Ben Apfelbaum

THE MISER : OPENING NIGHT CELEBRATIONS

This year’s Bell Shakespeare Company season began with the ribald farce THE MISER marking its 29th year. At the opening night after party Gill Perkins, Executive Director of Bell Shakespeare, outlined an ambitious program for this year and the next.

The most exciting project to celebrate the 30th year is a proposed move to Pier 2-3  in Sydney’s Walsh BayEarlier this year the John Bell Scholarships were awarded to winners from Hamilton, New South Wales, South Yunderup, Western Australia and Darwin, Northern Territory. It involved a week of intensive performance training and mentorship in Sydney. Bell Shakespeare will train 30 teachers from all over Australia to receive specialist training in exciting and involving ways to teach Shakespeare with ongoing support throughout the year.

There will also be a tour of MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING visiting 28 venues nationwide as well as  master classes, workshops and seminars across the country which reach more than 140,000 people annually.

There were a number of influential supporters at the after party and she urged both them and their friends to get behind these ventures.

Director of the play  Peter Evans, also the Company’s Artistic Director, particularly thanked  Justin Fleming for his innovative, delightful and larrikin adaptation of Moliere’s play. Evans remarked that it is a very rare event to thank a playwright who was actually present in the room.

Evans also thanked John Bell for his return to the stage with the Company that bears his name for the first time after he stepped down as Founding Artistic Director who relinquished the role in 2015.

As well as well as being nourished  with canapes and champagne opening night guests were also able to mingle with the cast of the play who had delighted them a half an hour earlier.

On a clear night, with the harbour sparkling like the champagne, it was a wonderful start to what I am sure will be an exciting and stimulating year for Bell Shakespeare.

Featured image-left to right Fay Breuer, playwright husband Justin Fleming and Kathryn Greiner. All pics 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 Treborland. 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.