STAGES SPOTLIGHT: CONVERSATIONS REVISITED - KATE GAUL from August 23rd, 2018

With over 230 episodes in the STAGES archive, it's time to revisit conversations featured in previous seasons. STAGES spotlights such episodes, in case you missed them first time 'round - or so you can simply savour a second listen. Either way, you'll be accessing precious oral histories from the people who were there, on and around our stages. Kate Gaul has established herself as a distinctive and inventive director, with directing credits including plays, opera, physical theatre, devised works, and classics for theatre companies and schools in Australia. She is Artistic Director of Siren Theatre Company where her passion is for text-based drama which challenges artists and audiences to have bold imaginative experiences. She has been a considerable force in playmaking in Australia over the past 25 years. Directing premiere productions and new Australian works. Her directing folio has covered a broad repertoire of stories - The Laramie Project, The Trouble with Harry, Svetlana in Slingbacks, The Ham Funeral, Run Rabbit Run, The Moors and Good With Maps, to touch on a few. A champion of the work of Irish playwright Enda Walsh, she has directed productions of his plays Penelope, The New Electric Ballroom and Misterman - this last play receiving extensive glowing accolades and huge success at the 2017 Edinburgh Festival. Opera credits include Castor + Pollux (Pinchgut), Eight Songs for a Mad King (Verbruggen Ensemble), The Cunning Little Vixen (Sydney Chamber Opera), Hansel and Gretel (Pacific Opera), Il Matrimonio Segreto, English Eccentrics, Les Mamelles de Tiresias, Cendrillon (Sydney Conservatorium), Dialogues of the Carmelites, Die Fledermaus (WAPPA). For Opera Australia, Kate was the assistant director of Rigoletto (Opera Australia) Aida, Opera Australia's Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour and revival director for the schools' production By the Light of the Moon, and OZ Opera production of Carmen, 2007. Kate directed a gender-bending H.M.S Pinafore for Hayes Theatre and its NSW tour in 2020. During the pandemic Kate has been a saviour in lockdown, regularly recommending a vast repertoire of world theatre that periodically played online. She has her finger on the pulse of exhilarating theatre and those who make it. If it's a must-see, Kate will urge us to see it. Kate Gaul is a vital artist and one whose productions never fail to impress, to engage and to prompt discussion. sirentheatreco.com The Stages podcast is available from Apple podcasts, Spotify, Whooshkaa and where you find your favourite podcasts. www.stagespodcast.com.au