After 20 months of hard work, VOICES: The Carrical Project opened last week to good crowds and great reviews...

Time Out Magazine declares it is:

"a powerful portrayal of different types of mental illness" and

"an insightful piece of theatre that is not only artistically pleasing, but inspires us to challenge our own views and misconceptions."

Meanwhile, www.theatrepeople.com.au currently has us listed as The People's Top Rated show - please feel free to jump online and add your vote if you've seen VOICES!

Welcome to our humble little website!

The team has been commenting this week on how amazed we are at the ground swell of support that we've been getting about our upcoming shows.

VOICES has been mentioned in a beautiful article about Servants Community Housing in The Age on Monday AND in Melbourne Weekly. On top of that, we've had video interviews released by theatrepeople.com.au and last week we were on Light FM, giving radio interviews with Clayton Bjelan and on Open House with Leigh Hatcher.

Michael Connell, the star of our Fringe Festival show, I Am Super, Man was mentioned on the cover of mX newspaper earlier this week, as well as speaking at Swinburne Uni to international students about how to understand Aussie humour!

And there's more to come...

Wow.

So we just received our bank statements today. It turns out that some of you have been quietly making regular contributions into the Candlelight bank account.

Thank you so much for partnering with us in what we do. Your support (financial, in-kind and personal) are what have kept, and continue to keep, Candlelight alive and running so that we can try to make an impact on the culture of the arts and on Melbourne and Australia more broadly. It is often a hard slog but your support, in whatever form it takes, makes it easier both physically and emotionally on us.

We are grateful. Just wanted you to know.

And especially so today  :-)

Hi, friends! Welcome to our new-look website!

Please take some time to take a look around... more and more material will be added over the next few weeks...

Celebrations are just settling down from the Comedy Festival, where +SQUEAKY CLEAN COMEDY+ was an even bigger hit than we'd hoped it would be. It was great to be able to support 10 comedians and provide a clean option in the festival for those who wanted it.

We're also celebrating moving into our new office in Hawthorn, thanks to our new partnership with Servants Community Housing. And for the first time since we began, we now have two workers paid part time to release them to contribute to the running of the company. Thanks for your continued generosity and financial support in helping to make that happen!

We also have Staff: Irene, Jessica, Jessie, Kara and Shirlaine all came onboard more formally in March and I personally am loving having their new energy in our team. We'll post tidbits of information about them as individuals in the coming months...

Meanwhile, the second half 2011 is gearing up to be our busiest yet. Here's some of what's planned:

JULY

- helping to run the Melbourne Magic Festival (Northcote Town Hall)

AUGUST

- our first Annual General Meeting

- providing event management support for the Australian Christian Book of the Year Awards

SEPTEMBER 1st-17th

- VOICES - The Carrical Project (a drama piece about men with mental illnesses) at The Open Stage (3 week season)

SEPTEMBER 20th - OCTOBER 8th

- I Am Super, Man (standup comedian Michael Connell) at the Fringe Hub, North Melbourne Town Hall - as part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival

SEPTEMBER 29th - OCTOBER 3rd

- Community Development training and support at Black Stump Arts Festival (NSW)

NOVEMBER

- providing operational support for Riverstone Gathering

So strap on your seatbelts! Join the Candlelight Productions group on Facebook for hot-off-the-press updates and special deals, and please make sure you're on our mailing list, so you get our mailouts.

If you’d like to get involved in our community, we’re always looking for people to join us. And you don’t have to be arty in order to fit in! Roles within our company include everything from performers and tech crew to writing and design, publicity, hospitality and even admin. If you’re keen, drop us a line and we can have a chat!

Meanwhile, we hope you’re having a good year, and look forward to being in community with you for the journey ahead…