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Theatre
from the cracks in the psyche of culture
History
Richard
Roxburgh, the late Ralph
Wilson, George Washingmachine,
Michael Boddy, Tom Healey, Camilla Blunden, Pat
Thomson and many other professional and community theatre and
music industry people worked at The PITS to produce professional, semi-professional,
amateur and student works in the early 1980s. CADS production of Nick
Enright's On The Wallaby was a standout and was directed
by Ralph Wilson and featured Richard Roxburgh with a large cast. Did
You Say Love produced by Women On A Shoestring directed by
Camilla Blunden provided the lighter side of feminist theatre. Bates
and Woodward produced many shows beginning with the extremely popular Naked
Vicar Show by Gary
Reilly and Tony Sattler. It featured Jennifer
Cluff in the role Noeline
Brown made famous and introduced the amazing Geri Scott to
Canberra audiences.
But the original P.I.T.S.
DIED on June 2nd. 1984 to make way for a bus stop.
In its 33 months of operation, more than
77,000 people were entertained at the P.I.T.S. ("appropriately
named" said a music teacher in 2001 when recalling the punks and
"oi" skin louts who lined up to see The
GADFLYS on Friday nights early
in 1983). During its tenure at The Canberra Rex, over 43,000 came to
see the bands and dance into the morning hours. But The PITS was more
than a popular young music venue. 27,000 people also passed through
its doors to see live theatre: ranging from the likes of David
Williamson's The Club,
through to more obscure works in the vein of later SHADOW
HOUSE PITS productions: works like the controversial GEORGE'S
PEEPSHOW and BROTHER APE by Joe Woodward. PITS worked in partnership
with other Canberra groups to produce and present a very ecclectic
range of theatre in its flexible venue. And people used stay for late
night live music. .
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SHADOW
HOUSE PITS
is a direct descendent of the old Pie In
The Sky Theatre and Bar, better known as The
P.I.T.S.
The two owner managers of The
P.I.T.S. have since gone on to vastly different careers. David Bates
set up the Famous
Spiegeltent in
Edinburg and has later taken the venue to Adelaide (for the Adelaide
Festival), Melbourne (for the Melbourne Festival) , Sydney (for The
Sydney Festival) and to London, Auckland and Amsterdam.
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David Bates (right) and Joe
Woodward in a scene from UNION SOUP
by Doug Edwards and Ian Hayden. This photo was used in a news paper
article about the last night of PITS (June 2nd./3rd. 1984) when over
1000 people thronged to be part of an historical night of bands,
music and theatre. |
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Joe Woodward and David Bates in
1981 at their successful Don's Party production at The Park Royal. |
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The Shaved Pits big band at The
PITS in 1983. |
Joe Woodward in recent directing
mode in the creation of a new work: Beyond Weimar for
presentation at the 2008 Multi-Cultural Festival Fringe in Canberra. |
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In 1995, a form of the old PITS was revived with
PITS Productions setting up its Story House to produce its theatre of
"mystery, imagination and the fantastique". The name was
changed in 1998 to SHADOW HOUSE PITS. As the name suggests, it deals
with material that falls into the shadow of experience and culture.
Writer / director, Joe Woodward, is Artistic Director. Productions
have been presented at The Canberra Theatre Centre, The Street
Theatre Studio, DNA Studios at The Ralph Wilson Theatre in Canberra
and at The Seymour Centre in Sydney.
But
why a SHADOW HOUSE?
Through SHADOWHOUSE PITS, we seek an expressive
life away from the mundanity of mediocre fluorescence that shines in
so much of our everyday life. The shadow seems to evoke the dead
while giving birth to living imagination: two potent forces in
creation. Sex and fear, those two companions for fascination, lurk in
the shadow house of our souls where aspirations, desires and
metaphors meet. The theatre is the room of the SHADOW HOUSE
where the soul roams as a cockroach from the pits into the tables of
respectability ... up through the cracks in the facade. And it's a
kind of fun ... sometimes important; sometimes perverse ... and often absurd.
It is a sacred place where nothing is sacred; where
all is potentially exposed and even the most sacred precepts may
become ludicrous. As such, SHADOW HOUSE PITS was formed in
reaction to theatre and art as affirmation of particular orthodoxies.
SHADOW HOUSE PITS has produced the following
works since December 1995:
SHADOW IN THE DARK (1995)
CHRISTABEL AND
GERALDINE (1995 version)
SANCTIMONY (1996)
COLERIDGE'S
CHRISABEL AN D GERALDINE (1999)
OF SEX AND VIOLETS
AND THE DEATH OF CULTURE (1999)
BEARING WITNESS (2001)
SEXandVIOLETS.COM
(2003)
ETHEREAL
SCULPTURES (2003)
PLATFORM 7
(produced in association with Jorian Gardner (2003)
ACTING ARTAUD 1
(April 2004)
ACTING ARTAUD 2
(December 2004)
HOMELESS
MINDS (2005)
THE NAKED GODDESS (2006)
THE CELICA OF EXISTENCE (2007)
(theatre in a car)
TUNNEL
DRIVE (2008)
(theatre
in a car )
BEYOND
WEIMAR (2008)
DYING
LOVE (2009)
(theatre
in a car)
Shadow House PITS director has also written
and/or directed works for other companies. Such works include:
BAAL
by Bertolt Brecht (for
Culturally Innovative Arts in 1998)
THE FLIES
(1999, written and directed by Joe Woodward and based loosely on
William Golding's LORD OF THE FLIES
for Daramalan Theatre Company)
ROMEO AND JULIET (2000,
a Gothic style production with music by Damien Foley for Daramalan
Theatre Company)
ALICE
IS MISSING (2001,
written and directed by Joe Woodward with music by Damien Foley and
Tom Woodward for Daramalan Theatre Company)
In 2002, a new collaborative work with The
Daramalan Theatre Company, Cathedral
Song was
presented in October at The Street Theatre in Canberra.
In 2004, Joe Woodward adapted PEER
GYNT by Henrik
Ibsen and presented it with The Daramalan Theatre Company at The
Street Theatre in Canberra. In 2007, Mack
The Knife and Children Of The Bauhaus
was wrtten with the cast and presented at McCowage Hall.
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