4 & 11-12 October 2019

As a fledgling Theatre company and artist-run collective, Rumpus is dedicated to bumping up the small-to-mid-size theatre scene here in Adelaide.

One of the ways they’re doing this is with their Baby Plays, a “creative development mini-season,” co-founder Rebecca mayo tells us, which is happening at the Bowden Rumpus venue on 4 and 11-12 October.

Baby Plays is an invaluable opportunity for local artists, and will see two new plays will get a week of development, after which the artists will share what they’ve discovered at the end of the week with readings, performance snippets and lively discussion.

The two plays are Calendar Days by Peter Beaglehole, and Dead Gorgeous by  Ellen Graham and Jamie Hornsby.

“Calendar Days… it’s basically about the life of the gig economy, being a freelancer in the gig economy,” explains Rumpus co-founder Nescha Jelk.

“He’s got Ashton Malcolm, Antoine Jelk and Emma Beech working on that one.

“Dead Gorgeous… is [with] Ellen Graham and Jamie Hornsby, and they’ve got the mentorship of Hew Parham, who’s our local clowning expert. They were really interested in the fascination with true crime and murder stories, and they wanted to look at that from a clowning perspective,” she laughs. “Apply clown to that.”

Another great thing about Baby Plays is we know how much you, dear CityMag reader, love our local arts scene and you want to do whatever you can to support young artists, and Baby Plays is a very, very accessible way to do this.

All it will cost you is a gold coin donation on entry.

For more information on the show, see the Rumpus website. And for a tour of the rest of the Rumpus 2019 season, see CityMag‘s chat with Rebecca Mayo and Nescha Jelk.