New Ghosts In The Old Fitz
Image: Lucy Clements at the ACT 1, Late Night Launch. Old Fitz. Image: supplied
Around the middle of last year theatre director Lucy Clements received a call that would change the course of her life.
After mounting 200 shows at the Old Fitz, producing company Redline Productions were moving on and wanted to know if Clements was up for the challenge of taking over.
“I got a call from (producer ) Andrew Henry saying that he was moving on and would I consider taking the reins at the Old Fitz,” Lucy Clements, artistic director, New Ghost Theatre said.
The Old Fitz Theatre is located within Woolloomooloo’s Old Fitzroy Hotel and since 1997 the 55-seat theatre has been located in the pub’s cellar and quickly gained a reputation for its edgy and innovative productions.
Founded by Jeremy Cumpston in 1997, it was run by the Tamarama Rocks Surfers until 2015 when Redline Productions took over.
Originally from Perth where she graduated from WAAPA, Clements specialises in developing and presenting new plays while promoting the roles of women in theatre.
She soon formed New Ghosts Theatre Company, a production entity that looked to the past for the history of storytelling while creating new stories and experiences.
Relocating to Sydney in 2016, Clements became a resident director at the Old Fitz , and a year later she was taking two shows, The Wind in the Underground and Paper Doll back to Perth’s FRINGEWORLD festival.
“Then the New Ghost Theatre needed to grow and last year I got a great bunch of directors on board and we created a business model and we are looking at a 10-year business plan,” Clements said.
The New Ghosts co-production with Secret House in 2023, Albion won the Best independent Production at the Sydney Theatre Awards and secured Clements Best Direction of an Independent Production.
Shorty after getting notifications that they were taking over the Old Fitz, NGTC called for submissions for 2024 and received over 140 applications.
“ We are still reading and meeting with artists and it is an ongoing process,” Clements said.
“We are looking for diversity of content and our first production (Lonesome West) is an exciting and tight text from a known playwright and that will be followed by a brand new production of The Swell which premiered in London last year.
Our third play is a new Australian play called Frame Narrative written by Emily Sheehan.”
Frame Narrative tells the story of a revered filmmaker who is promoting her new film, an adaptation of Mary Shelly’s, Frankenstein. A young critic suggests there must be a dark backstory that has drawn her to the Gothic horror classic. Rumours begin to circulate about the treatment of the actors on set and a tension between the film’s two leading ladies is revealed.
Sheehan was the winner of the 2015 Rodney Seaborn Award for her play, Hell’s Canyon.
Frame Narrative will be directed by Lucy Clements (Winner Best Director Sydney Theater Awards) and produced by NGTC’s Emma Wright.
From early February the Old Fitz will also be hosting late night shows starting with Everything Is Shit, an award winning rock cabaret.
“There is a real diversity of scale there from a one person cabaret through to well known works and we want this space to support all those ideas,” Clements said.
On Sunday February 11 from 12pm to 7pm the Old Fitz Theatre will be taking over Dowling Street outside the pub for A Street Party Named Fitz to raise money for the theatre, and to deliver a day of music, performances and festivities.
“Our funding aim is about a third ticket sales, a third philanthropy and a third funding,” Clements said.
“We occasionally receive funding for specific projects through Create NSW, but we do not receive annual funding (from Create NSW). And nothing from the City of Sydney at the moment.”
The role of independent theatre in Sydney is getting harder with costs rising across all sectors, but nothing helps the passion of its creators more than having supporters, and the best way most can do that is to help the companies find some security by purchasing season tickets.
The Old Fitz claims that it is the only theatre located within a pub left operating in Australia.
