☕EMERALD HILL COFFEE PALACE☕
Podcasts drop 1st October 2021!
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☕PARTNER COFFEE SHOPS☕
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SCRIPT LINKS HERE!
MOCKUMENTARY TRANSCRIPT
SCOTT
Hi, everybody, my name is Scott Knight, I am one of the actors that was lucky enough to be cast in four of the six audio creative plays that make up the Emerald Hill coffee palace. Thank you for joining me today to go a little bit inside, what the process was like, and how it was during the lockdown period to be able to create these fantastic and fabulous audio podcast which you'll be able to listen to.
SAMSARA
Oh, the Emerald Hill coffee palace. That was a marathon. Hello, I am Samsara, the writer of this podcast collection, and they've asked me to say a few words about the making of this documentary.
SCOTT
As a working actor, there's nothing more exciting than being involved in original works and plays and being involved in the theatre scene. And these six creations, these podcasts, these creative audio works are a fantastic way to look back at our history and for me as an actor to be able to present different views and play different people that made part of Melbourne, the city that it is today. So thank you so much. Thank you to Samsara for casting me in four of the six different audio casts.
SAMSARA
I guess, you know, apart from the difficulties of having to deal with and Samsara, the director, who hates everything I write… And, you know, Samsara, the engineer who just says it's too complicated and doesn't want to work remotely and hates it when the changed scripts make people do more recordings… But overall, I mean, the actors are amazing. And, you know, really all a writer needs is a group of wonderful actors who are ready to take risks and be everything that they can be, hopefully through your words.
JOSH
Hello, my name is Josh Hayes. I am an actor. I was contracted to be in a series of recordings, Phantom of the Overlocker and various others. And I'm here to talk a little bit about my experience.
SCOTT
Dealing with Samsara, I've got to say we get on really well and always have a blast. You always do your preparation, bring your A game when you come on the actuall days of the recording, or the theatre rehearsals depending on what the medium is. Absolutely super fun, a little crazy. A combination of well prepared content, a little bit of improvisation as well, and then just moving between the call and responses with the actors, and just generally having a good time and maybe pushing the boundaries a little bit.
MAREE (VOICE OVER)
Working with Samsara on the Emerald Hill Coffee Palace project was, you know, two words - short. Yeah. And in yer face? And I really yeah, it's a different way of working. Initially, I was all about, you know, before I worked with Samsara A few years ago, I was just all about, yeah, you know, rehearsals and really spent a lot of time but you know what? The skills, the skills and doing, and when she writes the skills that we draw upon? Yeah, it's like, it's like crazy. It's like, it can be crazy. It can be quick, and it's like what the? But yeah, but yeah, it's an experience because you literally intuitively draw on your instincts. And working remotely, with COVID, etc. It's been another skill set. I'm working with Samsara she is, she has such joy. She's very, very, what's the word? Focused and very… knows what she wants. I'm very joyful. I love, you know, working with a disability situation in this kind of situation is just a godsend because at the end of the day, when we're in a lockdown, which we've just gone on to another one right now, Melbourne. Yeah, this is crazy. It's crazy times and the support, you know, the support I've got from her and the troop of regular players has been phenomenal and kept me really, really sane and got me through COVID, the initial COVID in 2020. So working year with Samsara, it's like, wow, it's an experience. It's an experience. Sometimes technical things go wrong, but you know what? We're not perfect. No one is. We just learn as we go. And it's like camaraderie at the end of the day. It's like, we do this together and I love, I love everyone in this project. Love it. Samsara. Love her mind and her creation. Love the fact that we don't have to be together in the room to make this happen. It's like, damn! Bloody amazing! She's, she's, you know, she's just a woman with such out of the box…. She's out of the box. Love you. Love.
MICHAEL
Jo Boyd, we're just doing a documentary on Samsara and we're gonna ask you some questions. Her production, Coffee Palace?
JO
Oh, yes? Yes. Wonderful, wonderful memories. Samsara. herself. Beautiful, beautiful writer. Her prose is just beyond words. Quite a challenge though. For most of us. We were all in lockdown and restrictions. And here in the luxury of my own. I mean, the confines of my…
SCOTT
One of the best things about working with Samsara as one of the best playwrights in the Melbourne theatre scene is that she, as a writer, really challenges you as an actor to be able to find layer upon layer of characters. There's twists and turns and everything that she writes has shifts and changes. So as an actor, you really get to find depth of character and have so much fun. There's guidance that she gives but there's also the freedom to be able to make so many offers and to push yourself as a performer, which is absolutely fantastic. And what better setting than to have, in your mind, the beautiful visual of this historic building, which I'm sure has its own ghosts and phantoms running through it. And sewing machines that maybe chase you around?
SAMSARA
Yeah, they did have a little bit of trouble sticking to the script. But can you blame them? I mean, there'd be a typo and they'd have to figure out what the word were. And, you know, it makes total sense to me that they found it easier just to make up their own words,
SCOTT
Right. It's always fun. And when she writes characters, one of the things that we always laugh about is the number of shifts and changes that she puts into a character. As an actor, it’s super, super fun to be able to recreate and…
SAMSARA
Emerald Hill Coffee Palace has to be the grandest project I have ever done. Six individual creative responses. riffing off the history and activities and the site of the temperance hall in Napier Street South Melbourne.
SCOTT
So the director asked us, Samsara asked us if there were any challenges for us as actors with some of the disabilities that the Samsara has, and they tend to be just two areas around movement and cognitive challenges from a car accident that she was involved in a number of years ago. So you don't actually see any physical kind of challenges with her, but I think she always strives to be the best. Quite honestly, there are times I think, when all of us get a little bit mixed up, or sometimes the information is delivered in some unique ways, but I think it is all good.
MAREE (VOICE OVER)
So one of the things I really loved about being in this project was, I have a passion for the history of Melbourne and how colourful and rich the city is, and the way Samsara has constructed and created the elements of this project have been really, to me, really interesting and providing a definite roadmap towards other opportunities. That we can absolutely let Melbournians be more informed about their beautiful city and the richness, the culture. The Australia, Australian culture you see the around. Also the, the shadow, the, you know, the history of going back into the first settlers here and how it's all over. All of that has definitely made a huge impact on how Melbourne is today and being multicultural. What I love also, Samsara just with her, the access. She gives the accessibility, which I adore, to people of all different levels of abilities in regards to their creative abilities. But also just, you know, of the differences that we all have as people. The emotional, the emotional landscape that we all traverse. And we are all very different actors. She really gives us the chance to, you know, say who we are. To be really, really just raw. To dig deep to keep this this beautiful art, this art industry going in such a time of crisis and in a time of where people are really losing their faith. So what I say is, Samsara is, she's a beacon of faith. She's a lighthouse in the distance on a dark and stormy night. You know, there's just that absolute, oh my god, the creative soul. You know, it's like underpinning it's everything. That as an artist it really craves for, we crave to do this. We crave to perform. We crave to art - make art. We crave to be around like minded artists. Samsara gives us this opportunity and she does it on, in different ways that you just… that I've never experienced in my whole career in acting and performance, which has been a long one. And it's just been so rewarding and so insightful. Yeah, it's, I see… I have a crystal ball. It's just suddenly come in front of me and I see she's illuminating the path, the path of the creative artist and how we can be in the future. Yeah, let's survive and really get our work out. Thank you samsara. You are a godsend.
SCOTT
Had an absolute ball. It was great being part of this podcast. As an actor, it really begins to allow you to flex your acting muscles. You get to really move across a range of different characters and emotions, and just have fun and just move into world of imagination. And what was really unique with the Emerald Hill Coffee Palace was that all these stories are recreations of events that actually happened around our particular area here.
JOSH
My best memory of working with Samantha Donnelly [Samsara] What? [Dunston] What? [Sam Sara Dunston Sam Sara Dun ston]. I don’t understand, use your words. Use your words. Use your words. I'm sorry. Can we fire that guy? [Dunston] . [Yes]
JO
We were faced with some very, very strong challenges of reading at our own leisure and rather restricting… I must say that you don't do these things for the money.
SCOTT
The other one was Fool's Gold. And that was a bit of a retake, improvisation retake on Henry the Fifth between me and several other talented Melbourne actors. As we step inside Temperance Hall, the beautiful structure you can see behind me, to recreate six amazing and original audio works under the title of Emerald Hill Coffee Palace, written and directed by Samsara. I see you saying let's go!
SAMSARA
I've actually interacted with the Emerald Hill Coffee Palace many times across my career. Usually as a rehearsal venue for companies such as Chamber Made, Ilbijerri, dancers like Ros Warby, that sort of thing. And so I decided to start this project contacting people I knew who had been connected with it. So people like Shane Grant, for example, who was the, one of the techs when it was a theatre for hire. And Philip Adams who is the current incumbent with Phillip Adams Ballet Lab, and a few others, along with people I knew who are connected to Anthill, that sort of thing
MAREE
Initially Divana definitely was a bit scary for me, you know, Itallian accent, and I hadn't done one. Completely over the top, overwhelming, overwhelming because she's very, very different than who I am. But the more I got to play her the more I loved her, so she was the most challenging but the most fun.
SCOTT
Hi, everyone, my name is Scott Knight. I'm standing here in Napier street in South Melbourne, at the front of the majestic and beautiful Temperance Hall, which happens to be the central character in this setting for a series of six magnificent podcasts, titled The Emerald Hill Coffee Palace. The Emerald Hill Coffee Palace podcasts are written and directed by Samsara. And I, as an actor happened to be in four of the six podcasts playing various characters.
MAREE
and also what Samsara brings to, to this project for the diversity of the cast, the people she casts, and diversity of product is just phenomenal. Love it.
SAMSARA
I was seriously excited with the musical stylings that emerged for Phantom of the Overlocker. Over the course of lockdown in 2020 and Samsara’s Soiree I discovered that so very many of the actors who perform in PATE had great, great musical talents. And Phantom of the Overlocker allows us to show those talents to the full extent.
MICHAEL
Miss Boyd, do you have any goss?
JO
I think I've quite said enough. Now I had a lovely time and I’d do it all again, in a heartbeat. As I said, Love to you all..
MICHAEL
Just one more question.
JO
Thank you,thank you.
SCOTT
As an actor, I was lucky enough to be cast in four of the six creative audio works that centre around activities that happened here at Temperance Hall, in the roughly around the 1850s kind of timeframe in South Melbourne here, or back then, as it was called Emerald Hill.
SAMSARA
And I was already leaning on the musical talents of Joe Boyd and Michael Keighley, who I had, just because why not? I decided I could write a song. So I wrote lyrics, and I wrote, doodled a tune. And I said to those guys, I said, ‘Look, please make this into a little teaching ballad.’ And thus, we got Different Shades. And it's a beautiful song, and they've done the most magnificent job.
MAREE
In all seriousness, it's very good to be her. but the Narrator was also a brilliant character. And I love narration, I really enjoy narration, especially history. So it's a penchant.
SCOTT
So in Melbourne, as most people know, is rich in so much history from our past, both good and bad. But to be able to tap into that and learn and understand it a little bit more, I definitely think helps us move forward as a community and also allows us as actors and creatives to be able to tell unique and interesting stories.
SAMSARA
And that's where parts like fool's gold really takes off. They we're given freedom and architecture, but freedom to really explore. Although I do think Samsara - Samsara the actress, Samsara the actor - she took it too far. It's like there's one thing to be repeating and responding and, you know, call and response, that sort of thing, but then there's pulling focus, and she does not know the difference.
MICHAEL
Is there any truth to leaking those tapes?
JO
You are kidding me!
SCOTT
So the process for this bit of fun. Go through as always, an audition, or I had worked with the director Samsara before on a couple of different projects, so I was approached to actually play a number of different roles. As an actor, you always jump at these kinds of things, especially when there's a variation of roles available. So I had to do it.
SAMSARA
Well, seriously. What were we supposed to do? There was no script, Samsara, the director, she just said, ‘Go with the flow, just follow your instincts.’ Now, I'm a creative and, and when you give me free rein, well, my mind travels the cosmos. I brought together the threads and weave to create absolute magic. I create characters of, of great depth and diversity. Of course Blake and Pope are going to just spray out of my mouth to enrich the experience and the landscape. All of it, all of history, all of the future. It's all just grist for my mill as an actor. That is how I bring truth and depth to my characters.
MAREE
I love, I love the whole project,
JOSH
Just the constant harassment, you know? The abusive emails, death threats, the pig's blood. Once found a full ants nest on my front lawn.
MAREE
Hi, this is, yeah, talking about my experiences with Emerald Hill Coffee Palace project and the cast, with the rolls I was cast in.
SCOTT
One of the amazing audio works that Samsara created was a take on the classic musical Phantom of the Opera. As you can see, what a perfect setting. It's basically a bit of a recreation called Phantom of the Overlocker, and it dealt with the theatre, the Napier Street theatre back in the day, dealing with the fact that one day a sewing machine blew a fuse, leaving the theatre in total blackout and darkness. I got cast and was able to play the role of the Phantom. It's a really short 30 minute sort of spin on, a quick take of the Phantom of the Opera. And during that I get to actually sort of recreate two iconic songs from…
SAMSARA
Samsara, the director, she came to me panicking about all the blank spots in the script and what we're going to do. She kept going on about how useless Samsara the writer was, giving incomplete scripts.
MAREE
It’s subterranean, you know. You have to dig deep. You have to do a lot of exploration to find out information about, you know, just things that are not as available on the internet. You’ve got to really dig deep, do a lot of research and …
MICHAEL
Miss Boyd moment of your time, can you tell us more about the cast? What's it really like?
JO
Get away from me.
SCOTT
Ah, yes, as I was saying, I'm an actor based here in Melbourne, Australia. I was lucky enough to be able to be part of four of the six podcasts. So we did a recreation called Phantom of the Overlocker, which obviously, was a little bit of rip off, or riff, I shouldn say, of Phantom of the Opera. I was lucky enough to be cast as the Phantom. So that was super awesome. But to sing a couple of songs, they're classic songs or recreation of classic songs, based on a view from the play. They were Angel of Music, and I Remember/ Stranger Than You Dreamt It. So that process was super fun. Love the preparation there. I'm not necessarily musical theatre actor, but I think it's all actors in Melbourne, you're able to move across all those different kinds of mediums of stage, theatre, film, television, spoken word, voice and singing. So it was awesome to be able to flex those musical theatre kind of muscles.
SAMSARA
So most of it came to me as weird. For example, when I was talking to Shane, he was talking about a night when it was Napier Street Theatre for hire. Somebody once plugged in a sewing machine that was not tested or tagged and blew power to the entire building. And of course, that just suddenly… my brainwaves. And I thought, aha, Phantom of the Overlocker. It’s probably not that straightforward, but that's kind of… my brain made a whole bunch of connections, including the fact that I knew that potentially the Planet Arts Theatre Ensemble were musically gifted, talented and experienced. So that one was pretty much a lay down misere as they say.
JOSH
In all seriousness, it was an absolute joy to work the Samsara. And I can say that I'm not being paid sponsored or promoted in any way. What's that? Oh, thank you. Sure, why didn’t you give it to me off camera? But okay, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. As I said, I'm absolutely sincere…
MAREE
The way Samsara, you know, allowed us to just go with it. Using our instinct was fantastic. We didn't need to be in the room with each other for, you know, when we when we did it, because we didn't need to be… because we're immersed in our character and that's what I loved and she was a brilliant.
SAMSARA
Kind of like Theatre of the Absurd kind of thing. Um, a little bit Satre-ish. Where's the post? This wiki is stupid. Okay, ah, yeah. All you need to know is that it's Pirandello. One of the great classics. He was all about comedy. A little bit into Comedia. Um, he got a Nobel Prize. That's not important. No, it's not important.
MAREE
Oh. Absolutely. Samsara is always pushing the boundaries.
JOSH
Can I take the sunglasses off? Please. [Leave the sunglasses on] Come on. [We need this one. Please leave them on.]
SAMSARA
Samsara, the director, talked about the improv Fool's Gold. Apparently it had no script at all. Of course, it didn't have a script. It was improv!
JO
The standard package she calls it. Yes, yes. Yes. Or No. Really, any who. Now she's making this documentary and found myself with film crew out on the front. No, yesterday afternoon. My goodness, quite the invasion of privacy. Yes. Wow. Oh, no, no, no, I just started blowing smoke up her ass. Everybody's arses, you know? Told them what they wanted to hear. Well, it's quite, it's worse than being photographed. I'll say!
SCOTT
The rehearsal process…always good. Definitely. Fun, crazy, well planned, unstructured, structured, it goes across everything. So, I absolutely love it. Just get in there and have a ball and bring what you feel has been… you bring what has been informed by the characters and what's written within the play, add a little bit more and have a bit of fun. And then Samsara always asks for you to try and push yourself, lift. How you engage with the other actors? Absolutely!
MAREE
Absolute ball of a process.
SAMSARA
Oh my god, getting scripts from samsara is like pulling blood from a stone. Samsara the writer that is…Oh, and changes, just non-stop constant changes. And you know what? She has obviously never been shown the spell check button. Seriously, all you have to do is spell check. But every page had typo after typo after typo. I'm amazed the actors – those wonderful creatures that are actors, PATE, the Planet Arts Theatrical ensemble actors are best in the world - but the raw material they had to work with from Samsara!
MICHAEL
Tell us Is it true that the cast have never met?
SCOTT
Definitely, with COVID the remote recordings are quite unique. So to do things online via zoom when they cut out or when the time goes and when you're right in the middle of a song. The audio is not working, or you're in the middle of doing fantastic, Big Band, musical number and singing your heart out, possibly in drag for a particular song… Then, yeah, there can be some challenges but as actors we have to overcome, and we just move through.
SAMSARA
With Anthill shows, it was as if you the play was inhabited by characters from different plays. So, what we're doing is we're inhabiting this European play that has been very bad translated into English, but we're bringing the characters (all except for Henri), all of the other characters are from the Emerald Hill Coffee Palace
SCOTT
The process a little bit interesting, because there were six plays that made up the Emerald Hill Coffee Palace. They were coming thick and fast in different kinds of forms, different ways. They were being delivered, the scripts, in different stages. So, there were certain times where I didn't quite know if I was Tom, Dick, or Harry or what was going on, or what piece was coming from where so there were a few emails going back and forth with the director going, ‘Did I miss something? What What's going on here? Who am I playing?’ That sort of stuff. But you know, an actor's life is pretty good so we crack on.
SAMSARA
Terror Billius was actually a really curious story. And really, I kind of knew that I wanted to go. I always like to try and create a reference to Aboriginal people, if I possibly can, with all of my artworks, my writings and such, in some forms, somehow, someway. I was visiting my mum in Mount Gambier, and I have actually always known this, but it was just like, it just clicked that the Lady Nelson wreckage – it’s not really a wreckage, it's a full ship - but it's over there, and it's there as part of their constructs. And I remember reading that the Lady Nelson was the first ship to sail into Port Phillip Bay, so I decided to have a read of the captain’s logs and see if that gave me any inspiration. And it turns out that my head, I was kind of going, Oh, I'm gonna do a Mutiny on the Bounty kind of thing. But then I was reading and there was the first interactions with the local Boon Wurrung people. And I just knew that I had to write about that. Yeah, it was a complicated process. But I think what we've come out with is a very good story for modern times.
SCOTT
The other play that I was involved in is the Six O'Clock Spill and got to play two opposing characters that are called the Parliamentarian and Temperance Man. So that was a fun little insight into Melbourne's history. Especially with, you know, cafes everywhere
SAMSARA
Terror Billius - that was my favourite. Using the didg and the kookaburra to represent the Boon Wurrung - pure genius, even if I do say so myself.
MICHAEL
Tell us, is it true that the cost have never ever met?
SCOTT
In Terror Billius I play the role of Mr. Brabyn, a young Manchester man. In the play Terror Billius I play the role of Mr. Brabyn, a young lad from Manchester. He was just a simple ship worker coming here to Australia, who assists the captain and a couple of the other people on the ship. I cannot imagine how hard that would have been travelling on a ship for months, a small wooden ship - a sailboat no less - coming from England, half the way across the world. It was really a bit of a challenge there just to recreate that in your mind, but also that Manchester or Mancurian accent, it's so unique and so special. And that was heaps of fun.
SAMSARA
If you decide after this, you want to give it another go… Yeah, I had a little note about maybe sounding really tired and frustrated, especially. Like you've been in a tech run and, you know, you've been teching for two days and she's always causing halts to this thing but you've got to be nice to her because she's your lead performer but she's driving you nuts and having the producers on your back and constantly harping on about money is also driving you crazy/
SAMSARA
I knew the points that I wanted to hit. I knew I had to speak to the temperance movement and I had to speak to Anthill and I had to speak to Philip Adams Ballet Lab and, potentially, to Napier Street the hire company, the venue for hire. You can see the Emerald Hill Coffee Palace absolutely destroyed me. No, I always look this glorious.
JOSH
Yeah, Samsara Johnson. That's what I've been saying. All this time. Bring me a tomato soup. [Tomato soup, please for the artist]. And a dinner roll. [And a dinner roll]. So I've been doing this for Serendipity Johnston, [Samsara.] What can I say? We got it done. I delved into some deep character analysis. I delved into some very deep transitions into my character, as I always do. And I discovered certain things. Essentially, I've now transcended acting and simply became… a thespian!
SCOTT
here I am in Victoria's beautiful Port Phillip Bay. I cannot imagine what this was like in the 1850s when Melbourne was just beginning to prosper as a city. But this beautiful location is the setting of one of the creative audio works Terror Billius.
MAREE
So yes, my observations are. These are my observations.
SAMSARA
But uh, that's going really well. I'll give a couple of notes while we're waiting for the others. Let me just… how do I get into my…no… How do I get into my calendar?
SCOTT
Notes from the overlocker.
MAREE
Yeah, the script was… I found Six O’Clock Spill quite enlightening. It was enlightening. And Melbourne, you know, that's fascinating history.
SCOTT
So I got to be in a recreation of, dare I say, tall ship drama, if you can even call it that. Terror Billus or Terror Billius. And then I get to play a young ship worker.
SAMSARA
So Dan, I just need to get notes off you. I'm just looking at my list of songs. Scott, you are going to get me… Stranger… Stranger Than You Dreamt It?
SCOTT
Yes, Stranger Than You Dreamt It. Yes.
SAMSARA
Um, and you're all amazing. I'm off topic. Jo, have you had a look at the teaching ballad?
JO
No, actually, I haven't looked at all.
SAMSARA
So the whole thing was done remotely. Everybody recording on their own devices or their own computers. It was madness. I spent so many hours just trying to normalise the voice levels. And some people do it in a small room with lots of reverb and some people would be doing it in fact, out in the field - or it almost seemed like it on occasion. One of the actors gave me a recording where there were people in the room with them having a whole other conversation while they were doing their lines. I had to send that back. I could not use that.
SAMSARA
Anyway, as you can see the Emerald Hill Coffee Palace collection has absolutely exhausted me. And I'm probably going to go sleep for three months or so. That sounds like reasonable. Thank you for listening.
SCOTT
So thank you. I really hope you enjoy listening to the podcasts. See if you can pick the different accents and the voices and the characters that I play within the different podcasts. See if you can also the pick out the celebrity cameo appearances by writer/director Samsara in quite a number of them, and several other talented Melbourne actors. So Thank you so much. Enjoy and have fun. Listen, grab yourself a cup of coffee, sit down at a cafe in the local area around Emerald Hill, South Melbourne - anywhere across Melbourne or the world, chill out and listen and get a bit of an insight into what life was like in Melbourne. Way, way, way. Way, way, way earlier…
END
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