Playwright Katie Pollock’s award-winning work People Inside Me is first cab off the rank in 2021 for The Street’s annual program for theatre-makers, First Seen.
The program returns for its tenth year in 2021 with Pollock’s work to be streamed live from The Street on Friday 12 March at 5pm.
Open to Canberrans and the wider Canberra diaspora, the now Sydney-based playwright described the program as a “pretty intense” process.
“I’m waking up at 3am going ‘oh, I’d better make a note of that’ … It feels nice to be back working, wrestling with the words,” she said.
Pollock started the creative development process at the City West theatre on 1 March.
Without giving too much away about the work itself, Pollock said People Inside Me is about “sex and death, as all good art should be”.
“Of course, it also kind of a bit of a black comedy,” she said. “I’m exploring how we carry on after terrible losses and how we connect with other people.”
People Inside Me has been in development for at least three years, having been awarded the 2018 Rodney Seaborn Playwrights Award.
A prolific playwright, Pollock said she has worked on a number of projects over that time, her attention going back and forth between them.
“Since that award I’ve done a few other drafts and had actors sit around the table and read it, and other people,” she said.
“The difference with this is having bodies in the space, because that is the point of theatre; it’s not a novel.
“I hope it means the work will be more rigorous for it, so when you get to rehearsal, you’re just about making a play work on its feet.”
Pollock praised The Street’s First Seen program, saying such creative development courses are “pretty rare”.
“Usually, you have to deliver the script at rehearsal ready stage then you get in the room and don’t have enough time to rehearse it anyway.
“It’s really important, it’s fantastic. I hope I can give The Street back something that shows how important it’s been.”
The Street presents First Seen – People Inside Me by Katie Pollock, Friday 12 March 5pm via Vimeo and Zoom; tickets via donation here.
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