Introducing….. Me!

Guest post by Seamus Magee

This is my first post on this site, and I must admit it will be very lite on content wise… In fact I don’t think I’ll be saying much at all….

About me:

Hmm…. Well I’ve got a strange obsession with Ancient Greek Comedy (by a guy called Arisotphanes) and I work on translating and producing his plays. I don’t know exactly why I do it. It’s partly because the humour of the plays appeal to me. It’s partly because I am fascinated by that society and that period of human history. It’s partly because I really really enjoy theatre. I translate, direct and often act in these productions. I helped start a little troupe in uni called Omniprop Productions. The website is woefully out of date by the way… should be working on that rather than posting here. Some of our work is on youtube, but that really doesn’t do stage productions justice….

Given that the “Ancient Greek Drama Industry” is not that lucrative, I need a day job… So I work for an organisation called the Fitzroy Adventure Playground (AKA “Cubbies”) as the “Administration Coordinator”. It has its moments of frustration and has some organisational issues, but (seriously) the work is good. The organisation is a non-profit. We provide a play-space for kids, mostly disadvantaged kids, in Fitzroy. We’re located right near the 5 tower Atherton Gardens Housing Commission complex, and most of the kids that attend the playground live in public housing. The playground is a space for safe free play. We don’t run programs or classes, we open the door, let the kids come in and ask them “What would you like to do?”. That’s probably the best way to sum it up…. We have staff and equipment for kids to do all kinds of things – paint, cook, build, play sport, board games, table tennis and even do homework… We’re launching a theatre project in the next few weeks, which is wonderfully exciting (merging your job with your passion is always good).

Being a non-profit, we are cash strapped so I only work 3 days a week there. So I subsist by working for the Melbourne Library Service as a Customer Service Library Officer… Basically I scan books for people and answer their questions. I also run story-time sometimes though! And that’s much more interesting.

I am getting married in just under a month to a girl who is far beyond what I deserve. That’s exciting. That’s actually much more exciting than anything I’ve said so far. If you’ve already gone to sleep due to my incessant rambling, well tough. You’ve missed out! Of course you don’t care that you’ve missed out because you’re already dreaming about something perverse. Dirty dirty reader…..

Anyway yes – weddings. I might fill this blog with some of the things we did to make our wedding ours…. Hmmmm….

So Yes. Seamus Magee has arrived.