productions. Many of these projects emerge from Malthouse’s development arm, the Engine Room.
The Engine Room provides a range of different platforms for newly commissioned work and aims to tailor-make process according to the needs of a project. Works in progress may present at various stages of development and while they feed the company’s mainstage work, they are not programmed before they reach maturation.
Separate to its main program and development arm, Malthouse curates a season of independent works in its Tower theatre. These projects are selected from the most promising emerging artists in recognition of the sector’s profound influence on Malthouse’s own evolution. Our provision of space and infrastructural support also reflects our commitment to providing pathways for artists contributing to our city’s thriving creative life.
Malthouse’s Education Program currently supports Melbourne based students and teachers and is currently developing its relationship with our regional communities, piloting a series of interactive projects in 2012.
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