A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…
So, that’s not strictly true. Wordplay actually had its origins in Collingwood, late 2006, where Dr. Cameron Jones and Mr. Steve Smart came up with the idea for a monthly multi-arts gig. Steve assembled a spoken word line-up including Chicago slam poet Molly Meacham, Geoff Lemon, Ben Pobjie and Crazy Elf. The gig went ahead that December at Cam’s bar on Smith Street, Blue Velvet. Despite the show going well, Steve promptly fled to Berlin, but asked Geoff to look after it in his absence. Over the next couple of shows, it became clear that the spoken word aspect was the strength of the gig, and it evolved into a straight spoken word night.
Very early on, though, we decided we wanted to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. We didn’t want to end up as another niche poetry reading where fifteen people show up for a night of polite applause. As poets, those gigs are big parts of our lives. But we thought that there were enough of them already. If we were going to develop another show, it had to be something new. It had to demand to be invented. We also decided to make a hard rule that there’d be no open mic of any kind, ever. Both of our careers started out on open mics, and they’re an important development tool. But you can’t regulate the quality of open mics, so you can’t pitch them to an audience as entertainment. Open mics gigs exist for the readers; we wanted one that existed for the crowd. We didn’t want to be developing new talents, we wanted to be exhibiting the best ones we already had.
And we wanted variety. So we tried to find as broad a mix as we could. The only criteria were being aweseome, and using words. So aside from poets and spoken word artists we went for comedians, rappers, storytellers, actors, even the odd muso. Anyone who could stand up there and command a room for fifteen minutes. We kept the sets short, kept things punctual, kept the quality high, kept the balance right, and then got out there on the streets and begged people to come.
And they did. For two straight years, we packed out Blue Velvet nearly every time. The room could only comfortably hold 40, and could take 60 if it got cosy. Some gigs we had up to 80 people jammed in there, and trailing down the stairs and out the door. The atmosphere of so many people in such a small space was electric. The line-ups kept getting better, and the crowd reactions did too. Word of mouth got around. People started turning up who we’d never met before. (For a poetry night, this is a really big deal.) The best part was, people were really enjoying it. We’d book poets who we knew could entertain a crowd, and they would deliver. So many people would approach us afterwards to confess that they hadn’t been expecting to enjoy themselves, but that they’d loved it. We were achieving the three things we really wanted to: proving that good poetry is entertaining, proving that good hip-hop is poetry, and just putting on a really good show that anyone could turn up and enjoy. Hearing a mostly 20-something crowd whooping and cheering eminent poets like Chris Wallace-Crabbe or Judith Rodriguez is hilarious and wonderful and extremely validating. Pairing Chris with MC Elf Tranzporter, or Kevin Brophy with TZU’s Joelistics, is equally fun and rewarding. There is truly no other show where you can see anything like it.
By the end of 2007 we knew we needed a venue change. We were already operating at absolute capacity, and we were about to get a huge promotional campaign courtesy of the Australia Council. They funded 13 000 copies of a Wordplay Mini-Magazine to be distributed Australia-wide, and paid for the website you’re standing on right now. We moved to the Dan O’Connell, Melbourne’s most supportive venue for poetry. The move came at just the right time. Since then we’ve had crowds of up to 160 – twice as many as we could possibly have fitted in before. The show is just as fun as ever, the calibre of the artists involved is genuinely exciting, and these days, we don’t know two-thirds of the people in the room. People know that Wordplay will be a good night out, and they know that every month they can trust us to deliver.
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Timeline
Take a look back at all our past line-ups.
Wordplay #33 – Best of ’09 Wrap and Last Wordplay Ever – December 10 2009
Mantra
Eleanor Jackson
Robin Archbold (NSW)
Briohny Doyle
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Wordplay #32 – November 12 2009
Celia Pacquola
Josephine Rowe
Felix Nobis
Anita George
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Wordplay #31 – October 8 2009
Sean M. Whelan
Felicity Ward
Pez
Geoff Lemon
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Wordplay #30 – September 10 2009 (Overload Festival Edition)
Zoë Barron
The Bedroom Philosopher
Tom Joyce (TAS)
The Tongue (Elefant Traks)
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Wordplay #29 – Melbourne Writers Festival Spin-off – August 23 2009
Ben Ezra
Chris Wallace-Crabbe
Chloe Jackson
Geoff Lemon
Nathan Curnow
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Wordplay #28 – August 13 2009
Ezra Bix
Zedeck Siew (MAS)
Mantra (Illzilla)
Nathan Curnow
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Wordplay #27 – July 9 2009
Emilie Zoey Baker
360
Nick Powell (FIN)
Joelistics (TZU)
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Wordplay #26 – May 14 2009
Ben Pobjie
1/6 (Illzilla)
Briohny Doyle
Solo (Horrorshow)
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Wordplay #25 – April 9 2009
Alex Scott
Meg Dunn
Crazy Elf
Nikki Patin (USA)
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Wordplay #24 – March 12 2009
Lee Kofman
Julez
Ben Ezra
Anita George
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Wordplay #23 – February 12 2009
Simon Cox (WA)
Eleanor Jackson
Joelistics (TZU)
Kevin Brophy
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Wordplay #22 – Best of 08 Wrap – December 11 2008
Ben Pobjie
Ella Holcombe
Anthony O’Sullivan
Chris Wallace-Crabbe
Elf Tranzporter
Michael Reynolds
Josephine Rowe
Felix Nobis
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Wordplay #21 – November 13 2008
Santo Cazzati
Chloe Jackson
Alex Skovron
Alex Scott
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Wordplay #20 – October 9 2008
Ben Pobjie
Benjamin IQ Sanders (USA)
Briohny Doyle
The Bedroom Philosopher
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Wordplay #19 – September 11 2008
Ezra Bix
Komninos
Eleanor Jackson
Crazy Elf
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Wordplay #18 – Melbourne Writers Festival Spin-off – August 24 2008
Geoff Lemon
Crazy Elf
Santo Cazzati
Anthony O’Sullivan
Josephine Rowe
Felix Nobis
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Wordplay #17 – August 14 2008
Steve Smart
Santo
Judith Rodriguez
Felix Nobis
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Wordplay #16 – July 10 2008
Chris Wallace-Crabbe
Elf Tranzporter
Geoff Page (ACT)
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Wordplay #15 – June 12 2008
James Jackson
Maxine Clarke
Anthony O’Sullivan
Ï€O
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Wordplay #14 – May 8 2008
Emilie Zoey Baker
Joelistics (TZU)
Geoff Lemon
The Bedroom Philosopher
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Wordplay #13 – April 10 2008
Crazy Elf
P.J. Moore
Michael Reynolds
Josephine Rowe
Kevin Brophy
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Wordplay #12 – March 13 2008
Ben Pobjie
Chenoah Ellis
Ben Ezra
Sean Whelan
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Wordplay #11 – February 14 2008
James Jackson
Ella Holcombe
Kerry Loughrey
John Ashton
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Wordplay #10 – Best of 07 Wrap – December 13 2007
Laura Jean McKay
Reuben Metcalfe (NZ)
Anthony O’Sullivan
Josephine Rowe
Steve Smart
Crazy Elf
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Wordplay #9 – November 8 2007
Becca Kellaway
Paul Mitchell
Geoff Lemon
Alex Skovron
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Wordplay #8 – October 11 2007
Amelia Walker
Meg Dunn
Nick Powell
Felix Nobis
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Wordplay #7 – September 13 2007
Sean O’Callaghan
Maurice McNamara
Yvette Stubbs
Terry Jaensch
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Wordplay #6 – (Overload Extravaganza) – August 9 2007
Helen Child
Sean Whelan
Ï€O
Emilie Zoey Baker
Phil Norton
Meg Dunn
Tom Keily (Thomas, Jack of Hearts)
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Wordplay #5 – 21 June 2007
Jez Speelman
Brad Armstrong
Nick Powell
Laura McKay
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Wordplay #4 – May 17 2007
Reuben Metcalfe (NZ)
Kelly-Lee Hickey
Miles Merrill (NSW)
Josephine Rowe
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Wordplay #3 – April 19 2007
Ben Ezra (NSW)
Reuben Metcalfe (NZ)
Dayo Iyiola
Crazy Elf
Matt Smith (SA)
Steve Smart
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Wordplay #2 – January 25 2007
Anthony O’Sullivan
Dayo Iyiola
Nick Powell
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