Program Notes

Artistic Director Notes: Katherine Quigley 

It has been a wild journey to arrive at the place where we are today. Backbone started developing this musical in 2018, with a group of young people, Jeremy Neale and writer, Daniel Evans. I was interested in creating a musical that reflected the lives of young people in Brisbane, their relationship to each other and most importantly - their relationship to the internet. 

We learned a lot from these initial conversations. Due to unforeseen circumstances Dan handed the baton on to David Stewart, but not before imparting some valuable insights about creating musicals, which, we had never done before, mostly because we don’t like them. David took these conversations and interviews that we conducted with young people and put a signature spin on it - a distorted, made-for-TV-movie vibe that only a millennial can muster. With his own schedule crunching, but the basics of an idea sketched out, we presented these initial ideas and songs at La Boite HWY 2019 (with Sarah Stafford, Bianca Zouppas, James Halloran and Stephen Quinn) then travelled across the seas to share our strange blend of comedy and pop with our peers in the UK at the Battersea Arts Centre’s Homegrown Festival. 

Returning from these developments and realising that David’s schedule was not improving soon, we thought maybe we had reached the end of the show. This is why Co-Star recommends you must always have a Virgo on the team. Sampson Smith, who had been involved in every stage of the development as an enthusiastic staff member and performance making obsessive, stepped up to the challenge of navigating the musical through to the very end. We are so very glad that they did. 

So tonight you are witnessing the outcome of a long collaboration with Backbone and Jeremy, and the conversations we hear and have had with young people in Brisbane - and London - about the world they are living in, their love for the internet, and the strange times they are witness to. Most importantly you are witnessing what happens when young artists are supported to create something new, on their own terms. I get to witness it on a daily basis, so I hope you enjoy and relish the opportunity tonight.

We are more than appreciative of the support we have received from Arts Queensland, The Australia Council for the Arts and Brisbane City Council to create this work, and we very much hope that you enjoy what we have created. 

Thank you also to the many people who have contributed to making this show. 

Writer & Director Notes: Sampson Smith 

Absolute Objectivity started with a simple idea: write a love letter to the internet. What I feel we’ve also created along the way is The Internet’s love letter back to each of us; the people who make the internet what it is. Through this show, I wanted to put a human face to this tool that we use every day. So we can look them in the eye and be held accountable to something other than our own individualism, aesthetics and show reels. And what can we do with such heavy questions, except for laugh, dance and sing through them together?

Writing and directing this piece has felt like falling down a deep and beautiful click hole created in the negative space between everyones memories, stories and experiences. To put these ideas on stage in such curious times has been delightful, although at times pretty horrifying. I hope there’s many tangents Absolute Objectivity takes you on tonight, and maybe even for quite some time to come. 

To do this all with Jeremy and such a dedicated cast and crew has been the stuff of dreams. I thank each of them for their immense hard work in creating Absolute Objectivity, and the fact this has all come to life in a bowls club is testament to the whole team’s creativity, drive, and commitment. To many, many more.

Tl;dr thank you for coming, I hope you take something from this that you need. Or don’t, up to you.