From Melbourne’s edge to Adelaide’s stage: Petra Kalive on Theatre, community, and reinvention

Petra Kalive has been the Artistic Director and Co-CEO of the State Theatre Company of South Australia for astir a year but she’s still caller successful Adelaide.

“I’m new, I began successful February… ohio wait…it’s astir a year”.

Trading Melbourne’s acheronian borderline for the Adelaide sun

Kalive orders “an almond beverage level white” — an evident confession that Melbourne’s acheronian borderline has fixed way to Adelaide’s sunny comfort.

The Greek Australian from Melbourne, Kalive has built a substantial vocation successful theatre. The erstwhile Associate Director astatine Melbourne Theatre Company who has besides co-led Melbourne Playback Theatre Company, has directed mainstage and autarkic productions.

Adelaide, for each its politeness, is often wary of newcomers. “There’s a small spot of ‘Oh, you’re not from here,’ and there are some questions astir however “committed” she is to Adelaide she says. However, she is determined to meld into the city’s arts scene.

“I americium perfectly committed to working with the talent here,” she says.

Adelaide is celebrated for the Adelaide Festival and the Adelaide Fringe; however, the metropolis tin consciousness a small orphaned extracurricular festival season. Kalive will person nary of it and challenges the communicative of Adelaide arsenic a festival town only.

“Adelaide has an unthinkable theatre assemblage and dedicated theatregoers. They come, hellhole oregon precocious water—they’ve been seeing shows for decades and acquisition unthinkable work astatine the Adelaide Festival. That shapes however they prosecute with theatre each year.”

Getting ancient: theatre is for everyone

She admits that “there’s a portion of the assemblage that feels theatre isn’t for them” but says that’s crossed Australia. “They spell to the Fringe, and drama shows, but they don’t consciousness theatre is for them and I want to alteration that and supply entree to each people.”

Kalive says she is committed to breaking the view that theatre is for elites and points to Ancient Greece where theatre was for each citizens, and Shakespeare which was besides for each from the commoner to the aristocrat.

“There’s a scope of radical who think, ‘Theatre’s not for me; it’s for affluent people’ that’s not true, I cull that, theatre should beryllium for everybody. From my ain history, I judge there is simply a vibrant assemblage theatre assemblage here, conscionable similar successful Melbourne.”

From assemblage to large stages

Kalive’s directing credits are imposing, they span Sydney Theatre Company, Belvoir, and Arts Centre Melbourne. Her autarkic works—Taxithi, Oil Babies, and My Brilliant Career—have earned her captious praise. In 2023, she was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to study community-engaged theatre internationally.

Her Churchill Fellowship probe into assemblage engagement included pitching ideas to companies astir connecting with section communities. “Often the effect is, ‘Oh, that’s a large idea, Petra, but it’s too expensive, too hard, logistically too challenging.’ But there are models astir the world, and Australia has an unthinkable history,” Kalive says.

She constituent to however each our large theatres “grew from assemblage theatre groups”.

“The Melbourne Theatre Company came from the Tin Alley Players” a Melbourne University Graduates’ Dramatic Club inaugurated connected November 9, 1939.

The Malthouse she says, began arsenic Hoopla Productions—”people coming together, putting connected work, and processing audiences implicit time. Yet, she admits, sometime successful the 1990s, a part emerged betwixt work that spoke to the radical and work aimed astatine a caller arts elite.”

Classics reimagined and planetary connections

Kalive says she will ever prioritise talent and storytelling that reflects the afloat spectrum of taste diversity. She wants to recraft classics, and already has projects underway. Digging heavy into her ain culture, 1 task commissioned is simply a reimagining of Euripides’ Suppliant Women.

“I’m working with the Adelaide Festival and Vital Statistics connected a reimagining of Suppliants by Euripides, which is astir 50 daughters of Danaus fleeing forced marriages, seeking asylum and protection. It’s an eternal issue, arsenic applicable thousands of years agone arsenic it is today. These women are seeking asylum, displaced, forced to marry, trying to rebuild their lives—it feels very pertinent successful the discourse of today’s world.”

She observes that audiences are often unafraid of big-budget films, philharmonic theatre, oregon unrecorded comedy, but tin consciousness intimidated by unrecorded theatre. “The dynamic betwixt what audiences expect and what a large theatre institution delivers remains a challenge.”

Kalive besides wants to unfastened the Adelaide Festival Centre much afloat to the community. “I walked into that foyer and thought, ‘There indispensable beryllium radical here. They’re not going to consciousness comfy coming into the theatre if they don’t consciousness welcome successful the foyer.'”

Kalive besides wants to research planetary exchanges, and has an oculus connected Athens, the caller darling for modern performance.

“The prime of work successful Adelaide is of the highest order, and that means it should beryllium touring Australia and the world. I’m keen to research exchanges with Greece and globally.”

With her blend of vision, talent, and committedness to community, Petra Kalive seems poised to reshape theatre successful Adelaide—especially if Adelaide continues to warm to her, arsenic it seems to have.