Since I wrote the post below, people have commented that I've been very busy and they've asked whether anyone else is involved with the show at all.

Apparently other people are involved. I reluctantly turn this space over to them here.

These are just some of the (very sensible) people involved in For We Are Young And Free...

Emily (Genevieve) and Dylan (Dad) are very sensible indeed.

In fact, Emily is generally quite sensible:

She is in stripes. Miriam (Paris Hilton) is carrying her books, Michael (the guy who wrote the Australian anthem) is on the right and Dylan (Dad) has a cup of tea.

At least our producer, Rita Walsh, brings some maturity to the table.

(This is her - on the right - gossiping with Miriam).

And then finally, because there are no photos of the photographer anywhere, this is our design and publicity coordinator:

... Just so that you know you're in good hands.

In a week, we'll be preparing for opening night.

The long list of things I have to do by next week will either be

a) done

b) discarded

c) extended and/or replaced by an extended family of other lists

I am quietly confident in predicting the latter.

By the way, a special hello to Andrew Blain. He knows why. Our nerdy little secret.

According to Wikipedia, a theatre director "is a principal in the theatre field who oversees and orchestrates the mounting of a play by unifying various endeavors and aspects of production".

Which is obviously a very helpful description when someone asks you, "What exactly does a director do?", which is a question I get asked surprisingly often.

I say surprisingly often because, to me, people should be asking what writers do. Writers are the the ones who spend a lot of their time deleting and redrafting and reading things and getting distracted and researching a completely redundant potential plot line and then cleaning out the entire fridge and organsing all their New Yorker magazines in chronological order with the fiction editions in a special section to the right of the...

Never mind.

Anyway. Wikipedia also divides theatre directors into types. The dictator, the negotiator, the creative artist and the confrontationalist.

They all sound like wankers to me. None of which helps me answer "What exactly does a director do?"

Anyway, fat lot of good the internet is. I looked up acting and I got this:

“Acting is merely the art of keeping a large group of people from coughing.”

Well anyone who has been on stage in August knows that isn't true.

There are a couple of people I think are magic.

I think my sister's a bit magic. I live with my sister and when I get up in the morning, that day's newspaper is outside my bedroom door and the kitchen is polished and my sister is up and out in the world getting on with her day while I stumble to the fridge for my morning stare at the top two shelves.

The newspaper must get there by magic. She must have a magic wand that cleans the kitchen in silence. She's magic. I know it. I've always known it. When she was a kid she was magic, too. She made all her food last longer by growing it somehow while in the process of eating it and watching mine disappear.

Anyway, Paul the Magic Website Man is magic too. I don't know how come things can change overnight on a website but it's all still there, but they can, apparently, and they do. And Paul did it all on his birthday, with a hangover, and he did this too, where incidentally you can book tickets for our show that starts in two weeks.

Two weeks. That's also magic. Somebody shrank time.

Bastards.

More facts that I discovered while I was writing our comedy festival show:

1. It is easier to become a Canadian citizen if you are a nerd. There is a nerd loophole. Oh yes there is. Apparently they have a shortage. No such luck in Fitzroy.

2. Daryl Somers is only spelled with one "m". Who knew?

3. They think the music for the Austrian anthem was written by Mozart, but they're not sure. Great marketing tool, huh. Let's spread a rumour that ours was probably written by Kurt Cobain.

That's enough facts for today. Got to go do some work.

Keep your eye out for our new site - it'll be here soon, we promise.

Sometimes, when you're researching for some writing, you stumble across some crazy stuff.

Did you know that Bertolt Brecht, the revolutionary dramatist we all struggle to understand in year eleven drama classes, insisted that when he died, a stiletto heel be inserted into his heart?

Did you? Did you know that? Is that one of those things people know?

I did not know that. The doctors were apparently instructed to ensure he was dead, insert a stiletto heel in his heart, encase him in a steel coffin, and bury him.

AND THEY DID!!

What a nutter! What a fantastic story! Where are all the plays about Brecht being a nutter who lies somewhere in a steel box with a shoe in his most vital organ?!

I'm very excited. Extra information I wasn't looking for is so tantalising. Problem is, I have nothing to do with it, nowhere for it to go, and yet it is so delicious and begging to be known.

Over the last six months I have discovered the following while trying to find out other things:

1. Paris Hilton is distantly related to somebody called George Mason, best known as one of the "Founding Fathers" of the American Bill of Rights.

2. Paris Hilton is also related to Zsa Zsa Gabor.

3. The Australian anthem used to be the ABC news theme.

4. Paris Hilton's book was on the New York Times Best Seller List. It was written by somebody else.

5. Prince Charles and Prince William never travel together on the same aeroplane.

This last one has nothing to do with any of my research and is just a gratuitous extra fact thrown in because I heard it once.

See? Don't you feel enriched?

Have a lovely weekend and see you Tuesday at the screening of I Could Be Anybody at The Angry Film Festival at First Floor on Brunswick Street starting at 7.30. Obviously if I don't see you there then I will see you twice at our show during April. Huzzah!

Hey so how hot is our cast...

... and yes, we are starting a band.

Left to right: Michael Roper (who plays Peter Dodds McCormick, the bloke who wrote the Australian anthem), Dylan Lloyd (who plays Dad), Miriam Glaser (Paris Hilton) and Emily O'Brien-Brown (Genevieve).

And a very talented bunch they are too.

By the by, did I mention that our short film, I Could Be Anybody, is screening on Tuesday next week (13 March) at First Floor in Brunswick Street? Maybe I didn't mention that.

Hey so guess what?

We're preparing for our comedy festival show and we're gearing up for an extremely busy month and suddenly, out of nowhere, we receive notification that our short film, I Could Be Anybody, is a finalist in the Angry Film Festival.

How. Exciting.

Anyhoo, you ALL MUST COME. This includes those of you who live overseas, on Mars, and in other dimensions as yet undiscovered by human beings.

Tuesday 13th, it's on. At First Floor in Brunswick Street. Go here to see what I'm talking about.

I can't wait to go and see it on a screen with other films. It's an exciting night, and it will be extremely cool to have a house packed with people we know and love, especially those of you who worked on it so many light years ago. See you there! Yay!

PS If you don't come, be prepared for name calling.