Green Room: Local cast joins LaPaglia, fresh funding for local screen projects, moving pictures at ACE
South Australian arts and culture news in brief.
Local faces join LaPaglia for Death of a Salesman
Anthony LaPaglia is set to appear onstage in his hometown for the first time when his critically acclaimed run in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman hits Adelaide in September. This week it’s been revealed he won’t be the only local produce onstage, with South Australian actors Mark Saturno, James Smith and Luca Sardelis joining the production – rounding out a touring cast that includes Frontline and The Twelve star Alison Whyte and Josh Helman (Mad Max: Fury Road, X-Men: Days of Future Past).
Both Saturno and Smith will be well-known to local theatregoers, with repeated State Theatre Company appearances including Saturno’s starring role in the 2019 production of Miller’s A View from the Bridge – the last mainstage production of an Arthur Miller play seen in Adelaide, and the role LaPaglia won a Tony for back in 1998.
Sardelis is perhaps best known for screen work including the locally-filmed SBS high school drama The Hunting – a seriously underrated and depressingly timely show well-worth revisiting.
“With the current tour being extended to Adelaide, we’ve been able to bring on board two of South Australia’s most admired actors – Mark Saturno and James Smith – alongside exciting young theatrical newcomer Luca Sardelis. It’s a great opportunity to showcase these special Adelaide performers alongside Anthony LaPaglia, Alison Whyte and the rest of our wonderful cast in the context of Neil Armfield’s once-in-a-generation production.”
Australian Dance Theatre hits the road
Australian Dance Theatre will help four independent choreographers set out on a multi-city tour as part of its ORBIT program, presented alongside Victoria-based Dancehouse and Sydney Dance Company. Backed by Creative Australia, ORBIT will present four works as part of its inaugural tour: Agitato by Victoria-based Jo Lloyd, New South Wales-based Amy Zhang’s [GAMEBOY], Charcoal by Githabul, Migunberri and Gomeroi choreographer Keia McGrady, and Future History by South Australia’s Gabrielle Nankivell.
“Independent artists lead the sector and consistently expand the idea of what it means to create contemporary dance in this country,” Australian Dance Theatre Executive Director Nick Hays says of the program. “But creating and touring work is getting more challenging, especially for independent choreographers. Working with our friends in Sydney and Melbourne to support these remarkable works and bring them to audiences is a real thrill.”
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The chosen works will be spit up into two double-bill programs, which will be presented at Sydney Dance Company’s Neilson Studio, Dancehouse’s Sylvia Staehli Theatre, and Australian Dance Theatre’s South Australian base at The Odeon Theatre in Norwood (from November 5-14), with additional performances at Victoria’s Bunjil Place and Burrinja Cultural Centre.
Find out more here.
SAFC and ABC stump up for local screen projects
The South Australian Film Corporation and ABC have revealed the latest grant initiative as part of an ongoing ‘Content Pipeline Fund’ that has already helped bring locally filmed productions such as Beep and Mort, Treasure & Dirt, Top End Bub, Ladies in Black, and series two of comedy Austin to Australian screens.
Pitched at helping local writers, directors and producers shepherd their projects along the exciting – and daunting – path to being greenlit, the First Look early development grant is offering up to $50,000 for scripted projects – including kids’ content – and $25,000 unscripted production to help refine, develop and pitch their way to production. Winning applicants will also receive feedback along the way from ABC Commissioners.
“The SAFC’s ongoing partnership with the national broadcaster through the ABC SAFC Content Pipeline Fund has already brought an incredible slate of new South Australian stories to the screen including crime drama Treasure & Dirt, filmed in Coober Pedy with SA producer Rebecca Summerton, 2026 Logie Award nominated Top End Bub, co-created by SA’s Joshua Tyler, and the upcoming third season of comedy series Austin, set in Adelaide,” South Australian Film Corporation acting CEO Leanne Saunders said.
“We’re proud to build on that sector growth with this new development initiative, which will create even more opportunities for our state’s talented writers, directors and producers to develop distinctive, ambitious projects with a clear pathway to ABC audiences.”
Minister for Arts Kyam Maher says that since its launch in 2023, the ABC SAFC Content Pipeline Fund injected over $41 million into the state’s economy and created more than 1,500 jobs for local crew, casts and creatives.
“I can’t wait to see even more bold and original South Australian stories on our screens,” Maher said.
Find out more here.
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Brink announces second round of First Nations fellows
Brink Productions has named Kaurna and Ngarrindjeri poet and visual artist Dominic Guerrera and Boandik storyteller and playwright Aunty Michelle Jacquelin-Furr as the two recipients of its 2026/27 First Nations Fellowship. Launched in 2024 in partnership with Create SA, the two-year fellowship experience supports First Nations theatremakers to spend time developing and leading new performance work.
Guerrera’s interdisciplinary practice moves between poetry and text-based visual art, engaging with Aboriginal truth-telling, self-determination and lived experience. He has previously received the Oodgeroo Noonuccal Indigenous Poetry Prize and the David Unaipon Award for his forthcoming collection Native Rage, and is First Nations editor at Cordite Poetry Review.
Jacquelin-Furr is a Traditional Owner and Elder of Boandik country, based at Port MacDonnell (Ngaranga), South Australia. She is working to revive the Bunganditj language and has published two books on the life of her great grandmother, Aunty Annie Brice. She is currently developing a new work for theatre based on Annie Brice’s life.
They will follow the program’s inaugural fellows Sonya Rankine and Jannali Jones.
“Our First Nations Fellowship exists to give Blak artists the time and support to develop ambitious new work on their own terms,” said Stephen Nicolazzo, Artistic Director of Brink. “Dominic and Aunty Michelle bring extraordinary depth and craft to this Fellowship, and we are equally proud of what Sonya and Jannali have achieved with their projects over the past two years.”
Carclew funds new musical, youth programs, and horseplay
Earlier this month Carclew revealed the first wave of organisations and artists to benefit from its beefed-up grants program supported by a $400,000, two-year investment announced as part of the state government’s A Place to Create cultural policy.
Nine artists and six youth arts orgs will receive between $2,700 and $20,000 in funding through the program. Individual recipients include Lily Drummond, who receives $10,000 to develop an original South Australian musical titled For One Night Only; a new contemporary dance work dubbed Horses in My Dreams by Alix Kujipers; a queer coming of age short film from filmmaker Helene Perre; and cabaret performer Charlee Watts’ show Caffeine Fiend.
Organisational funding will help back a new Emerging Curators Program at The Mercury cinema; a Whyalla-based Aboriginal Youth Creative Reference Group through Wara Yindi Support Services, Adelaide Contemporary Experimental’s ‘Future Studios’ program; and expanded programming at independent art space FUTUREJUICE.
Applications for the next round of grants will open later this year, check out the full list of recipients here.
Being seen on the small screen
Adelaide Contemporary Experimental has been exploring new ways of showcasing moving image works at its west end gallery space, with two new works unveiled this month.
First up, it drew back the very small curtain of The Mini-Cine, a miniaturised, Art Deco-inspired cinema conceived by artist Sarah Tickle. From August 21 to December 4 the Mini-Screen will be rolling 24/7 in ACE’s window, beginning with Tickle’s own moving image work Dear Diary, 2026.
On a slightly bigger scale, it has named CJ Taylor as the inaugural recipient of ACE’s Multichannel Commission. Announced last year and backed by ACE’s Porter Street Fund, the Multichannel Commission granted $10,000 to create and present a work to screen in ACE’s front-facing windows.
Taylor’s work, The Last Age of the Falling Grace is pitched as “a meditation on our relationship with the land in the midst of the climate emergency”, and is now screening day and night.
Green Room is a regular column for InReview, providing quick news for people interested, or involved, in South Australian arts and culture. Get in touch by emailing us at [email protected]
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