An Ace time in Adelaide
Picture by @ox_andri
The Act React team headed to the City of Churches in February to finally take “Speed: The Movie, The Play” to Adelaide Fringe!
This was a big operation for a small independent company, but Adelaide Fringe is Australia’s biggest arts festival, the second-largest Fringe festival in the world (after Edinburgh Festival Fringe), and has been on our bucket list for many years. We were raring to go!
We were fortunate to partner with Gluttony, which runs a beautiful hub at Rymill Park/Murlawirrapurka. We also joined forces with the Bus Preservation Association of South Australia to use their vintage 1977 Volvo B59 bus. Fun fact: we actually designed the show on a Volvo B59 in Brisbane - they were predominantly an Adelaide bus, but one had made its way to Queensland at the end of its life and became property of our friends the Queensland Omnibus and Coach Society.
There are always challenges with an interstate festival, such as sourcing and constructing so many of our required props and configuring a new site setup. But the team of actors - who also double as builders - once again pulled together to do a fantastic job. The bus looked gorgeous in its lakeside setting.
Our 2022 shows were often plagued by rain, but Adelaide’s climate stayed wonderfully dry for the most part. Our only weather hiccup came in the first week, with a scorching heat wave almost bringing the city to a halt. We ended up cancelling two shows because it just wasn’t fair to put audiences and our crew onto an oven-like bus in full afternoon sun at 40 degrees!
Thankfully a cool change arrived, and we started getting good word of mouth around the festival. Our shows began selling out, which is always wonderful. Given we can only seat 42 people per show, we have to run as many shows as we can to try to recoup costs. The cast once again deserve hearty credit for their stamina and enthusiasm.
Picture by @ox_andri
Thanks to everyone who came out to see the show in Adelaide. We hope the opportunity to put the show in front of many industry representatives boosts even more life into our “flagbus” show!.
And of course, a big high five to our cast: Daren King, Gregory Rowbotham, Ellen Hardisty, Simon Chugg, Chris Batkin, Natalie Bochenski, Simon Chugg and Matt Luchterhand. What a team!
