Ben Apfelbaum

THE NEW THEATRE PROUDLY NINETY YEARS STRONG

Janey Stone of Interventions Publishing. Janey was also the emcee.
Lisa Milner Book Slgning
Lisa Milner New Theatre History Author & Editor 
‘My Forgotten Man & Brother Can You Spend A Dime’ Medley

‘Till The Day I Die’ by Clifford Odets Extract
New Theatre supporters

On the 18th October 2022 the New Theatre in Newtown had a double celebration. In the first place there was the launch of a book outlining the history of the New Theatre. The second event was the commemoration of the 90th anniversary of the New Theatre. 

A full house heard about the history of the theatre and the book launch. Janey Stone was the emcee and publisher of the book under the imprint entitled Interventions. President of the New Theatre Rosane McNamara stated that the New Theatre played an important role in the struggle to legitimatise radical thought, satire and dissent on the Australian stage. As a result of bringing theatre to working class audiences and highlighting the importance of women they were frequently raided by ASIO or the police. 

The New Theatre history was edited by Lisa Milner whereupon she outlined what a pleasure it was in sourcing rare photographs and personal testimonies from those that participated in guiding the New Theatre with its motto PLAYS WITH A PURPOSE.

Laura Ginters, a contributor, pointed out that, in fact, the New Theatre was not the oldest continuing theatre, but that down the road the Sydney University Dramatic Society was older having formed in the 1880’s. 

The audience was further entertained by a song medley comprising of ‘My Forgotten Man’ and ‘Brother Can You Spare A Dime’.

There was also a play reading with an extract from ‘The Day I Die’ by Clifford Odets.

After the formal proceedings, to the pleasure of organisers there was a brisk sale of the history book, happily signed by Lisa Milner. 

The evening was given more meaning because it was heard in the presence of Norma Disher- Hawkins, aged 100 years, one of the founding members of the New Theatre. 

http://www.newtheatre.org.au

Featured image. Lisa Milner, Laura Ginters, Janey Stone. Article and photos  by Ben Apfelbaum

Published by Ben Apfelbaum

My photography began when my father handed me the proverbial brownie box camera as a child. As cameras developed I went through Fujica and Olympus range finders graduating to my first single lens reflex camera, the Minolta SRT101, the latter being the greatest facilitator to my growth as a photographer. Digital photography has only added to this. I was a regular contributor to Camera Craft magazine (Australian Camera ) for over three years. During Australia’s Bicentennial year (1988) I made it a personal project to document the celebrations. This culminated in the creation of a book of my photos which was published in 1989. The book was called CELEBRATING AUSTRALIA and came with an accompanying calendar. My works have appeared in a number of publications including the coffee book entitled MY AUSTRALIA (1989), publisher Robertsbridge Severn. This book had a preface by the then Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke. I was a co-photographer on a book entitled SYDNEY- DISCOVER THE CITY with text written by Robert Treborlang. Major Mitchell Press was the publisher. Also for two years I was the photographer for calendars celebrating Sydney’s multicultural communities. The two calendars were entitled MULTICULTURAL SYDNEY. My work appeared in a group exhibition held at Sydney’s Town Hall pertaining to the diversity of life in South America to raise money for orphanages there. I have over one hundred photos stored in the New South Wales State Library archive. I had a solo exhibition held in 2007 entitled Ben’s Lens at the Sydney Jewish Museum which celebrated the vibrancy of the Sydney Jewish community. Some of these photos are on the Museum’s permanent display. I have exhibited internationally firstly at the Spruill Gallery in Atlanta Georgia, United States, and in an exhibition entitled Kosher and Co at the Jewish Museum in Berlin. Currently I am a regular contributor to J-Wire and this esteemed publication. To celebrate the opening of a permanent Photography Gallery, the State Library of New South Wales selected 400 shots from its archive of over 2,000,000 images to display in the new gallery. An image of mine was plucked out of the multi million photo archive to be part of the inaugural exhibition.