Mister Brisbane: School's in, plays are out
How's that home education thing going? Also: Love in the aisles, Anzac Day, Young Brett's favourite albums, QPAC turns 35, and the art of giving.
As I write this, on a glorious morning (see above), there are noises wafting through the neighbourhood of a woman instructing at least two children to run around the backyard, and do push-ups and other physical activities. She has all the enthusiasm, but not quite the colourful vocabulary, of an Army drill sergeant. I can only imagine that this early morning calisthenics regime is the precursor to a day of home schooling (yet to be complicated by a massive computer crash). My days of school runs, science-project dramas and helping with homework — exactly how often do they change the way your’e supposed to do multiplication with pen and paper? — are behind me. I’m very pleased about that because I simply couldn’t imagine having to do, even for a week, what teachers do every day for their entire careers. Not for the first time, I’m glad I chose journalism (or, to be more exact, it chose me — twice) over teaching. My guess is that, when this is all over, we’ll not just have greater appreciation for medical professionals, but also for those who do the hard yards in front of the whiteboard.
SHELF LIFE
Also deserving our thanks are the people who work at supermarkets, who almost certainly did not sign up for a life of breaking-up fights over toilet paper, and enforcing social distancing and other crowd- and hygiene-control measures. So it’s nice to see a bit of happiness in the aisles, in this case for Coles Beenleigh worker Tegan, who was proposed to over the loud-speaker system. She accepted and received not just the hand of her bloke, Sam, but a $6,500 engagement ring provided by Nova 106.9’s Ash, Kip, Luttsy and Susie and Robert White Jewellers.
ARTS ANNIVERSARY
A slightly belated happy 35th birthday to the Queensland Performing Arts Centre, which was officially opened by the Duke and Duchess of Kent on April 20, 1985.
LEST WE FORGET
Organised tours to Turkey are definitely off the agenda. So, too, are trips to the local RSL or war memorial to mark Anzac Day on Saturday. But you can still watch a ceremony online, or stand in your front garden and salute the fallen. There’s some information here.
FOR THE RECORD
I’m doing this thing online where you’re supposed to choose an album a day for 10 days and post the cover with no explanation. Also, you have to nominate another person to do it each day. So, like a chain letter or Ponzi/pyramid scheme, it becomes increasingly hard to find new people from the enclosed ecosystem that is one’s group of friends. So, I dispensed with the rules and just encouraged everyone to have a go if they wanted to. I’m still not going to say much about my choices, eight of which appear above, except that they all had some influence on me in my teens and twenties.
SHOW STOPPER
The Brisbane Repertory Company, which decades ago changed is name to La Boite, ought to be celebrating its 95th anniversary this year. Instead, the doors to the Roundhouse Theatre in Kelvin Grove are closed and all remaining mainstage productions for 2020 have been cancelled. Only time will tell if and when things get back to “normal”, but this is a major blow for the company, all the people it would have employed and the theatregoing public. It also raises the possibility of other arts companies following suit and cancelling their 2020 seasons altogether. As I write, some experts are saying we should “forget about” going to the theatre in 2020. That would be terrible, but what would be worse would be for us to all go back too soon and the disease cycle to begin all over again. If that happens, we can wipe out next year as well. The virus is real, folks, and it’s hurting people in many industries, including the arts. If you can afford to do so, you may wish to support the Actors’ and Entertainers’ Benevolent Fund and other charities. You may also care to watch artists perform online, or visit a gallery or museum through interactive software. QPAC has a list of what’s on in the virtual world here.
Update: Queensland Musical Theatre announced on Monday that its production of The Producers, planned for the Schonell Theatre in June, has been cancelled.
MEANWHILE …
Topology is offering its music education program online. Details here.
If you’re into the arts, my culture column is published every Thursday in InQueensland. The archive is here.