Hello, I'm Josh.
My pronouns are he/him,
I live and work on Kaurna land in Australia,
and I have synaesthesia.
So when I make music, I see corresponding colours.
It's quite pointless, really
but it gives me a theme to design this website around.
I like to sing and play piano,
write music, lyrics and play scripts,
score theatre productions,
and sometimes you'll even find me conducting a choir.
I like to make art that has an activist bent to it.
I do these various things in my independent theatre shows,
and my work with other people.
Here are some of the things I've made.
In my synaesthesia, 30,000 Notes is green.
This show is a cross-artform theatrical experiment
with a surround sound choir and string quartet,
a series of monologues,
and everything I've ever written spread out on a 13 metre-long wall.
It's all about memory and how we capture the past.
It's about my Nonna
and how, in music and words, I tried to capture everything she meant to me..
It premiered on the 19th of February 2019 at the Adelaide Fringe.
At the Fringe awards, it won the Adelaide Festival Centre InSpace Development Award, the Holden Street Theatres Award, the Best Emerging Producer Award, and was nominated for the John Chataway Innovation Award.
It also won the Adelaide Theatre Guide Best Cabaret Award and was nominated for the Adelaide Critics Circle Innovation Award.
Here is some of the music. Stream it here for free if you like. Or if you'd like to support me, you can download it and pay what you want.
Scarred For Life is red to me.
(well, it's actually orange, but my scar is red, so the show is red by association).
This was my debut solo show.
I filled it with original songs,
about the time I fell off my bicycle,
ruptured my spleen,
and almost bled to death.
What I'm left with now is an eight inch scar on my abdomen.
I know – perfect material for a musical comedy.
I premiered it at the 2017 Adelaide Cabaret Fringe Festival
and something really interesting happened:
all kinds of people came up to me afterwards and told me their own medical stories.
Many showed me their scar(s).
And their willingness to share their stories inspired me to keep telling mine.
I'll be bringing it to the Adelaide Fringe 2020, at Holden Street Theatres.
You can buy tickets here.
'Malcolm', the former Prime Minister of Australia, is blue in my mind.
So was his political party.
And in 2017 he did some things which made me feel pretty blue.
For those not in Australia, he decided to put the country
through a divisive and traumatic public debate over gay marriage
when he could have just legalised it with a vote in parliament.
So I wrote an open letter to him
Where, in rhyme, I outlined my outrage and grievances against him.
And it sort of became my own queer rights anthem
during a period that was so horrible for so many of us.
I posted it online
and it got shared around a bit.
(Okay, about quarter of a million people saw it).
So I released the song for purchase, where the money went to charity
and as a result some very generous people raised over $3,000 for QLife
– Australia's national queer counselling service.
A young couple are crumbling under the pressure of a life they can't afford. That's when a loanshark named Lou arrives with an offer that the two of them can't resist.
In 2016, playwright Emily Steel had a termination after her baby was diagnosed with Down Syndrome. This is her story. It’s sad and funny, familiar and surprising, not self-righteous or guilt-ridden but complex and truthful. Come sit by the pool, put your feet in the water, and listen.
This year, I was employed as the live musician for Slingsby Theatre Company’s The Young King North America and Australia tour, which won a Ruby Award for Best Work or Event Outside a Festival. I have worked as a music tutor at Tutti Arts, the Adelaide Festival Centre’s OnStage Holiday Program, various South Australian high schools, and been composer in residence and assistant musical director of Festival Statesmen Chorus.
I graduated from the Elder Conservatorium of Music in 2015 with a Director’s Award and high distinctions for all portfolios of composition. My music has been performed by ensembles including the Australian Youth Orchestra, Canberra Youth Orchestra, and Gondwana Chorale. I have been writing and musically directing my own work since I was thirteen. Outside my own projects, I have musically directed and accompanied works presented the Adelaide Cabaret Festival, community theatre across Adelaide, and worked with a range of independent cabaret artists, and even a musical improvisation troupe.
In 2016, an original musical theatre project of mine underwent its first stage of development, produced by Release Creative, and in collaboration with Uncle Moogy and other community members of the Ngarrindjeri nation.