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I am a writer and educator in Drama and Theatre Studies. My specialist areas are Shakespeare, particularly with regard to the female characters, dramaturgy and theatre history. Raising a little boy also gives me plenty of cause to reflect on parenting and social justice issues. While my active site is orlandocreature.wordpress.com you can find lots more of my writing archived at Hoyden About Town, under both Anna and my earlier handle, Orlando. Twitter: @orlandocreature

  • A Short Post on Rape Prevention

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    A man with dark ginger hair and whiskers is holding a sign which says BY DEFINITION YOU CAN'T ASK FOR RAPE

    When people scoff at the message that we need to teach people not to rape they make the assumption that the lesson goes: “Rape is bad. Don’t do it.” That is not what the lesson looks like. The lesson, once it is adopted, will be that every single person out there, regardless of any defining personal characteristics, is a human being of value, and with a right to make their own decisions about what bodily contact to have with others.

  • Friday Hoyden: Zerlina Maxwell

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    Headshot of Zerlina Maxwell, wearing a black and white scarf

    I think that the entire conversation is wrong. I don’t want anybody to be telling women anything. I don’t want men to be telling me what to wear and how to act, not to drink. And I don’t, honestly, want you to tell me that I needed a gun in order to prevent my rape. In my case, don’tt tell me if I’d only had a gun, I wouldn’t have been raped. Don’t put it on me to prevent the rape.
    Content note: discussion of rape, violence and threatening behaviour.

  • Friday Hoyden: Ela Bhatt (recovered)

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    International Women’s Day could not have a better Friday Hoyden than Ela Bhatt. A member of the international social activist organisation The Elders, Bhatt comes from India, where she received the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development in 2011.

  • Pamela Denoon Lecture 2013: Clementine Ford

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    Photo portrait of Clementine Ford

    This year’s Pamela Denoon Lecture at the ANU in Canberra will be given by Clementine Ford on the topic “Misogyny, Power and the Media”.
    6:30pm, Wednesday 6 March, free and open to the public.

  • Signal Boost: Octogenarians in the Melbourne Region Wanted for Theatre Project

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    a beam of light like the Bat Signal but the symbol shown is the RSS symbol

    Theatre director & writer Roslyn Oades is currently researching a new theatre project exploring the experiences of 18 and 80 years, and what can be learnt from these two very different viewpoints.The first stage of the project (Feb-June 2013) will focus on the 80 year and over age group. Roslyn is currently looking for interested community members to participate in conversation groups as well as community workers who may be able to assist her in this process.

  • Friday Hoyden Quick Hit: Women Who Direct Films

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    Kathryn Bigelow behind a move camera

    With the Oscars mired in their annual refusal to see directing talent in anyone who doesn’t remind the Academy members of themselves, resulting in another disgraceful exclusion of any female directors from the Best Director nominations for yet one more predictable, narrow-minded year (I see no reason to hold back on this topic), here are some links to discussions, links and clips of movies made in 2012 that were directed by women.

  • Friday Hoydens: Chihiro, Ofelia and Coraline

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    Still from the movie showing Coraline and the black cat peering into a small, lighted doorway.

    Last night my family sat down together to watch Coraline, and I found myself instinctively grouping it with two other films centred on little girls navigating dark and strange fantasy lands, Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away and Guillermo Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth.

  • Friday Hoydens: Margaret MacDonald and Marion Mahony

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    Sepia photo portrait of Marion Mahony, in her 30s, seated, wearing an artist's smock.

    Two of the most influential figures in modern aesthetics spent decades as footnotes to the biographies of their husbands. Margaret MacDonald, wife of Charles Rennie Macintosh, and Marion Mahony, wife of Walter Burley Griffin, have in recent times begun to be acknowledged as the great artists they were.

  • Thoughts on Australia Day / Invasion Day

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    Photo of Wesley Enoch, wearing red and blue t-shirt.

    Wesley Enoch, Artistic Director of the Queensland Theatre Company, and always a wise voice from the Aboriginal community, wrote this about the significance of what we have chosen to commemorate today. I found it both insightful and moving, and (with his permission) wanted to share it:

  • Men Who Dance

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    Three men in mid-leap dance poses

    Why is it not absolutely commonplace for little boys to be taken to dance class, the way it is for little girls? Imagine what a disaster it would be if we were to end up in a world with no Leading Men Who Dance.