For the second year in a row, poet, songwriter and performer Matt Petherbridge brings his Sketches of Myrtle act to the Newcastle Fringe Festival.
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The hour-long show is a prequel to a rock opera about a rock star named Myrtle. The play is set between a sound check and Myrtle's performance.
Petherbidge describes the show as "a bit meta".
"I guess from being such a music nerd and doing music journalism in the past, even all the greats seem to have an unfinished work or something they abandoned or didn't quite finish. The lost Silverchair album, the lost Crowded House album. I'm kinda like playing with it all," he says.
Petherbridge imagines Myrtle as someone in the pantheon of a Neil Finn, Daniel Johns or Steve Kilbey. The rock opera he's also writing for Myrtle is about his death and the theatre of death and grief.
Sketches of Myrtle explores who Myrtle could have been.
"It's like you're seeing he's having a soliloquy or a breakdown in the green room. Maybe he'll be trying to do some writing back stage. He might be back stage stealing time to finish this rock opera," he says of the play.
The show is slam poetry, monologue and song. It has moments of "Nick Cave darkness." Songs can be anything from beautiful ballads to riffy alternative rock.
"I got the sketches idea from Miles Davis's Sketches of Spain and Jeff Buckley's Sketches for my Sweetheart the Drunk," he says.
Petherbridge lives in Maitland. He pays his bills working in hospitality, but he's written hundreds of poems and songs. He's played live music off and on at venues in Maitland and Newcastle since 2009. Prior to Fringe, he had not acted since 2016. He had been wondering how he was going to test his material.
Last year his performance was a last-minute addition to the Fringe festival lineup.
Artist, writer and producer Helen Hopcroft advised him to talk to Newcastle Fringe as they were looking for performers. He emailed them and they put him in the program.
"The Fringe was like 'there's been a cancellation; Helen's recommended you'. It was pretty scary. Because I had never felt like I'd cracked a code on my songwriting life. I felt like I was getting better privately," Petherbridge says.
His first Fringe gave him a hard deadline and a chance to come out of his shell. They held last year's show at the Sydney Junction Hotel, in the front bar, curtained off with the TAB machines turned off.
"This year it's going to be at bona fide theatre [The Royal Exchange]," Petherbridge says.
His first year at Fringe led to more opportunities, and he hopes this year will be the same.
"Fringe is very artist-friendly. A lot of my friends had opportunities. My friend Meg O'Hara did Customer Service Conundrum and nearly sold out two of them at 70 people capacity. It's low risk and high opportunity," he says.
Sketches of Myrtle runs March 15 and March 16 at 9pm at the Royal Exchange in Newcastle. Tickets ($22) at newcastlefringe.com.au.
NEWCASTLE FRINGE
The 2024 festival runs March 14 to 24. The year has double the amount of artists and venues compared to 2023. It features 82 acts and 451 artists performing 220-plus shows across 15 iconic venues located in the activation hubs of Hamilton, Newcastle CBD, Adamstown and Merewether.
