“I learnt how to organise a group of my friends and figure out how to save your school.

I learnt how to tell Socialist Alternative to f*ck off.

I learnt how to pester an organisation's social media accounts to the point they write an internal 76 page dossier documenting everything you're saying publicly about them.

I learnt how to run a vote of no confidence and I learnt how to talk to journalists and how to speak on TV and how to rally a community and make a website and put up with your annoying comrades because actually you're all in it together.

Worst of all I learnt how it feels to lose.” Ryan Hamilton

Very foetal.

In the midst of Melbourne lockdowns, Monash theatre students learnt a lot of things they didn’t want to learn (and the university probably wasn’t too happy about it either.)

It has been five years since these lessons and a small group of us are ready to look back on the education we received and how it has served us in the arts. We think we might have the start of some documentary theatre brewing and, if you were a part of this time, we would love your memories and creative responses.

We are starting small and curious. If you’re keen, we’ll go old school pandemic style and do a few zoom workshops, facilitated by former lecturer Fleur Kilpatrick. This is just about seeing what we remember, what lessons we’ve retained and how these lessons have impacted us as artists.

Join us for a chat and some generative writing (with no commitment to be involved further or share your writing with us at this stage) on Sunday March 1st, 4pm-6pm. Contact ryan@ryanhamilton.work to join us.

Paris Balla, Ryan Hamilton, Fleur Kilpatrick, Freya Solnordal

Mum said ‘I think you’ve done a really wonderful thing.’ That’s the first thing she said. ‘You’ve done a really wonderful thing for your friend. That’s absolutely beautiful.’ and my dad said ‘you’re not even a dad. why did you make me pause the moviE.’

In development through Create SA

In 2024, through the magic of Nate, an Airbnb, a cup of tea, a bit of porn, and a syringe, Fleur had a baby.

Beginnings is a bold new theatrical work by Fleur Kilpatrick and Nate Charles Karagiannis-Troisi, exploring the complexities of donor conception and non-traditional family-making. Rooted in their own lived experience, the play challenges conventional storytelling structures, embracing a form that reflects the uncertainty, joy, and complexity of bringing new life into the world outside of traditional frameworks. It is a story about trust, a 20-year friendship, the complexity of family-making, and the simplicity of falling in love with a baby.

Stasia sent me a letter full of the loneliness of running a tiny arts org in a little mining town. The stress and beauty of it all. She signed off ‘Your fellow lighthouse keeper’.

In development with Ramble Arts. Supported by Create SA.

Lighthouse Keepers is a podcast about arts in country towns, how you make arts your job and the ripples of impact that it can have.

But we aren’t just interested in making a great podcast: we want to do it with a great group of young people who want to learn and create with us.

If you are a young regional person aged 16 to 25 year olds (but ages are never that strict at Ramble) who is thinking about a career in arts, journalism, community development or music/podcast/audio production, get in touch via this form! This project kicks off November 2025.

Lead artists: Fleur Kilpatrick and Stuart Watkinson