Broth Bitch

Michele Lee, Jessica Bellamy, Ming-Zhu Hii, Russell Goldsmith and Maia Thomas (VIC)

Broth Bitch is a podcast performance work about the wellness industrial complex and white women, set against conversations about women, labour and capitalism.

Michele Lee is an Asian-Australian playwright and theatre maker working across stage, live art, audio and screen. Her work is largely narrative-focused, in comedy and drama, and explores stories of women, work, otherness and found families.

Collaborating with an acclaimed team of Melbourne-based theatre makers, while all are in Melbourne’s lockdown, Michele and her co-creators are using the format of a multi-episodic podcast to make this new satirical work for presentation in late 2020 at Melbourne Fringe.

Creative Team: Writer and lead artist – Michele Lee; Director – Ming-Zhu Hii; Dramaturg – Jessica Bellamy; Performer – Maia Thomas; Composer and sound designer – Russell Goldsmith

This project is supported by the Australia Council for the Arts and Melbourne Fringe.
Image: Jody Haines

Published on

11 September

Live+Local

Artists-in-conversation (with Screen Me)
Friday September 4 at 7pm

Adhocracy In Conversation panel: Radical care and community in the age of the wellness industrial complex
Friday September 11 at 8pm

Residency Outcome

This is a couple of minutes of Maia Thomas performing as the character Nikki Sukpraserit aka the Broth Bitch. Being in stage 3 lockdown from early July meant that we were already approaching the Adhocracy development with the idea that it might all be virtual. Melbourne went into stage 4 lockdown Aug 2, so our residency was then definitely confirmed to be by Zoom – we’ve been meeting about this project since early August. Although I think Ming-Zhu and Russell, who live close to each other, managed a socially distanced outdoor catch-up.

We used our time together to interrogate the text, which was at a very fresh first draft stage that Jess and I had been discussing across July. So in our Adhocracy residency, we’ve met, I’ll go away and re-write, Ming-Zhu and Maia will discuss, Maia will record and upload, then we’ll all listen and meet to discuss. And repeat. Russell’s done some preliminary thinking on sound elements. This excerpt is from the draft I was working on last week. It was recorded pretty rapidly, on a lapel mic. The final thing will be recorded with different equipment, and sound designed.

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