by Tanya Steele
Bec Matthews and Sarah Ward from Fat Fruit are bringing The Rainbow Tree to The Memo in Healesville on 22 April for an original musical storytelling show with wild imagination.
The show was developed by the duo through Midsumma Festival and Artplay and from its inception the couple wanted it to be made by children for children.
“We applied to create a show that was with and for Rainbow families and we wanted to write songs with the notion of the rainbow tree holding it all together,” Sarah said.
“We wanted to write a show with the words and ideas of children inside it, so this is children talking to children.”
The six month Melbourne lockdown caused some hiccups in the development process and resulted in the stories of The Rainbow Tree being collected through Zoom meetings.
The children used creativity and imagined new worlds while they wrote the songs for the show.
“It ended up being quite a healing way to connect with young people, but also for them to have an opportunity to create during lockdown was really important for their mental health,” Sarah said.
“Lockdown put a stopper in the idea of us all getting together to write it, so instead each of the seven participants wrote one song.”
The children also put forward words and definitions in the writing, which helped shape the final product.
“They participated in talking about what the rainbow tree is, which is dispersed throughout the show,” said Sarah.
“They also helped us come up with terminology that other rainbow families can use to describe their experience, for example, a dipling, which is a sibling with the same donor.”
On stage the Super Queer Aunties, Aunty Bear and Zaza, performed by Bec and Sarah are there for the kids.
“We take being an Aunty very, very seriously and we’re here for them whenever they need us,” Sarah said.
The show is inclusive and children are invited to engage with it however they need to, sitting or standing.
Sarah encourages the children to talk to the artists while they are performing as it is all part of the fun.
“We will answer you if you talk to us,” she said.
It features projected visual images created by Jolyon James of the Arena Theatre Company with voice overs and drawings from the children who contributed to the show.
The show has something for all and Sarah it is also a lot of fun.
“It’s forty five minutes of silliness, there’s a fart machine, live music, singing and rock and roll dancing,” she said.
The show will be Auslan interpreted by Kirri Dangerfield to ensure it is accessible to all children.
Fat Fruit hopes to expand their show onto television eventually to grow their audience base, and Sarah said it is important for the public to have exposure to it.
“We want to get onto television, so that we instantly have an audience of people who can trust in the work that we deliver, and can come and see it and have their lives enriched,” she said.
The show is recommended to children between the ages of two and seven and will be at The Memo on Saturday 22 April for two shows at 11am and 2pm.
