Dog is ready to move

By Charlene Gatt
FOOTSCRAY’S Dog Theatre is on the move.
The 50-seat theatre, which has run out of The Dancing Dog Café since 2008, will become a moving theatre – Australia’s first, according to owner Peta Hanrahan.
“The Dog Theatre is evolving, I purposely built it to move,” Ms Hanrahan said.
“We had two shows out in Sunshine in December that were sold out and I have been scoping out more sites. The time has come to move.
“It’s a beautiful room there at the Dancing Dog Café, but most of the work that we are looking at doing now in the West is actually going a bit deeper in the West.
“We’re not all about Footscray, all the time. Predominantly, yes, but we’re going to be doing shows in Sunshine and scoping out other areas.”
The Dog will host events for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival at the Footscray Community Arts Centre, and Ms Hanrahan is liaising with different venues to organise gigs across the West.
The Dog Theatre became the first venue in the West to host events for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, and audience numbers are growing too big for the tiny venue.
“It’s shaking it up a bit, it’s taking the rules that are set before us about the way we are supposed to do performance art around the country and bending the rules a bit.”
“It’s exciting to see that professionalism and professional arts practice doesn’t actually have to be in the city to qualify itself, and the West has largely been left out of that, and The Dog Theatre is changing that.
“We need to change this industry, because it’s grown quite stagnant.”

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