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	<title>Politics &#8211; Kathryn Ash Dramaturgy</title>
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	<link>https://kathryn-ash.com</link>
	<description>Tell your Story. Really Well.</description>
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		<title>The Writer&#8217;s Fest (The Axe That Smashes the Frozen Sea Within)</title>
		<link>https://kathryn-ash.com/the-writers-fest-the-axe-that-smashes-the-frozen-sea-within/</link>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kathryn Ash]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 27 Aug 2018 04:35:11 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Theatre]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Writing]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://kathryn-ash.com/?p=6674</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[The biennial Tropical Writer&#8217;s Festival was held the other weekend in Cairns amid a great wrangle of words, bruised keyboards and wriggling pens. After Richard Flanagan&#8217;s recent blistering article regarding the recent bothersome nature of &#8216;safe&#8217; Australian Writer&#8217;s Festivals, we were bracing for a few more verbal assaults on the topic of writers actually having an opinion at a writer&#8217;s festival. There was some keen debate, for sure. And so there should be. But as forums for public debate and discussion vanish throughout the country, &#8230; the importance of community events like writers’ festivals only grows in importance. They should not answer either to the]]></description>
		
		
		
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		<title>Meet. This. Cultural. Moment.</title>
		<link>https://kathryn-ash.com/meet-this-cultural-moment/</link>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kathryn Ash]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Tue, 31 Oct 2017 01:36:15 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Playwriting]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://kathryn-ash.com/?p=6512</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[&#160; The word theatre comes from the Greeks. It means the seeing place. It is the place people come to see the truth about life and the social situation. — Stella Adler I was reading an article about the 2014 film &#8220;Selma&#8221;, a Black rights film. The director was saying that the release of his film could not have been more timely, with the latest round of civil unrest regarding violence against black people in America. The Black Lives Matter movement had by then caught the attention of American and world media. He did not claim to have designed the film to coincide with the tumult,]]></description>
		
		
		
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		<title>So, this is Christmas&#8230;.</title>
		<link>https://kathryn-ash.com/so-this-is-christmas/</link>
					<comments>https://kathryn-ash.com/so-this-is-christmas/#respond</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kathryn Ash]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Tue, 20 Dec 2016 01:28:19 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Dramaturgy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://kathryn-ash.com/?p=3908</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[&#160; So, this is Christmas&#8230;. and what have you done?  Never was there penned a more loaded line in a Christmas song. John Lennon and Yoko Ono knew the gravity of the line, having written it in 1971, at the height of a dreadful and intractable war in Vietnam, and after years of political activism to encourage peace. That opening line is an interrogation of our personal morals that stands true and straight today, enough to bring stinging tears to my eyes the very second I hear them. As Christmas songs go,  Baby It&#8217;s Cold Outside, it ain&#8217;t. What have you done? the song asks. It falls just]]></description>
		
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		<title>Inclusivity and Excellence</title>
		<link>https://kathryn-ash.com/inclusivity-and-excellence/</link>
					<comments>https://kathryn-ash.com/inclusivity-and-excellence/#respond</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kathryn Ash]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 12 Dec 2016 06:40:39 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Dramaturgy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://kathryn-ash.com/?p=3251</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[There is a drive toward &#8220;Excellence in the Arts&#8221;, and there probably should be. I do find the phrase slightly bothersome though.  It&#8217;s just that &#8216;excellence&#8217; in creative expression is utterly relative and subjective.   You could go to the best opera with the best opera singers in the best opera house in your best opera frock or suit, expecting &#8216;Excellence with a capital E from Art with a capital A&#8217;, and yet walk away feeling empty and unmoved.  You could go to a community project with all kinds of &#8216;non-excellent&#8217; theatre practice going on, yet be moved to tears and uplifted to heaven. So]]></description>
		
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		<title>Belarus Free Theatre and What&#8217;s The Point?</title>
		<link>https://kathryn-ash.com/belarus-free-theatre-and-whats-the-point/</link>
					<comments>https://kathryn-ash.com/belarus-free-theatre-and-whats-the-point/#respond</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kathryn Ash]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 02 Dec 2016 01:15:24 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Plays]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Playwriting]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://kathryn-ash.com/?p=2565</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[I know most of you all want to write something insightful, stirring, meaningful, and gobsmackingly clever and on point. But what if what you wrote got you into trouble. Serious trouble. Like dead. &#160; Belarus. The Republic of. You know. To the left of Poland. To the right of Russia. Don&#8217;t worry I had to check a map in order to write that. It&#8217;s a smallish land-locked country population 9.5 million who like a bit of potato and cabbage. It&#8217;s dotted with picturesque farmlands and ancient castles. It&#8217;s got all the charm and history of a classic European state.  It&#8217;s also what the US calls]]></description>
		
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		<title>Whose Story is It Anyway?</title>
		<link>https://kathryn-ash.com/whose-story-is-it-anyway/</link>
					<comments>https://kathryn-ash.com/whose-story-is-it-anyway/#respond</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kathryn Ash]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 01 Dec 2016 01:33:22 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Dramaturgy]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://kathryn-ash.com/?p=2391</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[Writers are bower birds, so watch out what you say around them!  We&#8217;ll pick up on any old event or situation you name and immediately start plotting a story. We often find ourselves telling stories about the experiences of other people.  But hold on. Some stories are not yours to tell. There is a controversial TV show running in Australia currently. It&#8217;s called First Contact, essentially a reality TV program masquerading as a hard-hitting documentary, wherein a group of six &#8216;white&#8217; Australians are taken on a tour of several indigenous communities (including a prison community) to confront them with the reality of indigenous peoples&#8217; past and present]]></description>
		
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		<title>Incredible marks on a page.</title>
		<link>https://kathryn-ash.com/incredible-marks-on-a-page/</link>
					<comments>https://kathryn-ash.com/incredible-marks-on-a-page/#respond</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kathryn Ash]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 30 Nov 2016 00:52:16 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Dramaturgy]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Plays]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Playwriting]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://kathryn-ash.com/?p=2261</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[What&#8217;s it all for? Writing. Why do you write anything? What&#8217;s the compulsion? Do you understand the act of writing?  Are you conscious of the gift? I take for granted the act of writing. I neglect the joy of having been taught to read. As a writer, I just do what I do and I don&#8217;t think enough about the tools I&#8217;ve been given. I&#8217;m using tools to put marks on a page. The marks have sounds. The marks have meaning. The marks make up a letter, a word, a sentence, an idea, a story, part of a culture, part of an existence, part of a]]></description>
		
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		<item>
		<title>Them&#8217;s Fighting Words</title>
		<link>https://kathryn-ash.com/thems-fighting-words/</link>
					<comments>https://kathryn-ash.com/thems-fighting-words/#respond</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kathryn Ash]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sun, 27 Nov 2016 10:17:55 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Dramaturgy]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://kathryn-ash.com/?p=1959</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[Who the hell are you as a writer?  What do you stand up for?  When you hear of evil and see evil, do you speak of it?  Where&#8217;s them fighting words? What you got? In 1996, Filipino playwright Paul Dumol, who was famously accused of sedition in his plays, and suffered persecution by his own government because of it, once pointedly looked at me as the only Western face in one of his workshops, and asked a very good question: what on earth do playwrights write about in the West? The question is one that has bugged me ever since. He wasn&#8217;t trying to be funny.]]></description>
		
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		<title>Stop reading. Stop looking.</title>
		<link>https://kathryn-ash.com/stop-reading-stop-looking/</link>
					<comments>https://kathryn-ash.com/stop-reading-stop-looking/#respond</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kathryn Ash]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sat, 26 Nov 2016 05:18:31 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Dramaturgy]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://kathryn-ash.com/?p=1802</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[Look. A piece of Art. How amazing! Yeah, I&#8217;m keeping up with my artform. I liked it, click that thumbs-up icon.  Click, it&#8217;s off my list. Next!  Oh, come on! Really? Back it up. &#160; If you want to be a playwright, read scripts and go see plays performed. If you&#8217;re going to be a screenwriter, get in and read screenplays and view films. Etc. etc. blah, blah, blah. We&#8217;ve all heard this before, right?  This advice is so old it needs a Zimmer frame and daytime pyjamas. But I don&#8217;t often hear this advice being offered, and it is the most critical of all. Don&#8217;t just]]></description>
		
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		<title>Crusty But Benign</title>
		<link>https://kathryn-ash.com/crusty-but-benign-2/</link>
					<comments>https://kathryn-ash.com/crusty-but-benign-2/#respond</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kathryn Ash]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 23 Nov 2016 23:39:45 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Dramaturgy]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://kathryn-ash.com/?p=1610</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[It&#8217;s Modern Family&#8217;s Jay Pritchett.  It&#8217;s Star Trek&#8217;s Doctor McCoy.  It&#8217;s Orange Is The New Black&#8217;s Galina &#8220;Red&#8221; Reznikov.  It&#8217;s a Hollywood (and small screen) staple, and some might conclude a complete cliche. Yet the &#8216;crusty but benign&#8217; character, forever firing off conflicting messages of love and disdain, has something to tell us writers. A long time ago a mentor of mine made a simple suggestion. She asked me to describe the characters in the play I was working on in ways that added contradiction. She encouraged me to write something like this in the character list at the top of the play: Cynthia, loyal and dutiful,]]></description>
		
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