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NEVER SAID MOTEL

An exhale of words unspoken

Have you ever let a moment pass by without saying how you felt?
Are you holding back words that you have always wanted to utter aloud?

Join writer-performer Tamzen Hayes as she interrogates words unspoken in a new theatrical performance, Never Said Motel. Moving through a collection of imagined memories, Never Said Motel invites audiences to play the role of real-life figures in intimate conversations that have - until this point - only happened in Tamzen’s mind.

Tamzen Hayes has been collaborating with composer and sound designer Danni A. Esposito and producer Annie Bourke to explore the theme of never said words through various art forms since 2019. From a development showing at Melbourne Writers Festival, the project grew into an immersive performance that was performed with intimate audiences in motel rooms across regional Victoria. In 2021, without the possibility of live performance, the team decided to open a dialogue with audiences through a pen-pal style experience ‘Room Service’. Director Rachel Baring joins the collective to lead Never Said Motel’s premiere theatrical season in October 2022.

If you wander around the Melbourne Fringe festival hub, you may also stumble across an installation inviting you to reflect and submit your own never said words that form part of the live performance.

Never Said Motel will premiere at Melbourne Fringe in the Festival Hub from 15 October, and tickets are on sale now.

"Raw and vulnerable, a heady combination of performance, nostalgia, letting go and healing." – Frankie Magazine “A triumph of storytelling.” – Melbourne Writers Festival