Wistfully thinking of the good old days when you could actually go to the theatre? Us too. Those days will come again, but in the meantime you can still enjoy the dramatic arts remotely.
MTC Audio Lab is a series of audio dramas created by Melbourne Theatre Company and performed by Australian actors including Mark Coles Smith, Shareena Clanton, Marg Downey, Izabella Yena, Katherine Tonkin and Leonie Whyman.
The first series (available from July 17) is Great Australian Speeches – a collection of, unsurprisingly, great Australian speeches, directed by Petra Kalive. The speeches performed include Faith Bandler's 'Faith, Hope and Reconciliation' speech, the Ned Kelly 'Cameron Letter', Jack Patten's 1938 Day of Mourning address, Miles Franklin's tribute to Henry Lawson, John Curtin's 'Japan Enters the War', Lowitja O’Donoghue’s opening of the National Congress of Australia’s First People and The Man From Snowy River.
The second series turns Henry James' 1898 gothic novella The Turn of the Screw into an episodic audio drama. The subtly creeping, verbose horror works ideally as an audio production, where sound design (courtesy of Clemence Williams) can be used to atmospherically position the listener. The Turn of the Screw will be available from July 31.
Both audio drama series will be available for free on the MTC website, Spotify, Google Podcasts, SoundCloud and Apple Podcasts.