Patreon Preview: Megan J Riedl - The Voice Of A City

0:00 Hey friends, and welcome to this preview of our latest Patreon exclusive episode. To continue the conversation and listen to the full episode, head on over to the I Think Therefore I Slam Patreon and sign up to be part of the Slam fam. The link is in the show notes. It's true what they say. There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about. Thank you, Oscar Wilde, and today we're gonna talk about stuff. All right, welcome to I Think Therefore I Slam, the podcast bringing you the best spoken word and slam poetry artists from Australia and beyond. My name is Andrew and my guest today comes highly recommended from former guest Mary Williamson.

0:42 My guest today is a nationally recognized spoken word performer. She was awarded QLD Poetry's 2021 XYZ Innovation in Spoken Word prize and the Bob McKinnon the Memorial prize at Cloon's Booktown Poetry Slam in 2025. My guest was also an Australian Poetry Slam Victorian state finalist for three years running and a finalist for the 2019 Melbourne Spoken Word Prize where I first got to see her perform. Her poetry's been commissioned by Creative City, Ballarat, Crezfest, the Ballarat Greens, Let's Talk Peace, Ballarat and for the inaugural Seed Pod Ballarat residency program with Ponctum Inc. Megan Jay Riddle, my guest Cats Out of the Bag, has performed Smoking Word across the state from Eureka Centre to Fed Square and exhibited work from the Immigration Museum to a vending machine at Geelong Library. I hope there was some nice snacks in that one. She has writing, directing and producing credits with independent and community theatre companies across Victoria and is a regular facilitator for Melbourne Writers Theatre.

1:43 She's a proud autistic woman and parent of two neurodivergent children. She holds a graduate certificate in Arts and Entertainment Management and a Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Teaching in Secondary, majoring in Australian History and Drama. Before focusing on her creative practice, my guest worked as a creative health promotion facilitator and administrator at a circus training institution and actors agency receptionist. What a impressive CV. Megan J Reidel, welcome to the show. Oh, hello Andrea. Thank you so much for having me. No worries. It is nice to have some voices from the regions, I must say. I know that's what is that I know that we we tend to get a little bit, a little bit, you know, what do we say? A little bit of tunnel.

2:27 Vision, yeah. Yeah, that's right. But you're, you're coming to us from Bendigo today, is that? Right. I'm in Bendigo today, yes, but I am from Ballarat, so yeah, all around Central Victoria is my Janet. Are there plans for a quick trip to the the Goldfields while you're out and abouts or do you think it's all been found by now? Yeah, look, I've got goldfields coming out my arse in Ballarat, so that's not particularly interesting to me. No, it is that I'm like my whole body of work at the moment is about goldfields Ballarat. So yeah. That's right, there was a big like regional festival in Ballarat recently, wasn't there? Yeah, Ballarat Heritage Festival is every day. So yeah, I was out in the street in like heritage 1850s garb doing puppetry on a soapbox, which was quite fun. That's so cool.

3:12 Spitting some like rhyming couplets at people and rallying the, you know, revolution for the miners, right? So it was great. Yeah, love that there's a castle out that way as well where I think they have kind of like a a Renaissance fairy. Kind of, yes. Cryo Castle, people might know it's been there since the 70s or something. Like it's been there for a while. And yeah, it's, it's full like Dungeons and Dragons kind of Knights in shining armour stuff. They have some, they have a Unicorn festival. They have like all sorts of stuff out there now, including like live music and, and things. So yeah, medieval renaissance, get your, get your gear on there. But we also have Sovereign Hill, which is like the yeah, Gold Rush era outdoor museum. Yeah, living museum.

4:00 I love that I, I know there's, there's so much advertising plastered out there about like only in the city, you know, but I mean, there's so much cool stuff going on all around, all around our state. So you gotta look out for it. Megan, we are keen to hear the first wonderful piece that you've prepped for us today. Yeah, OK, I thought I would start with some new shit. New shit, as we say at the games. And this is just one of those like I got feelings I need to put it on the page kind of poems. It's called Poseidon. If I'm such a witch casting storms across the gentle sea. If my tentacles sucker punch victims into the deep and I render them voiceless in the back of my cave, like you say.

4:43 If I'm such a bitch on a malevolent path, super sizing imaginary slides with a magic magnifying glass, not caring which vulnerable damsels I trample, like you say. If I'm such a villain, villainess no less, using my feminine Wiles to siren song you to my nest of Vipers catfishing, wishing you to wipe yourself out on a sharp rock like you say, then where's my Poseidon? Chest muscles rippling, waves between his thighs. Triton astride 2 dolphins, Trident shining in the moonlight, gunning for a fight against the tidal wave of my rage. A hero who never falters, always brave, who can breathe underwater and counter each wave.

5:30 Steadfast, he greets me in the eye of the storm, saying, Remember who you were before. This isn't the mission for which you were born. Yet I love you. Recognizing that I have never needed him more. A Titanic lighthouse leading me to crash up on the shore. I thought you were my Poseidon, that you would find the secret thing, Magic thing. Bull's eye shot to stop me in my tracks and take me back home. But you could never match me, and you always knew this. You broke your own contract, you whiny little fish. You're not Poseidon, you're not a God like me. You're Jetsam, useless, adrift in the ocean and happy to be clueless.

6:18 Driftwood when I needed Triton, crying shark into the wind when I'm a woman turned hurricane who needed a man to hold out his hand, to lay down his life and make landfall for this villain, this witch, this bitch to come home to. And yet I loved you. Oh hell yeah. Come on. Oh, I loved that Megan. I was. I was getting a real like the little. It was very like Little Mermaid at first, and then there was a bit of like that song I need a hero in there. And then the twist was was just oh, tasty the. Shivers Yeah, yeah.

6:58 I was like, it's that thing about I think lots of little girls like, oh, at one point you were like, oh, I like The Little Mermaid. And then at some point in your life, you're like, Oh, no, Ursula is is like, she's my person in that mood. I totally, I totally get her point of view. Yeah. She's like, I told you what was gonna happen and now it's happening. Like, you can't be mad at me. But if you need a villain, I guess I'm here it. It's a little bit of, you know, she's kinda, she's kinda telling Ariel, you know, fuck around and find out really like I'm. Trying to find out. And also like, the fact that she can shape shift is like, you know, she's deliberately choosing to be a big fat, like, sea witch lady. Yeah. Like, that's her form of choice. Yeah, she's a badass. Yeah, yeah.

7:40 She wears it well. She wears it well. That is wonderful. Wonderful to hear new shit from yourself. Thank you. Now that is just one of your Y your many amazing pieces that that I've had the privilege O of hearing. I wanna know more, Megan, about how you first got started with sharing your creative work, which obviously is not just limited to to spoken words. So what? I don't know what came first for you. What came first was rewriting all the words to songs that my grandparents knew and performing them in our lounge room with my dad as musical director and all of my family dressed up as characters, my auntie playing my grandma and my uncle playing my grandpa and making fun of their lives in a loving way through musical theatre in in the lounge room.

8:33 So this was like a typical like family event, birthday or like Christmas or anniversary. Like the one we did for my grandparents was their 30th wedding anniversary. So we like basically put on a show about her lives. And I'm 3 or 4, you know, and this is, this is my normal. So yeah, very creative family, very musical family. Just that was normal for us. Like at my 21st my family did a show and my drama student friends like this is the best thing that's ever happened. And my non drama students friends were like what the fuck is happening? But yeah, that that's just it's always been a thing to just be creative and put it out there and have fun.

9:16 But yeah, cryptic crosswords and changing the lyrics of songs or my parents played this game at breakfast, which is like, you choose a theme and then you could think of all the song lyrics you can think of with that word in it and stuff. So word play has always been a big part of my life. Always been writing poetry, like that girl with like got lots of feelings. I got to get them out, you know, after school I won, I reckon I won a poetry prize for a little haiku I wrote at school and stuff. So. Yeah, right. Writing's always been big for me, but sharing spoken word and realizing that it was its own kind of art form was when I moved to Ballarat actually. So it's like 8 years ago now. I've been a theatre student, you know, I've done theatre at uni and stuff and been a teacher and I kind of didn't realize that like I could read my work aloud in a performative way.

10:05 And then I went to an open mic in Ballarat trying to, like, meet new people in a new town. And it was so welcoming. And I read some poetry that I'd written on the bus as a student because the thing was transport. And people loved it. And I loved it. And I was like, oh, shit, this is the thing. Yes. I And then I just haven't stopped since then. Yeah. I'll tell you what, that that breakfast table game sounds like my kind of game. You know what? I. Mean right. Yeah. Probably our equivalent was just, you know, waiting every Tuesday to do the, the Super quiz in the, in the Herald Sun, the, the local paper or something. You know the big fifty question one with the with The Who am I and all that? Yeah, nice.

10:47 Yeah, one do the quiz. Everyone gather around. Yeah, that's it. That's it, That's it. We're all trying to yell the answer first. It sounds to me, Megan, like you know you, you might have been attracted to spoken word in a similar way that I was because, you know, I was a bit of a, a theatre kid as well. And I've always enjoyed the more performative, you know, almost larger than life aspects of performance poetry. I, I'm actually, I, I consider myself a bit of a hack. I don't, I don't read a lot of poetry, you know, I do, I do have a preference for, I suppose, seeing it, you know, come to life with, with some, some the zest, the natural zest that comes from from embodying it on stage.

11:29 Is that what you find? Yeah, I, I do. I've never been a big reader of poetry. I, I write because I have things I want to say. Yeah, in terms of like the way I write. And my style naturally gravitates towards something performative anyway, because of my theatre background, I think. Yeah. So I think it's just, for me, it's like all about the way it sounds, the way it kind of is going to come up as a performance. I write with that in mind, which I didn't realise until I started reading stuff aloud. And I'm like, oh, everything of mine is meant to be read aloud. And I actually find it really hard to just have a thing on the page and, and have it be there like with its literary merit, like kind of as a page piece.

12:17 I'm like, why are you reading this on the page? You gotta, you gotta hear it. You gotta get up and hear it. Yeah. And the, and the, the fact that it's embodied as well. I think the fact that you can and viscerally feel the words coming out of the person, like there's nothing quiet like live performance for that kind of emotive like expression and being together in a room. Like even over Zoom, it doesn't quite cut it Like to feel the stuff from the performer in the space. It's visceral and it's so moving, you know? And you just don't get that when you're reading it on a page, I don't think. I mean, maybe you get something else, but you don't get that. Yeah, for sure.

13:00 It's it's, I don't know, maybe it's a different kind of experience or intimacy. Totally. And as a performer, you know, you would know there's nothing like a packed crowd you know, to to perform to. That's hooter hooting and. Hollering yeah, it's because it feel like you can feel everybody in the room and you can feel their reactions and you can feel like kind of the mood and you can feel when the tension builds and, you know, like it's it's kind of a little bit like a little bit of a God complex going on because you can kind of control that, You know, if you've planned it and you've you've, you know, written it in a way that, you know, you're going to, you know, build tension here, release it here. Kind of, you know, the pacing has an effect on people in the space and you can, you know, do twist and people get excited and stuff.

13:42 Like it's, yeah, you can craft that. To have that response from people in the audience, which is really it. It's really cool and exciting. And it's great to be like, oh, I'm affecting people and I can, you know, have them feel, think and feel the way that I want them to be in this moment. And Speaking of packed houses, you know, we first crossed paths at the 2019 Melbourne Spoken Word Prize. Like, like many of my guests, it was a significant night for sure. For, for the scene. What, what kind of brought you to that moment? Had had you been doing SLAM for a while by that point? Were you still quite new? 2019 I was pretty new to the scene actually. Like I reckon I did. My first ever poetry slam competition was the like Geelong heat of the Australian Poetry Slam. 2018 maybe. And I got through to the state final that year and again in 2019, I got through as well.

14:41 And so, or maybe that was the first year, I don't remember. Anyway, pre COVID, things are all a bit of a blur, aren't they? But yeah, I hadn't done slam itself for very long at all at that point. And that night was the first time I had memorized my piece and read it in for and or, you know, performed it without a bit of paper if I mean, I was shitting bricks. I was really like, it was really nerve wracking because it was a huge crowd as well, you know, and I'm, I live country girl and I've been performing to 20 people. And then I was like, Oh my God. I've shared the story on the podcast, but I, I went last out of 25 performers. It was a very long night. And I was, I was in the wing kind of doing some, some deep breaths and whatever.

15:25 And I think I can't remember who the host was, but he looked over at me and just gave me a reassuring little thumbs up. And I was like, right, let's go. And I was trying to be a funny bastard. Once I got on the microphone, I said something to the effect of like, oh, this has been the longest night of my life, and I didn't mean for it to come across like I was an asshole. I I'm afraid I did. I've been sitting through. Everyone else is terrible. Part I was loving all of it, but at the same time I was just. I did wish I was on early. I mean, I think. Yeah, and that's the thing about slams. You can't appreciate other people's work until you've been what? Yeah. So there's a part of you that's like, I really want to be early in the night so I can like, really enjoy the rest of the night. But then you get that, like, school creep situation. So it's actually more beneficial to go later in the night because you get up at school.

16:12 This is true. Potentially, you know, that doesn't happen. But they, you know, it does. But they try not to make it happen. But it totally does. Oh. For sure, for sure. Yeah. So it's it's tricky because you're like, you want to go later and have that big impact, but also you don't because you want to be there and support other peers poetry, but you're too like nervous. Oh, it's so funny. It's great. It's great. May there be many more nights like that in in the future. Yeah. I, I'd like to know more about your involvement in local theatre if we could, because you are, you are an accomplished playwright in in your own respect with with several projects under your belt.

16:55 Could you tell us about some of them? Yeah, sure, yeah, I've done a fair bit of work with Ballarat National Theatre here in town. They're the community theatre company that one of three in Ballarat 2 do musical theatre and Ballarat National Theatre does straight plays and so yeah, I've done a few directing gigs with them. I've also been on their board making community theatre, which is always fun but tiring. It takes a lot of energy to make theatre. It takes a lot of collaboration to make theatre, but I find directing really rewarding. I really like being that facilitator for people. Actors are amazing and they come with like fantastic skills and just kind of, yeah, allowing them that playground to, to kind of create their characters. And again, it's about like world building for me. So it's always about, you know, how can I make the world of the play come to life in, in reality on stage and thinking about, you know, what it looks like, what it feels like, what it sounds like and all of that stuff.

17:53 And putting it all together is is really cool playwriting. Yeah, I've written a fair bit of stuff. I've had some things produced like independently just off my own bat because I've always believed in like if you want work to be made, no one's, you know, you're not waiting by the phone for opportunities, you've got to go out and make them. Yeah, so I had a really great play that's had a season and then it's been redeveloped since then and I'm hoping for a future season. I'm kind of planning that to happen. But you know, things have got to align perfectly to get a theatre off the ground. But it's called Travels with My Black Dog. And it's a play I Co wrote actually with a friend. And the premise is that it's a, a man in a van who lives in a van. And it's just kind of going around Australia and doing anything that they live with depression and their only company is a, is a dog, a literal dog. So they're pet dog, but the dog talks to the audience directly about what it's like to be the carer, you know, essentially of a person with depression.

18:55 But they are a dog. So they act like a dog, and they interact with the audience and they get Pats. And they're just silly things. And there's lots of physical comedy, lots of silly, like, you know, slapstick stuff with the lead and throwing the ball and different things. And then the man monologues a lot to the dog, you know, as if you lived alone with a dog, you would talk to your dog. So yeah, the man and talks to the dog as if it's a dog, but the dog talks it to the audience. And yeah, so it's quite an interesting premise and very funny. It is a comedy about depression. And so, yeah, we produced that show with a with a company that I created. It's no longer, but it was a good time we had for a few years making shows and we did actually toured it with a real life combi band as the set.

19:42 So we drove into a park and the van was out set and people came with their picnics and people brought their real life dogs and sat and in the park and and watched the show and that was really cool. Yeah, that was one of my favorite things I've ever done. Oh wow, what a what a fantastic like creative premise, but also to have it, you know, in in outdoors as well where people could. We wanted to make it accessible because obviously, you know, people like that man are not coming to Her Majesty's Theatre and, you know, to see a show. But I can go down the park and watch some funny weird thing and bring my dog and sit up the back and slink off if I need to. Right now.

20:23 I don't like it. And there's no kind of pressure, there's no sort of kind of stigma around like the theatre's elitist or whatever. It was just kind of there, it was happening. It was free. Come watch. And yeah, we had a great response from the audience. Yeah, and I guess it has a a low barrier of entry, like people can kind of come and go if they go back a day. Did you did you have sound equipment outdoors? Or did you just do it? We had, yeah, we had the actors mugged up. So yeah, they could be heard. But you know, the crowds weren't massive, that we were kind of really needed a huge PA system. But yeah, you never know without outdoor stuff. There could be a drill or something.

21:04 I was. Going to say. If there's a kid, like if there's a kid. Having the time of their life on the swing or whatever you might. You might get in trouble. I mean, it was summer, so like, we were, you know, the weather was OK. We did get rained on a little bit actually here in Bendigo. But yeah, it was a good time. Good stuff. So, you know, it sounds like these projects that you do are obviously like highly collaborative. You know, if you're, if you're writing something, if you're directing something, you're, you're looking for the right person or people to fulfil the, the vision and, and to bring it to life. You know, it's, it's not always something that you can do on your own. I want to know what do you find makes a collaboration like work or what makes it truly fulfilling to you?

21:48 I mean, theatre is inherently collaborative. You have to collaborate with other people to make theatre, even if you're doing a solo show. Yeah, I think making at work is having, having a shared set of values and a shared vision and success for me in collaboration looks like that people have felt safe and supported in working together, that people's ideas were, you know, included. And even if they weren't included because they couldn't be or they, you know, didn't work or whatever, they still felt valued and and nurtured in that process. I mean, being a director, you, yes, you're in charge of everything and it's your vision, but bringing people along with that vision and, and also making a container of safety for those people to play within that vision, Yeah, that's really important for me, collaborating on theatre stuff.

22:43 And yeah, yeah, the most successful thing that I have I've collaborated on haven't been like, oh, it's a sell out show, so that's success. It's been like an actor who I know has worked with loads of people has gone. This is the best backstage experience I've ever had, you know? So yeah, that's or, you know, this is I felt the most at home in the rehearsal room here. Yeah. So that's what I find fulfilling is that people have felt valued and safe in their work. Yeah. And that would all flow through obviously to whatever you do in the future in terms of your, your, your name and your reputation of, of what you'll like to work with and what they'll like to work with.

23:23 Yeah, I well, I hope so. Yeah, Yeah. And you mentioned like safety. Do you find a lot of that is is like letting people or letting people know that it's OK to kind of, you know, speak, speak their mind on certain choices or bring their own, their own flavour to their character or interpretation? Yeah, for sure. I mean, when I work with actors, I trust that the actor is the expert on their character and they should be. That's their job. My job is to is is sort of over a big picture view of what we're doing in the play. But the actor is the expert on their character, so they would know if what they're trying to do in this scene feels true for their character or not. Obviously they also they can't see themselves though in the space.

24:09 So there's a bit of a collaboration there between like they're making choices with what they want to do with their body or their words or, you know, what they're doing in the space. And I'm looking from the outside and going, actually that doesn't, you know, that doesn't make sense here or that looks weird or, you know, there's some maybe technical reason we can't do that. But generally, I trust actors a lot. And, you know, they're really amazing people who have an ability to process information from the page and bring it to life. And so, you know, that's a real skill set that they bring. So yeah, totally. It's about giving people ownership over their role within the within the show, but also trust going the other way that they know I've got their back and that I'll make a decision. Because actors love to play as well and they love to change and they love to like try the next thing. And so at some point, sometimes you're just going to be like, and now the time for ideas and play time is finished. We have to actually just decide.

25:09 Yeah, it's, it's bump in week, you know. I'll be the well, yeah, I'll be the I'll, I'll be the hard ass when I need to be. And I've, I've got you and I'll kind of be like, this is the final thing. This is what we're going with when I need to be in it. And that's also a sense of safety and trust that someone's gonna, like, give you the directive when you need it because there's nothing worth than working with a director who's, like, can't make up their mind. And they're like, yeah, anything's great. Everything, whatever you want to do, you, like, actually know. I need structure. Yeah. The. Amount of anxiety that that would. Oh, it's the same thing as, like, you know, you go to a writing thing and they're like, write whatever you want. You're like that.

25:49 I need boundaries. Yeah. Like I, I want to be able to play within the fenced playground. You know, I don't want to play on the road. I want to play, like, where I know it's safe to play and that someone's watching and that they've got my back. I don't want to play in, like, the expanse of the desert. Like, that's too much freedom, too much creative freedom. Yeah. So yeah, it's a delicate balance to to give people a sense of ownership over what you're doing in a collaboration, but also like, I'm going to lead when I need to lead. Hope you enjoyed this preview clip. To continue the conversation and listen to the entire episode, head over to the I Think Therefore I Slam Patreon.

26:32 The link is in the show notes.