{"id":3715,"date":"2025-10-08T17:59:36","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T07:29:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/?p=3715"},"modified":"2025-10-28T18:02:01","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T07:32:01","slug":"interview-david-mealor-and-flying-penguin-productions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/?p=3715","title":{"rendered":"Interview – David Mealor and Flying Penguin Productions"},"content":{"rendered":"

His newest production for the State Theatre Company, American Song<\/em> marks 20 years of David Mealor\u2019s Flying Penguin Productions. He looks back on his beginnings as a director, his collaborators, theatrical accomplishments, and might-have-beens.<\/p>\n

David Mealor remembers a conversation, with an actor friend in Sydney, way back at the beginning of the century. It was when he first said out loud to someone that he would like to take up directing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was because I would see myself as an actor in rehearsals thinking \u2013\u2018 I could direct this better than them. But I didn\u2019t have the courage of the people who were actually doing it!\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

So it prompted him to take steps. He approached Professor Julie Holledge with whom he had studied in the Flinders Uni Drama Centre acting group, graduating in 1994. He now wanted to audit her renowned directing class. After some negotiations she agreed and he sat in and watched her work for six months. It was also when he made connection with international designer Mary Moore and began to formulate ideas about staging and sets and how actors engage in them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat got interrupted\u201d Mealor recalls, \u201cbecause I went to Sydney to perform in Harold Pinter\u2019s The Caretaker<\/em> for Brink Productions. But I had decided to have a go at directing so I put in a grant application to Arts SA. I had my body of work as an actor\/producer. I was in the Brink ensemble so I had done maybe fifteen plays over six years. \u201c<\/p>\n

\u201cI had done a theoretical exploration of what it was like to direct a production and put in a request for inviting some actors into the rehearsal room. I wanted a perfect play \u2013 not one with problems to be solved \u2013 and I wanted the best actors so it wasn\u2019t an acting class.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe play I chose was Translations<\/em> by Irish writer Brian Friels. A friend recommended it. I read it and it was perfectly constructed. I wanted a play with a really large bullseye \u2013 so you can\u2019t get it wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

The workshops were interrupted by tragedy with the death of Mealor\u2019s father, but after a break he persisted. He describes the actors\u2019 patience and encouragement as they worked on specific scenes. The sessions went well and the actors readily affirmed that Mealor should pursue directing and the play should be staged the following year.<\/p>\n

It was a great success. Opening in September 2005 the Holden Street venue sold out and the production later travelled to Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne for a well-received second season.<\/p>\n

Flying Penguin Productions had found wings on the first outing. Mealor wryly describes how the name came about. Too self-effacing to call it \u201cDavid Mealor and Players\u201d and, because he had always been interested in penguins and their arduous lifestyle, he chose what he describes as a \u201csuitably inappropriate metaphor for setting up a theatre company \u2013 and the ridiculous aspiration of it all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aspirational it was \u2013 and inspirational as well. In response to the 20th<\/sup> anniversary, leading Adelaide actors have declared their debt to the company\u2019s work. Writer, director and high-profile performer Elena Carapetis credits her role as Maire in Translations<\/em> as the springboard to becoming a regular with State Theatre Company SA. Mark Saturno says of his casting in Glengarry Glen<\/em> Ross<\/em> \u2013 \u201cHere was an iconic role in an iconic play that I would not get to play anywhere else in the world, and yet here was Flying Penguin giving me the chance I had coveted since drama school.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to an extensive list of freelance and actor training productions, David Mealor has launched fifteen productions for the Penguins. Following their impressive 2005 debut he followed in 2007 with two very contrasting choices \u2013 Pinter\u2019s The Birthday Party<\/em> featuring Rick Allert, Rory Walker, Ksenja Logos, Carmel Johnson and UK actor Gerrard McArthur, and Assassins<\/em>, Stephen Sondheim\u2019s mordant musical recounting the murders of a cavalcade of US Presidents<\/p>\n

The Birthday Party<\/em>, with a brilliant pared-back design by Mary Moore is deemed by Mealor himself as one of his best. It garnered a string of awards from the Critics Circle to the Sunday Mail and Advertiser and further established the company\u2019s reputation for meticulous and vivid theatre.<\/p>\n

Assassins<\/em>, was chosen partly to demonstrate the range of genres and styles he hoped to traverse- \u201cIf I could do Assassins<\/em> I could try anything.\u201d It had been on Mealor\u2019s wish-list since he studied it as student with Professor Michael Morley at Flinders. Matthew Carey provided musical guidance for the production with assistance from Morley.<\/p>\n

There was a strong bunch of performers- the late Peter Michell, Cameron Goodall, Michaela Cantwell, Geoff Revell, Chris Matters, Syd Brisbane, Stephen Sheehan and more. Mealor recalls- \u201cbeing in that rehearsal room was one of the greatest things I\u2019ve been involved with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Intermittently, over the years, more productions followed. True West<\/em> by Sam Shepard, a blackly comic study of two brothers, which introduced Renato Musolino, a frequent collaborator of Mealor\u2019s who also featured in Simon Stephens\u2019s Sea Wall<\/em> (which had successful seasons in 2018 and 2021) and returns this month as the solo performer in Joanna Murray-Smith\u2019s American Song.<\/em><\/p>\n

Two productions \u2013 David Harrower\u2019s Blackbird<\/em> (2010) and David Mamet\u2019s Oleanna<\/em> (2022) demonstrated Mealor\u2019s astute casting and careful presentation of controversial, transgressive material and vindicated his exacting process.<\/p>\n

Similarly, the extraordinary production of Mamet\u2019s Glengarry Glen Ross<\/em> brought together some of the best actors in Adelaide to re-examine a play about a group of predatory salesmen locked in never-ending rivalry and ultimately, self-doubt.<\/p>\n

The acting Mealor describes as a celebration of Adelaide talent. Splendidly designed by Kathryn Sproul, it featured Mark Saturno, Chris Pitman, Nicholas Garsden and, together again for the first time since The Birthday Party<\/em>, Rory Walker and Bill Allert<\/p>\n

Mealor, who admits he is often unsure about texts on first reading, went back five times before finally deciding he \u201cunderstood that play\u201d. Realising that \u201cwe have all got older\u201d he invited the actors, some he hadn\u2019t worked with for sixteen years, to the project. \u201cThat production had not one moment of stress\u201d he recalls.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things I\u2019m best at,\u201d he quietly notes, \u201cis being able to predict what actors can do, and what they may think they can\u2019t do, but I know they will. I\u2019ve never conducted auditions for actors. I just offer them the role and that has worked. One of the good things about Adelaide is that you know all the actors and I am choosing plays because I know the pool of actors that can do them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perpetually ready to learn and develop, Mealor has always fostered collaborations with the best available. Whether developing design principles from Mary Moore, Gaelle Mellis and Kathryn Sproul, lighting possibilities from Geoff Cobham, Mark Pennington, Chris Petrides and Nic Mollison, or theatre music from The Audreys and Quentin Grant, his attention to every part of the production is evident in the finished work.<\/p>\n

His process, which has not deviated from Translations<\/em>, is to do what is hardest in theatre, and that is to take the necessary time to read, research and ponder. He insists on separating the preparation rehearsal from the imperatives of opening night.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout that deadline focus you can say to the actors – keep talking . I\u2019ve found that this way you can make exponential progress, you get a collective production. People share stories and get to understand the play. They learn to fall in love with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the latest Flying Penguin production for State Theatre\u2019s Stateside program Mealor has chosen a monologue by eminent Australian playwright Joanna Murray-Smith. \u201cI said to Renato \u2013 I\u2019m getting itchy. Are you ? What can we do? \u201c<\/p>\n

American Song<\/em> was commissioned by a community theatre company in Milwaukee and first performed in 2016. It draws its title from the poet, Walt Whitman\u2019s magnificently bardic \u201cI Hear America Singing\u201d from his innovative classic Leaves of Grass<\/em> (1855) – but it speaks to a troubled present.<\/p>\n

Drawing on accounts from the Columbine school shooting in Colorado in 1999, American Song<\/em> is narrated by Andy, a forty-something parent who bids goodbye to his son in the morning and, eight hours later, everything in his world has changed. Renato Musolino features, with design by Kathryn Sproul, lighting and AV by Nic Mollison, and music and sound design by Quentin Grant.<\/p>\n

Mealor has always been interested in US history and culture even though he has never been there. He cites the criticism of Lars Van Trier\u2019s film series Dogville<\/em> for a similar reason . The filmmaker\u2019s reply- \u201cI eat hamburgers, I know America\u201d. But as Murray-Smith\u2019s play (updated to incorporate some aspects of Trump 2.0) observes: the crisis is, we thought we knew America \u2013 and now we don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

In conclusion, I asked David Mealor if he feels proud of his 20 year project and his reply is the mixed one of someone unused to pumping up his own tyres.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do when I\u2019m reminded I should be, but there is so much more I wished and hoped I\u2019d done. Fifteen shows . If I\u2019d had the money I\u2019d do seven shows a year. After Translations<\/em> I applied for support to set up an ensemble company but the type of work I do wasn\u2019t what people wanted to fund. And I think I have known that all along.\u201d<\/p>\n

That David Mealor has produced such high calibre work in this extended, precarious period of under-funded theatre and over-engineered cultural policy directives, has meant that artists like him, and there are many, have hugely subsidised their own work, and often at personal cost to their well-being.<\/p>\n

It is also an irony that the largest grant allocations Mealor has received have been for developing new works that for various reasons have never reached production. The case for a professional repertory company performing already proven recent plays is stronger than ever.<\/p>\n

The very existence of Flying Penguin Productions says they are true to their quixotic name. We can only hope that on the basis of an outstanding record of professional work and perceptive programming that more secure funding support could put breeze under their wings for more time to come.<\/p>\n

American Song<\/em> will perform from October 24 to November 2 at the Goodwood Main Theatre, Goodwood Road.<\/p>\n

Published in InReview in edited form on October 16, 2025.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.indailysa.com.au\/inreview\/theatre\/2025\/10\/16\/flying-penguin-turns-ridiculous-aspirations-into-two-decades-of-compelling-local-theatre<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

His newest production for the State Theatre Company, American Song marks 20 years of David Mealor\u2019s Flying Penguin Productions. He looks back on his beginnings as a director, his collaborators, theatrical accomplishments, and might-have-beens. David Mealor remembers a conversation, with an actor friend in Sydney, way back at the beginning of the century. It was when he first said out loud to someone that he would like to take up directing. \u201cIt was because I would see myself as an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47,17,5,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-47","category-adelaide-companies","category-archive","category-theatre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3715"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3717,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3715\/revisions\/3717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}