Writer Matt Bostock
Director & Producer Tiffany Wong
Sound Designer Prema Yin
Set Designer Aloma Barnes
Costume Designer Rachel Pui Hui Yan
Lighting Realiser Mehran Mortezai
Dramaturg Ness Roque
Stage Manager Alex Liang
Production Assistant & Operator Liana Molina
Assistant Producer – Production James Lau
Assistant Producer – Marketing Clara Wong

with Andrea Magpulong, Sayuri Narroway, Monica Russell, Dominique Purdue and Joseph Tanti

Location Meraki Arts Bar
231 Oxford Street, Darlinghurst

Previews 18 May
Season 20 May – 3 June
Tuesday-Saturday
Show Times 7:30 pm

Approximate Running Time 90 minutes

Content warnings References to sexual assault, abuse and self-harm. Overt depictions of violence including sexual violence and racial violence, racism and racial slurs, sexism and coarse language.

Please note: Meraki Arts Bar may not be an accessible venue to some patrons as it does not have a lift or air conditioning. 

–

When the industry gets in the way of the story, how far would you bend?

Synopsis After two successful years of producing Australian premieres of published work, Slanted Theatre moves to support local emerging talent with the presentation of Short Blanket by emerging playwright, Matt Bostock. As part of Meraki Arts Bar’s inaugural season, this new play is about a playwright’s big break, which comes with unforeseen strings attached. 

Set in Australia, the play follows the story of Lainey, an emerging Filipinx writer, who is finally given her big break. However, with production resting on an industry showing, Lainey has to learn the difference between telling a good story, and putting on a good show. Fresh off of an acclaimed season in indie theatre, Lainey is given a chance to tell her story on the mainstage. However, due to concerns of ‘alienating their audience’, the show will only be made on the condition that they hold a successful development and showing of the work. From there and throughout, Lainey and the crew wrestle with balancing what they want to say, with what people want to see. Short Blanket is a searing examination of tokenisation, representation, and the ethics of selling stories in places that are seemingly never ready for them.

Slanted Theatre brings its first staged production of a new work. Playwright, Matt Bostock is a recent graduate of NIDA MFA’s writing program and the work will be directed by the founder of Slanted Theatre, Tiffany Wong 黃寶珠, who leads a team of (almost) all Asian-Australian theatre-makers (and their first token Caucasian male actor) to tell this thought-provoking work questioning who makes the stories we get to tell?