Parramatta Road is getting a major makeover, being transformed into a live-arts precinct dubbed Off Broadway, which will be launched at this year's Sydney Fringe Festival.
Promising a new and permanent creative space for independent artists, Off Broadway will be launched at an event curated by local singer-songwriter and Fringe Ambassador, Elana Stone. “I think it's coming together great,” Elana says about the launch. “I've booked a couple of my favourite Sydney bands, The Cope Street Parade and The Green Mohair Suits, and they're playing for free in Gehrig Lane.
“Gehrig Lane is being turned into more of an entertainment sector than it has been. It's basically a graffiti-painted lane that friends have recording studios on and it's becoming a venue as part of the Sydney Fringe, so there's going to be a few pop-up venues around there.”
This year Elana shares ambassador duties with her siblings Jake, who was the lead singer of Bluejuice, and sister Yael who currently stars as Lorna Morello in Netflix series 'Orange Is The New Black'. Elana also performs as a solo act and as part of All Our Exes Live In Texas, an all-girl folk quartet.
All Our Exes Live In TexasIn February this year, Elana was on tour simultaneously with her own headline shows as well as with All Our Exes Live In Texas. “That was actually particularly intense and I got very nervous,” she confesses. “It was only two weeks, but it was two weeks of constant travel and I was alternating between the two bands. So I was flying to Adelaide, then back to Melbourne, then to Perth and back to Adelaide. The two tours were kind of following each other, so it was quite a strange time.
“I got very nervous just before those shows and lost my voice for a couple of days; it was scary but it miraculously came back so I think it was just nerves. It was such an amazing time and it's still really exciting to think that I did that.”
As a solo artist, Elana released her debut album 'In The Garden Of Wilder Things' in 2006, following up with 'Your Anniversary' in 2009. This year she released her latest EP offering, 'Kintsugi', as part of a long-term project she hopes to finish in the near future. “I called it an EP but it's really the first half of a release that I'll hopefully finish before I'm dead,” she laughs.
“It's a one and two part, a double hitter, but I don't know when it will be out though because All Our Exes has kind of taken over my life to be honest.
“The Elana Stone stuff has been on a bit of hiatus but it is going to happen, it's just finding the time to get everything done at once. So we're just about to launch an album with All Our Exes really soon, so everything is focussed on that at the moment, then the solo stuff can happen once we know how all that is rolling out.”
Off Broadway launches at Gehrig Lane 11 September, 3-6pm, as part of the Sydney Fringe Festival.
