Nathan Sibthorpe

performance-maker & theatre artist

This is a blog space for Nathan to ramble...

Thank you for indulging him in this exercise.

Latest Posts

Blog

Can Theatre Make You Live Longer?

about 5 years ago

I often feel that theatre has a lot to do with mortality. Unlike other art forms, theatre depends on us giving over units of our own lives in order to participate. When it works, theatre transforms those pieces, amplifying our experience of being alive and heightening our awareness beyond that of the everyday. But of course, anyone who has seen enough theatre will agree that the opposite can be true – bad theatre can suck away at your life force, intensifying the feeling that by the act of living you are also slowly dying…

Photo by Stephen Henry: Spectate (2017)

Resolution Resolve

about 7 years ago

In 2012, my New Year's Resolution was to 'Put more effort into Costume Parties.'

I thought it was great. Achievable. Realistic. And somehow symbolically important to me. I wanted to be that kind of person, over-investing in trivial novelties. Rather than the guy who throws it together at the last minute because it's just not that important...

But somehow 2012 wasn't a big year for costume parties. I don't think I went to any at all. So, not wanting to waste a great resolution, I used it again for 2013. Renewed resolution. Second chance...

Unpacking a Portfolio Career

about 7 years ago

It's hard to explain what I do. At parties, when someone asks. On forms, with a field for occupation. Or at census time, when the government demands that everything fit into categories.

It's easy to feel like the government doesn't really understand me. Because I don't have a sole occupation, or an employer. I have a portfolio career - a full time workload broken down into various modes of employment. Sometimes contract, sometimes part time, sometimes tiny scraps of work that fit together to make a living.

After a stupendously busy year, I wanted to sit down and map out my modes of employment. To somehow illustrate what my portfolio career looked like...

Bad Art Can Kill

about 8 years ago

Bad art preaches a simple understanding of life, where there are good people and bad people and some people win and other people lose. It leads us to believe that the answers should be easy. That we should be strong, and that being strong will make us better than other people. Strong people aren’t conflicted, they don’t experience dilemmas. Strong people are winners. Simple.

Faded Prints on the Wall

about 9 years ago

In the house I grew up in, there were always a few prints hanging on the wall. The sort of typical domestic paintings you'd find in a family home. Ornate flowers and gentle landscapes, the beach, a meadow, a street scene.

I hated them. Watercolour monstrosities each one. Calm and passive, empty decor posing as art.

Jump forward nearly a decade. I'm working on AV Design for HE DREAMED A TRAIN - a show set in someone's lounge room. For an integral part of the design, I have to find a print to hang on the wall...

Tiered Tickets for Tiered Audiences

about 9 years ago

It's September, which means Brisbane Festival, which means my bank account is feeling the strain of too many ticket purchases.

Earlier this year my partner and I spent some time adventuring through Europe, where we kept up a rapid-fire pace of theatre attendance. By the time we got to London we were hitting up to 3 shows a day. And I was astonished at how affordable we could make it.

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Nathan Sibthorpe

I unlocked mobile Rush tickets to Hamilton at the Lyric Theatre, QPAC! @TodayTix! https://t.co/px7YVgKNvr
Apr 6, 2023, 2:34 PM