From strangers to stage creators: how we met

From being strangers to creating a show together, it’s been a crazy journey to Thailand and beyond for this pair of theatre-makerswho remain fast friends

Gillian Cosgriff, 31, composer, Melbourne

Almost five years ago, I was at the Melbourne Fringe Festival and Kris Stewart from the Brisbane Powerhouse called me. He had just watched a documentary on lady boys in Thailand and said to me, ‘I think someone should make a show on it and I’ve decided that’s you.’ He wanted to send me to Bangkok with two others and obviously I said ‘why not?’

When Kris said he was sending Julia-Rose Lewis (playwright) and Kat Henry (director), I got really excited because I knew they were very talented women.

I grew up in Brisbane in the arts and theatre world before moving away to Melbourne, so I knew of these women but had never been properly introduced.

Although, I do remember Kat from the Pizza Cafe, she used to serve me pizza while I was studying at UQ (University of Queensland), she definitely wouldn’t remember me though!

Before Bangkok, Kat, Julia and I had one or two meetings but we properly got to know each other on the long haul flight over. I bonded with Kat instantly and within seconds, I knew we were going to have a ball.

We spent the next 10 days together in Bangkok staying in the most tourist-flooded places in Thailand, Khao San road. It’s a full on location and a massive assault on the senses but we’d made a pact that whatever happened to us, we would always say ‘yes’. Naturally, we got ourselves into all sorts of strange situations, like the time a man asked us to follow him down an alley so he could read our fortune. He did a series of entry level magic tricks and we 100 per cent got scammed but, we’d promised to say yes, so we went with it. In hindsight, we made many dumb decisions but we were on the hunt for good material.

After our trip, we went our separate ways, I went to Melbourne, Kat went to Brisbane and Julia went on to live in the Northern Territory. But we continued working on our show and now, it’s turned into Neon Tiger.

I’m so grateful for the whole experience because it lead me to Kat. We have a very wonderful friendship, she’s so open to new things, always willing to explore and is such a delightful person to hang out with. I’m so excited now after all these years to see the show in full on stage. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to be as hands on as I normally would because I’m in the middle of rehearsals for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. We’ve come so far since we started developing this show but Neon Tiger has always been the thread connecting us.

Kat Henry, director, Melbourne

I was at Melbourne Airport on our way to Bangkok when I properly met Gill. We turned up at the airport as strangers and were about to spend 10 days together in a foreign place. But by the end of it, we became firm friends and we laughed so much it hurt.

Like Gill, Kris Stewart said he wanted to send me to Bangkok with a couple of others to make a show.

I was living in Brisbane at the time, where I worked for Queensland Theatre, (and still do in the national artistic team) and thought it was such an ambiguous but totally exciting offer, how could I resist?

From not knowing these women at all, to then spending 10 days on Khao San Road, with its crazy neon lights, crazy tourists and full-on surrounds, of course we were going to have some adventures.

We made a promise to go with whatever came our way and of course, we got ourselves into some very funny situations.

A lot of them have made it into the show, Neon Tiger, but a lot we also kept to ourselves to laugh about later.

After we got home, Julia came up with the concept and wrote the script, Gill composed the music and originated the character and my job has been to realise all of that and put it onto stage.

It’s been almost five years now since we all went to Bangkok and so much has happened since then.

I left Brisbane and moved to Melbourne and even though I’m closer geographically to Gilly, we’re seldom in the same place at the same time. But it doesn’t matter, when we do finally see each other, it’s like no time has passed at all. Gill is such a beautiful woman. She’s hilarious, extremely talented and so down to earth.

Neon Tiger runs from Oct. 27-Nov 17 at La Boite Theatre.