Green Room: MUD Literary Prize shortlist, musical news, and World Cup trauma
SA arts & culture news in brief.
MUD Literary Prize shortlist
The MUD Club, Adelaide’s secret society of literary-minded philanthropists have revealed the four shortlisted entries for the 2025 MUD Literary Prize, which each year slings a tidy $10,000 towards the best debut novel of the previous 12 months. Past winners have included Pip Williams’ Dictionary of Lost Words, Trent Dalton’s Boy Swallows Universe, and Kylie Needham’s Girl in a Pink Dress.
Picked from a pool of 31 submissions, this year’s finalists include The Degenerates by Raden Richardson, Translations by Jumaana Abdu, Why do horses run? by Cameron Stewart, and The end and everything before it by Adelaide-based playwright turned novelist Finegan Kruckemeyer
The winner will be announced in the lead-up to Adelaide Writers’ Week, before a public presentation as part of the festival on Monday March 3. Judges for this year’s prize included Adelaide Writers’ Week director Louise Adler and Writers SA director Laura Kroetsch alongside a number of MUD-affiliated literati.
As a side-note, InReview can reveal what MUD actually stands for: ‘Mates of the Under-Dog’, in recognition of its origins as an effort to support the literary and tourism sectors of Bali in the aftermath of the 2002 bombing. Those efforts have since culminated in the now long-running Ubud Writers & Readers Festival — sometimes it’s a good thing when mud sticks.
Yes to No Love Songs
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After a string of cancelled musicals, the Adelaide Festival Centre has announced dates for its next touring musical, No Love Songs. Written by Scottish singer/songwriter Kyle Falconer, best known as frontman of the indie sleaze-era rock outfit The View, the musical premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2023 before a recently concluded off-Broadway season.
This Australian production will star Lucy Maunder, most recently seen in Chicago and Mary Poppins, and Keegan Joyce, star of television’s Rake and Please Like Me.
Maunder tells InReview she’s looking forward to serving up an alternative to the big, established Broadway hits:
“It’s such a privilege to be able to present a new work to Australian audiences. We don’t often get the opportunity to do so here because we’re recreating a show by numbers that has been done before on Broadway or in London. Championing new work is super important especially when it’s a work like No Love Songs that tackles a lot of issues that other shows wouldn’t.”
The show will hit Adelaide from May 21 – June 1, with tickets on sale from February 6.
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Speaking of big Broadway shows, looking further down the schedule Andrew Lloyd Webber’s CATS will return to Adelaide in September for a season at Her Majesty’s Theatre.
The last few years haven’t been kind to the Jellicles following a widely-panned 2019 screen adaptation, but fans of the original stage production can rest assured that the questionable computer-generated fur will be left on the silver screen.
The tour, incidentally, marks the musical’s 40th anniversary — in cat years, it’s a miracle the centenarian Grizabella, Rum Tum Tugger and even Old Deuteronomy can make it onto the stage at all. Pounce on the waitlist here.
Rum Tum Tugger and the international touring company of CATS. Photo: Alessandro Pinna / Supplied
ADT welcomes new EP
Australian Dance Theatre has recruited Viviana Sacchero to serve as executive producer, overseeing the company’s growing dance card of touring and public programs.
Sacchero arrives from a ten-year stint at The Australian Ballet, having also lectured at Deakin University and served as Deputy Chair of Dancehouse. Part of the new role includes leading LOFT, a new space for independent dance artists backed by ADT and Arts South Australia, due to launch later this year.
“Viviana has dedicated her career to dance,” ADT executive director Nick Hays says. “And has an incredible knowledge of the industry from all sides. Having worked as a performer, teacher, maker, administrator, producer , and programmer.”
Adelaide band lands booking agent deal
In some welcome news for South Australian music, local post punk outfit Coldwave have signed to US-based booking agency Ground Control Touring, home to Kurt Vile, Kim Gordon, Waxahatchee, and Title Fight.
The six-piece is about to release a new double A-side The Ants / Italia, produced by 2024 AIR Independent Producer of the Year Bonnie Knight (Amyl & the Sniffers, Angie McMahon). Apparently, the latter track is a callback to the devastation of the 2006 World Cup, when a penalty kick wrongfully awarded to Italy saw Australia eliminated from the competition. We look forward to seeing the newly signed Coldwave educate audiences around the world about this historic injustice.
Green Room is a regular column for InReview, providing quick news for people interested, or involved, in South Australian arts and culture. Get in touch by emailing us at [email protected]