The power of chilli when it's chilly.

Everything is now coming together for TBC’s debut production of ‘Love Play’ by Moira Buffini.  We’re almost a week out from opening!  Geeehhhh! 
Over the weekend our director, Stu Duffield, and a few of our manly ensemble members joined forces to build a seating bank.  If we build it … the audience will… Yeah.  Ummm.  Ok – a bit of a cheap joke.  Sorry, please forgive ;-)

Stu had a secret to getting the best out of his men… and his secret was to feed them chilli!  Hot, delicious, meaty chilli!  Perfect for building stuff on a chilly Melbourne Sunday.

Here’s Stu’s recipe…

Ingredients for Stu's set building burrito chilli:
1kg of quality beef mince
2 medium brown onions
3 hot fresh chillis
2 big fresh tomatoes
1tbs ground cumin
1tbs ground coriander
1tbs ground chilli
1tbs ground hot smoked paprika
1tsp cumin seed
1tsp coriander seeds
500ml passata (tomato puree)
1tbs tomato paste
Juice of 1 lime
2 cup of water

Method:
Brown onions then throw in meat and cook til brown. Add chilli and spice seeds while meat is browning. Add all spice powders and cook for 5 mins.
Add tomatoes and passata plus water. Simmer until liquid reduced.
Serve with fresh made salsa, jalapeños, cheese, guacamole, lettuce and good corn tortillas. And other delicious things. Enjoy!



Director's note:
How many actors does it take to build a seating bank?  5 apparently.
In amongst a busy rehearsal schedule we had one day to build a seating bank so our audience can enjoy ‘Love Play’ to the fullest.  Or at least see it.  We had the measurements of the space, we had an idea of what we needed and with a breath of confidence we assembled.  We had five hours.
We measured, we talked, scratched our heads and we confused each other.  It took two hours.  But what slowly formed was a plan.  A plan we jumped on.  We purchased supplies, we cut wood, we drilled wood, we made many wood related sexual jokes. We laughed.  We laughed again.  We possible laughed too much at our bad jokes.  We ate chilli and we laughed some more.
Finally, our deadline past and we stood admiring our completed job.  4 seating banks built in a day.  Not bad work for 5 creative types. 
A momentary pause.  Then a convoy headed to rehearsal.  A long rehearsal.  A late rehearsal.
It's what we do.
-Stu.


Thanks to Stu for sharing his recipe and for his ‘Director's note’  ;-)

To book tickets head to our ‘Love Play’ page on our website.