Newly launched in Brisbane, Pot Luck Plays is a play-reading event presented by 7th Floor Theatre in conjunction with PIP Theatre.
Pot Luck Plays is an interactive, moved play reading experience where actors get to hone their cold reading skills in front of a live audience. Kicking off on Monday nights at 6pm, the play of the week is announced at 6:15pm. The ‘readers’ then have 45 minutes to warm up while audience members can mingle, network and enjoy a drink from the bar. The selected play is completely unknown to everyone until the night, resulting in a spontaneous performance where actors are challenged, and undiscovered play scripts come alive for a supportive audience.
Using a projector screen to scroll through the script, actors are free to move about on stage in a safe way to present a staged reading of the chosen play, led by 7th Floor Theatre’s Hayden Burke who reads the stage direction.
Pot Luck Plays was originally conceived in 2021 by 7th Floor Theatre in Melbourne where it had a successful, 12-month run. Established in 2019, 7th Floor Theatre is an independent theatre company that focuses on actor wellbeing.
Actors who are interested in being a reader need to book two weeks in advance to allow time for a play to be chosen that matches the number of people participating, and tickets are selling fast. It is just $20 to take part as a reader, and only $10 for audience members.
The Pot Luck Plays season is scheduled to run for five weeks until 27th May (excluding the Monday Public Holiday), but there is scope for a more regular event should the demand allow, which hopefully, it does.
The first play presented at Pot Luck Plays Brisbane this week was Australian Open, written by Angus Cameron. It was first produced by bub in association with bAKEHOUSE Theatre Company at the Kings Cross Theatre in Sydney, in February, 2020. A fast-paced comedy about tennis and open relationships, Australian Open takes aim at progressive middle-class values, the nature of monogamy and what it means to love someone.
The five readers, Lisa Hickey, Brian Lucas, Peter Wood, Daniel Kirkby and Whitney Duff did an amazing job bringing the play to life. Their performance was highly entertaining, and it was simply incredible to watch these actors read the lines for the first time and ‘perform’ the play with such skill. The audience loved the show and was heartily clapping at the end of every scene. This is a live theatre event, just not as we know it.
Pot Luck Plays is held in PIP Theatre, Milton, and runs until 27th May.
Tickets:
https://piptheatre.org/potluck
Play submissions and further information:
Photo credits: Hayden Burke and the cast – photo by PIP Theatre
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