MK-Alpha is the new writing theatre of Victoria, Australia. Since 2010 MK-Alpha has been presenting bold, dynamic and challenging text-based work in the live performing arts.

MK-Alpha expands the horizons of Victorian artists and audiences with work that is visionary, genre-bending, multi-disciplined, startling and original. The company showcases acclaimed international, Australian and local artists work both in Australia and abroad. MK-Alpha inspires audiences, rejuvenates artists, stimulates the industry and forges productive relationships internationally.

MK-Alpha is a broker of international partnerships, a meeting place for creative minds, a showcase of Australia’s best and an incubator of brilliant new writing for performance.

MKA Incorporated is a not-for-profit charitable organization.

MK-Alpha is a company of national importance—artistically respected, greatly admired and highly valued as a catalyst for cultural change and action.

MK-Alpha engages and enriches audiences and artists with adventurous contemporary works in a spirit of innovation and dialogue.

• Present the very best in new writing for performance,
• Develop new, unparalleled and extraordinary works through innovative partnerships and collaborations,
• Serve new and existing audiences for the performing arts,
• Stimulate audience and performing arts industry engagement through forums, outreach and ancillary activities that generate dialogue and exchange,
• Showcase the innovations of leading Australian artists and their work,
• Encourage cultural export by linking Victoria with a national and international network of collaborators, co-presenters and producers

• Explicit politics
• Transformative experiences
• Risk-taking
• Collaboration
• Dialogue
• Engagement
• Leadership
• Inspiration
• Innovation
• Diversity

MK-Alpha has been passionately welcomed as a long-awaited shot of adrenaline to the heart of Victorian audiences and artists. Since its incendiary but modest beginnings in 2010, the company has grown exponentially; now enjoying high regard within Australia, and increasingly internationally. An important catalyst of new writing, the company produces and commissions unparalleled work while provoking and encouraging dialogue and exchange.

May 2015 marked the first HYPRTXT Festival of New Writing and Performance which had over 65 performances and events in 5 performance venues over 21 days; as well as the launch of the AUTOCANON publishing wing.

MK-Alpha was first founded in bricks and mortar, at 2/24 Tanner Street, Richmond. Founders, Artistic Director, Tobias Manderson-Galvin; and General Manager/Head of Programming Glyn Roberts; built a fifty-seat venue in the Australian Knitting Mills. The venue was not to last long before the company pulled up stumps, but while there the massive iron AKM sign stood between the theatre and the nearby metropolitan Richmond Railway Station. When one walks from the latter to the former, the sign reads ‘M.K.A.’, so that’s why the the K is usually written backwards.

Of course, if you ask either of these two they’ll tell you otherwise.

Glyn Roberts: “It stands for Freedom, and Duty-Free Scotch.” He then walked away.

Tobias Manderson-Galvin: “It stands for Mind Kontrol – Alpha, an ongoing CIA-funded program, that started in the 1950s.”

Like all black spots there is no knowable reason as to why the logo of MK-Alpha is a black spot.

MK-Alpha is unique among Australian companies. Curated, strictly-disciplined, local and international in scope—MK-Alpha stands alone in its commitment to bring together the best new writing under the umbrella of a single company. MK-Alpha highlights new ways of storytelling, new forms of staging, new approaches to the discipline, and new perspectives on urgent ideas and philosophies.

MK-Alpha is as an entertainer, an iconoclast and a dare-devil.

MK-Alpha ignites relationships between existing audiences and artists, while providing an occasion for dialogue and exchange with new communities. Premieres by local artists are presented alongside works that have garnered national and international acclaim. Works by established artists are presented alongside the work of artists that have never been presented before. Works of conventional style or substance are presented alongside the formally and culturally challenging. Artists, administrators and audiences are invited to an animating perspective of experiments, innovations and the unknown from across Australia and around the world.

Professional development opportunities at MK-Alpha take many forms and forums. Highlights include newly launched annual SUBTXT new writing workshop, resident artist positions within the company, and writing awards and relationships MK-Alpha hold with major learning institutions..