Shopfront Arts Co-op celebrates 47 years with Birthday FUNdraiser

Across from Carlton train station stands Sydney’s only cross-art form organisation completely devoted to the art of young people. Shopfront Arts Co-op celebrates 47 years working in their original location, working with young people to create original theatre shows, film projects, and much more.

I spoke to Lily Hayman, associate producer at Shopfront, to discuss their programs and presence in the local community, ahead of their 47th birthday FUNdraiser on Saturday 6th of May.

Lily tells me the FUNdraiser will include the highlight songs from an original project titled “TEEN ANGST: The Musical” created by the young people from Shopfront’s senior ensemble in 2022.

“TEEN ANGST” explores the troubles and woes of a high school boy who feels his parents don’t listen to him, as he navigates life with his two oppositely dispositioned friends; one emo bestie who’s obsessed with graveyards, and one hippie bestie who sings a solo about hugging trees. Along with dismissive parents, the teens in this play also struggle with an evil school principal (who has a proclivity for rapping in a really cringey manner), and find out they must band together in order to get the adults in their lives to understand and listen to them.

Although from the outside it may seem like teen angst personified, “TEEN ANGST: The Musical” serves a much bigger purpose. “At Shopfront we never take a play that was written already and give it to our young people and ask them to perform it. It’s always they write it, they devise it, they create it,” says Hayman. “The way we work is all about amplifying their voices and giving them everything they need to tell the story that they want to tell.”

Shopfront has been dedicated to nurturing young people in the arts for decades, with programs for people in primary school, high school, and for new emerging artists. All are fully accessible for people with a disability.

Members' show is “really quite revolutionary,” Hayman says. It’s an arts program for people over the age of 16 that gives them the opportunity to create their own original show. Young people are given the opportunity to pitch their idea for a work, then a description of their idea is shown to everyone involved in the Shopfront community, everyone gets a vote, and the work with the most votes gets to be produced.

“There’s a lot of awesome companies around who do really gorgeous work with young people, but we’re one of the only ones that write with them and let them create the work from scratch.”

ArtLabs, another one of Shopfront’s programs, is for emerging artists. It’s a six-month residency, in which artists are paired up with an industry mentor and given the chance to make new work in any medium – film, visual arts or theatre.

Looking to the future, the senior ensemble program is currently making another original work entitled “Stop, Drop and Listen”, expected to come out in July. It has an interesting premise, exploring the state of the modern world and asking how we can learn to cope in difficult times, both as individuals and as a community.

However, the fate of Shopfront is in question, as they were hit hard by the Australian government’s budget cuts in 2020. “We at Shopfront, like many youth arts organisations, lost our multi-year Federal Funding in 2020… We are currently applying for multi-year federal funding; However, we will not find out if we are successful until 2024. Going into 2023 we need help to meet the post-pandemic gap to deliver our diverse, accessible, inclusive program,” said Cathy Nisbet, Philanthropy and Partnerships Manager at Shopfront, in a press release.

The good work done by Shopfront is not just about facilitating and supporting the arts either, Hayman says, they’re also about “just giving them [young people] somewhere to be that lets them be whoever they want to be.”

“There’s heaps of our young people who come here and don’t want to grow up and work in the arts, which is awesome, because they’re still learning amazing skills like communication and teamwork,” she adds.

Alongside the original production by the young people of Shopfront, the upcoming FUNdraiser will also include fortune telling, trivia games, silent auctions, and raffle prizes. Plus a ticket entitles people to a catered dinner. Hayman also tells me the night is expected to close with a performance by “Salty Marco”, a electro-funk band that dress up as cowboys when they’re on stage. Attendees can purchase an individual ticket for $65 or purchase a table with a group of eight friends for $480.

There is so, so much more for young people to say, and I can only hope they will receive the funding they need to say it.

Shopfront Arts Co-op is located at 88 Carlton Parade, Carlton. To attend the Shopfront FUNdraiser this Saturday 6th of May, book online here.