Stephen Sondhiem’s Into the Woods is a dark, musical look at fairytales, the happy ending of familiar stories turned on their head. Artist Olga Cironis says her latest exhibition Into the Woods Alone draws on similar themes as she comes to grips with her identity as a Czech/Greek/Australian. “Fairytales are one way of dealing with life…this…

“I Wander lonely as a cloud” and a limerick about eating peas with honey “because it keeps them on the knife” is about the extent of my poetry. If I’d been exposed earlier to the biting wit of West Perth local Helen Child’s Barbie Doesn’t Fart as a teenager I’m sure things would have been…

After 30 years WAAPA’s head of acting Chris Edmund will take a final bow. In his time at the Mount Lawley school he’s trained Hugh Jackman (Wolverine), William McInnes (Look Both Ways), Dominic Purcell (Prison Break) and Jai Courtney (Die Hard V). He says it’s great to drive through Los Angeles and see WAAPA graduates…

A photo taken by his grandfather 50 years ago helped North Perth’s Joshua Rampling win the student category in this year’s Iris Awards. The 29-year-old came across the picture of two young lads riding horses on a farm in Mingenew, while looking through a box of old slides at his mum’s. The boys are Rampling’s…

Just when you thought every last drop of green blood had been squeezed out of the zombie genre, along comes Michael Logan with Apocalypse Cow (Forget the cud, they want blood…). The novel’s a satire about cattle transformed into human-eating zombies, after a secret government bio-weapon goes awry. As Britain descends into zombie chaos, ministers…

The last time film and stage veteran Robert Coleby acted with his son was more than 30 years ago. A baby was needed for an episode of Australian sci-fi series Timelapse and at six months, young Conrad fitted the bill. “I said yes, but he’s got to have a credit.” But when it comes to…

Maggie Baxter was saddened but not surprised by the death of more than 1000 Bangladeshi textile workers when a factory in Savar collapsed in April this year. The textile artist and former manchester manufacturer was aware some of fashion’s biggest names used factories which paid workers a pittance and crammed them into claustrophobic, dangerous sweatshops.…

SOME virtuoso guitarists indulge in musical masturbation—an endless flurry of scales and arpeggios that lull the crowd into an apathetic stupor. But Steve Vai has managed to bridge the gap between technique and melody with aplomb, keeping audiences entertained and challenged for more than 30 years. Via, 53, was the first virtuoso rock guitarist to…

Theatre is society’s political and social barometer says Ivan King. The veteran curator at His Majesty’s Museum of Performing Arts says it’s one of the reasons he’s so passionate about preserving and promoting WA’s theatrical history. People don’t think things happened in WA, he says, and he hopes the exhibition Comedy and Tragedy will change…

E.T. won hearts, while Alien terrified the bejeezers out of movie-goers. US citizens Betty and Barney Hill reported the world’s first alien abduction in 1961 and, since then, there’s been countless movies and stories of close encounters, many of the uncomfortable kind. The latest hits the stage with the world premiere of Australian playwright Lachlan…