2.6 Grand Gesture
With Katie Rowe and Michelle McCowage
Captured by Sarah Walker
Captured by Sarah Walker
I love you. I love New Year’s Eve. I love Romeo. I love the house you built me. I love Paris. I love the top of the Empire State Building. I love summer. I love my brother. I love dogs. I love Frida Kahlo. I love Ryan Gosling. I love mid-century architecture. I love Adidas. I love banana bread. I love my Macbook Pro. I love you.
In this episode Katie and Michelle chat with Bronte Charlotte about the making of the show Grand Gesture. We delve into the concept, how it all began, different moments in the rehearsal room that built the show, working with Kat Cornwell & Morgan Rose of The People Theatre Company, getting back into performing after the long silence that was Melbourne’s COVID lockdown, and how romantic comedies influence us and the way that we perceive relationships and love. You can catch Michelle and Katie with the rest of their gorgeous cast in Grand Gesture when it opens on Tuesday the 9th Jan at La Mama in Carlton. It runs until the 21st as a double bill for La Mamas Love Fest and will be opening the gorgeous theatre after Melbournes lockdown. It has almost been a year since we had shows at LaMama so please come along and support local theatre, local artists, new work and good art!
During this episode we discuss:
[02:59] Where the idea for Grand Gesture came from, the stories that we are fed by romantic comedies and how they influence our life.
[06:10] Working as an ensemble, the conversations the ensemble had about their experiences with love, romantic comedies being a type of flawed “guide for life,” building the structure by using a tool called the “playground” and long form improvisations
[12:02] Moving through difficult choices, constant open communication, learning that nothing is personal and each choice is being made for the betterment of the overall piece.
[15:37] Working with two female identifying directors, the male gaze, how romantic comedies are generally made from a male’s perspective, lessons from Sex and the City, and the ways that we are taught to think about romance
[20:52] The moments that informed the style of the show, Director-a-day rotating roles throughout rehearsals, finding your voice as a theatre maker.
[24:58] Who Grand Gesture is for, why is it we immediately think romantic comedies are only for women, how heart warming it is to have non-theatre-goers come to the theatre and seem truly engaged and affected.
[28:45] Getting back in your body after 9 months in lockdown, how COVID has affected artists as they were legally forced to not do their trade
[31:52] Answering an essential question for the show, the question that Grand Gesture investigates, how art can make you reflect on your perceptions of the world.
[36:14] Movies and TV shows that resist the usual representation of love, relationships, sexuality, gender
[39:51] Grand Gesture as a great way to experience theatre for maybe the first time, re-shifting how we make romantic comedies and how we represent love as a society.
Head over to the @chats.w.creatives instagram page to stay up to date with episodes and guests we have coming up!
Follow our host Bronte Charlotte on Instagram @bronteandsunshine
Follow this week's guest Katie Rowe on Instagram @katierowey
Follow this week's guest Michelle McCowage on Instagram @michenaccomplished
ABOUT GRAND GESTURE:
Grand Gesture is a literal mashup of transcripts from The Notebook, Sex and the City, Titanic, When Harry Met Sally, 50 Shades of Grey (the novel), and more (14 to be exact). Staged with wild, comedic, and who-gives-a-fuck attitude, it’s a quick and dirty evening that will make you re-think every romcom you’ve ever seen.
After a sell-out success at Melbourne Fringe 2019, the team behind the widely popular season of The Bachelor s17e05 and the award nominated A Disorganised Zoom Reading of the Script from Contagion bring you Grand Gesture --- a love clusterfuck of verbatim pop.
Co-creators and directors Kat Corwall and Morgan Rose (of the newly formed theatre company The People) say about the show, “Everyone has an opinion, a memory and a love-hate relationship with rom-coms. We start watching these films from a very young age and they shape our view of the world, skewing our real life relationships in damaging ways. Grand Gesture is about that incredibly individual and complicated relationship. It’s part satire, part celebration and part critique.”
Using verbatim romcom texts as a starting point and everything in the universe as an ending point, Grand Gesture is a take down of the one-true-love bullshit we have all been eating since birth. A verbatim pop Frankenstein monster created by theatre company The People, who brought you the sell-out season of The Bachelor s17e05 and the award nominated A Disorganised Zoom Reading of the Script from Contagion.
Captured by Sarah Walker
Captured by Sarah Walker
“Grand Gesture is a startling and breathtaking work, a thrilling deconstruction of how we talk about romance, gender and sexuality in the stories we tell. This is the kind of theatrical experience you crave for and rarely find, where intelligence, rigour, imagination, passion, anger and longing collide in furious spectacle. An absolute knock-out.”
- Daniel Lammin, director, writer and film critic
Ticket Prices:
Single show: $30 Full | $20 Concession, $25 Groups 5+ (use the code word SQUAD when booking)
Double Bill (see both shows in one night): $50 Full | $30 Concession (use the code word DOUBLE when booking)
Dates: Feb 9 - Feb 21
Tues, Thurs, Sat 6:30pm
Wed, Fri 8:30pm
Sun 4pm
No performances 15th + 16th Feb
Co-created and Directed by Katrina Cornwell and Morgan Rose (The People)
Co-created and Performed by Joel Beasley, Eamon Dunphy, Matilda Gibbs, Joe Kenny, Michelle McCowage, Finn McGrath, Ruby Rawlings and Katie Rowe
Co-produced by Natasha Phillips
Lighting Design by Lisa Mibus
Sound Design by Byron Scullin
Stage Manager Brooke Simmonds
Images by Sarah Walker
