Australia Council Funding Drives New Commissions for Brisbane Powerhouse.

The Valley Burns and GBH: Gonzo Bangkok Holiday are two brand new Queensland driven projects partly financed through the Australia Council’s Creative Australian Music Grant.

The Valley Burns, collaboration by renowned Brisbanites writer Matt Condon (Three Crooked Kings) and Ed Kuepper (The Saints), is about the ‘last days of Brisbane’s Wild West’, says Kris Stewart, the Artistic Director of the Brisbane Powerhouse. Based in the Bjelke-Petersen era the story follows the rise of the music scene in Fortitude Valley set against the corruption and organised crime of the then police state.

GBH: Gonzo Bangkok Holiday is part truth and part fiction; Fear and Loathing as cabaret. A fish-out-of-water story that sees three Brisbane girls (Julia Rose-Lewis, Kat Henry and Gillian Cosgriff) head to the heart of Bangkok’s red-light district and deliver their experiences as an absolutely unreliable narrative. “It’s a fish-out-of-water story, but there’s also more weight to it regarding what it means to live in a privileged country at this moment in history.”

The announcement of the new works comes as Kris Stewart rounds out his first twelve months as Artistic Director of the Brisbane Powerhouse.

“We’ve made a really big commitment to making work in Brisbane; it’s about being involved from the initial stages, all the way through to the end product and our audiences love that,” says Stewart of the new commissions.

Both new works will appear at the Brisbane Powerhouse as part of their 2016 program.