Theatre Works 2011 Brochure

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“I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.” Oscar Wilde

In 2011 Theatre Works is offering a fresh and exciting selection of the best and brightest Independent Theatre from Melbourne and Interstate.

Our program is a mixture of world premieres and remounts of successful productions. We welcome companies from Perth, Brisbane and Tasmania to our theatre, making Theatre Works a true hub for Independent Theatre in Australia. We continue to curate our own Independent Theatre Company support programs, Selected Works and In The Works, as well as offering a season of brand new Musical Works. We welcome back many of our regular hirers and extend a warm welcome to artists working in our Theatre for the first time.

In 2011 we are thrilled to present a season by our inaugural recipient of the Theatre Works’ 2010 Melbourne Fringe Festival Award, Mutation Theatre. This award will be offered again in the 2011 Melbourne Fringe Festival with the new name, The Caz Howard Award, in honour of one of the founders of Theatre Works, who died too young but her contribution to the vibrancy of Melbourne theatre and Theatre Works will long be remembered.

Theatre Works presents a program of the very best of contemporary practice across drama, dance, physical theatre and music theatre. Watch our website www.theatreworks.org.au throughout the year for announcements about new developments, artist support programs, masterclasses and workshop opportunities.

Have a glass of wine or coffee before or after a show in our gallery foyer, relax in the comfort of our newly air conditioned Theatre and enjoy the experience of Theatre Works, a national hub for Independent Theatre in the heart of St Kilda.

COME ON A JOURNEY WITH US…

Major Funding Partner:

Theatre Works Identity & Program Design: Famous Visual Services www.famousvs.com

Local Business Partners:

Theatre Works wishes to take this opportunity to thank the following organisations for their generous ongoing support:

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Now in its 8th year, the Theatre Works Selected Works Program assists independent companies to present new, exciting and challenging work in a supported environment. Each year the Theatre Works Artistic Sub Committee and invited industry experts select the best submissions from an open application process and offer the opportunity to work in our theatre free of charge. We even provide technical and publicity support!

This year we welcome Mutation Theatre, with a remount of the multi award winning These Are The Isolate, Melbourne’s highly acclaimed The Hayloft Project with their new work Delectable Shelter (part of the 2011 Melbourne Comedy Festival), Perth’s The Duck House with The Bearskinner and new Brisbane company Kurunpa Live Arts premiere The Rock.

If you would like to be considered to be a part of our Selected Works Program follow the links on our website www.theatreworks.org.au.

THEATRE WORKS YEAR AT A GLANCE

27th Jan to 5th Feb

CLOSER Avid Theatre

9th to 13th Feb

ARAFAT IN THERAPY Smoking Salmon Productions

17th Feb to 6th Mar

STRATAGEM Collaboration the Project

2nd to 5th Mar

iOVERLOAD Collaboration The Project & Project Y

9th to 13 Mar

UNSPOKEN LIVES NIDA

16th to 27th Mar

THESE ARE THE ISOLATE Mutation Theatre

31st Mar to 17th Apr

DELECTABLE SHELTER The Hayloft Project

6th to 16th Apr

MONTY AND MELVILLE That Girl

4th to 8th May

THE TEMPEST Inotrope Productions

13th to 29th May

THE HATPIN Magnormos

16th to 20th May

HELLO, MY NAME IS Nicola Gunn

23rd to 27th May

ANNA Forty Forty Home

30th May to 12th Jun

VERTICAL SHADOWS 1,2,3,Open

15th Jun to 3rd Jul

THE BEARSKINNER The Duck House

11th to 24th Jul

GRIMRA DRILL Performance Company

15th to 21st Aug

MUSICAL WORKS Creative Development

26th Aug to 11th Sep

FLOWERCHILDREN Magnormos

5th to 9th Sep

THE YELLOW WAVE Gadfly

19th to 24th Sep

FOG THEATRE

26th Sep to 8th Oct

MUSICAL WORKS

26th Oct to 5th Nov

THE ROCK Kurunpa Live Arts

SELECTED WORKS

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“FOUR AND A HALF STARS. How did a company as strong as Mutation Theatre escape my notice until now?” THE AGE

“See this show and snap to it.” A CAPITAL IDEA

“Katy Warner’s play is full of rapid-fire word games- a compelling construction of a fractured interior nourished by Beckett. Albee might be another spoke in its wheel. I kept imagining Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? where both Martha and the absent child are phantoms. Wotherspoon’s sublime histrionic talents bring precision and subtlety to the performance; every inflection is calculated into an unfillable matrix of unhinged comedy and pathos…this is astonishing theatre. It knows the song the sirens sang was a lullaby” THE AGE

Ed McCallister is a happily married man who is neither happy nor married. When overlooked for a promotion at work he returns home to find a woman, possibly his wife, setting up an elaborate suicide machine…all he wanted was someone to remember his birthday.

Mutation Theatre is a critically acclaimed, multi-award winning, independent theatre company based in Melbourne, Australia. It is committed to the creation and performance of engaging, challenging, entertaining, disturbing and high quality theatre.

“The Hayloft Project is a shining light in Melbourne Theatre” HERALD-SUN

“A young company with talent to burn” THE AGE

Delectable Shelter is a no-holds-bared portrait of the privileged, facing the end of the world as they know it.

In a bunker deep within the earth, five white capitalists plan a utopian society. But when their entitlement ends, our antiheroes declare war against those they fear most, those they had thought were beneath them.

Taking cues from Moliere, Brecht and Chris Morris, Delectable Shelter lampoons the prejudice ingrained in our prosperous Western society, as it declines from dominance in the twenty-first century. A grotesque comedy of the not-too-distant future, crammed with sex, opera, fear and bodily fluids.

The Hayloft Project was founded in 2007. Their work – including Spring Awakening, The Soldier’s Tale, Platonov, 3xSisters, The Only Child, B.C., Yuri Wells, The Suicide, Thyestes and The Nest – has garnered critical acclaim, a Sydney Theatre Award, Green Room awards, Melbourne Fringe awards and sell-out seasons in Melbourne and Sydney.

Delectable Shelter is part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.

THEATRE WORKS PRESENTSSELECTED WORKS

Theatre Works 2010 Melbourne Fringe Festival Award Winner

Devised and Performed by: Katy Warner and Tim Wotherspoon

THESE ARE THE ISOLATEA Mutation Theatre Production Written by Katy WarnerVictorian Writer’s Centre Award for Best Emerging Playwright

DATES Preview: Wed 16th Mar

Season: Thur 17th Mar to Sun 27th Mar

TICKET PRICES Full: $25

Concession: $20

School: $10

Groups 10+: $10

Previews, Tuesdays & Matinees: $10

16th Mar – 27th Mar

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Written and Directed by: Benedict Hardie

Design by: Claude Marcos

Cast Includes: Anthony Mackey and Anne Louise Sarks


DELECTABLE SHELTERThe Hayloft ProjectPREMIERE

A black comedy about white ascendency.

DATES Preview: Thu 31st Mar

Season: Fri 1st Apr to Sun 17th Apr


Concession: $20

School: $15

Groups 10+: $15


31st Mar – 17th Apr

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They say that when a man gives up hope, the devil walks by his side. So begins this story. A soldier marched through a dark wood, but he did not march alone…

This vivid re-imaging of the 19th century Brothers Grimm classic tells the story of The Bearskinner, a young soldier who has lost everything to war - except his life. But, when the devil makes him a treacherous wager, he begins a seven-year journey to discover that a life without love, death or personal hygiene is not worth living. Wrapped in a bearskin, he is confronted by the Devil’s mistresses at every turn as they attempt to seduce him into breaking his fiery pact.

Set amidst a lounge bar forest of fake Christmas trees The Bearskinner is a dark comedy that incorporates live music, bad poetry and outrageous innuendo to tell a haunting tale of the relentless human struggle between good and evil, and the power of love.

DATES Preview: Wed 15th Jun

Season: Thurs 16th Jun to Sun 3rd Jul


Concession: $20

School: $10

Groups 10+: $10


The Bearskinner was originally presented in Perth by The Blue Room Theatre and The Duck House, in association with The Wet Weather Ensemble at The Blue Room Theatre in September 2009

Based on the classic Brothers Grimm Tale

Text by: Ian Sinclair

Directed and Produced by: Kathryn Osborne

Dramaturgy by: Sarah McKellar

Music by: Marc Osborne

Lighting Design by: Karen Cook

Devised and performed by: Gita Bezard, Alissa Claessens, St John Cowcher, Fran Middleton and Ian Sinclair.

THE BEARSKINNERThe Duck HouseNominated for Best Production (The Blue Room Theatre 2009 season awards Perth) and winner of the Audience Development Award (The Blue Room Theatre 2009) for its sell-out original season

15th Jun – 3rd Jul

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Written by: Andrea Jenkins, Morgan Aldrich and Adam J.A. Cass

Directed by: Andrea Jenkins

Performers include: Gabrielle New, Lia Reutens and Sharni McDermott


Azaria Chamberlain is missing. Her body has not been found, but everyone has their theories.

Deep inside The Rock the little baby sleeps and grows to be a woman, while her mother’s famous cry ‘A Dingo’s got my baby!’ reverberates around the world. Azaria is part of the land now.

In The Rock the mythical and the mundane collide in an epic story of the desert, Aboriginal spirituality and the lost child. Traditional Indigenous song, text, contemporary dance forms and physical theatre combine to tell this 30-year-old Australian tale of a nation’s search for truth.

Kurunpa Live Arts is a company dedicated to creating new Australian work that strengthens identity in relation to place and through Indigenous and Non-Indigenous relationships. This recently founded company have already received funding for first phase creative development on The Rock, and have been accepted into the 2High Festival 2010 for Home Address.

THE ROCKKurunpa Live ArtsPREMIERE

30 years after she disappeared this bold new company from Brisbane re-examine what happened to baby Azaria...

DATES Preview: Wed 26th Oct

Season: Thur 27th Oct to Sat 5th Nov


Concession: $20

School: $10

Groups 10+: $10


26th Oct – 5th Nov

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IN THE WORKS:

In 2011 three local independent companies and one Tasmanian/Melbourne collaboration have each been granted a week long creative development period in the Theatre Works space. Our development stream begins with Theatre Works regular, Nicola Gunn followed by a collaborative development between Forty Forty Home and The Hayloft Project of an adaptation of a classic work by Dostoyesky, then dance theatre company DRILL and their new work Grimra, finishing with an exciting new company of established artists exploring work with an Asian edge, Gadfly. In The Works participants are encouraged to include an informal showing and feedback session at the end of their creative development. Details of how your project could become part of our future In The Works programs can be found on our website: www.theatreworks.org.au.

Creator/Perfomer/Maker: Nicola Gunn

Collaborator/Performer: Carlee Mellow

Dramaturg: Luke Mullins

Sound Designer: Chris Wenn

Video Artist: Daniel Agdag

DATES 16th to 20th May

HELLO, MY NAME IS

NICOLA GUNN PRESENTSIN THE WORKS

Nicola Gunn borrows stories from her own life and other people’s lives to make work that strays into the grey area of truth and fiction, memory and imagination, documentary detail and fantasy. Hello My Name Is began in April 2009 during a 2 week creative development at Belvoir with Luke Mullins. The project was documented on a website inviting participation from an online audience. The performance Hello My Name Is will be technically simple, emotionally evocative and about nothing but the everyday. It is set in a community centre and reminiscent of the work An Oak Tree by Tim Crouch in style but whereas Crouch worked with a different celebrity actor each night to make his performance anew, Gunn is interested in performing with an unknowing audience, a group of strangers who become co-creators in a work that unfolds around them.

Forty Forty Home is a theatre company aimed at providing development opportunities for female theatre makers. This collaboration between two of Melbourne’s leading independent theatre companies, Forty Forty Home and The Hayloft Project, arose from a conversation between the two principle collaborators on the way to the Australia Council Women in Theatre forum, when both discovered each other were reading Tolstoy’s classic Anna Karenin. The two began imaging the creation of a new piece of theatre centered completely on Anna’s journey. Anna is a new telling of one of humankind’s most enduring and influential stories about the search for happiness and the destructive force of desire.

Co Writers: Erin Kelly and Anne-Louise Sarks

Director: Anne-Louise Sarks

DATES 23rd to 27th May

FORTY FORTY HOME PRESENTSIN THE WORKS

ANNA

DATES 16th May to 9th Sep

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DATES 28th Sep to 8th Oct

MUSICAL WORKS:

Theatre Works has been providing support programs for the local independent Arts Community since 2004 with its successful ventures Selected Works and In The Works.Each year the Theatre Works also programs and curates a season with a focus on a specific art form. In the past we have had Moving Works – supporting the work of independent choreographers and dance companies, Circus Works – programming and mentoring new works developed by emerging circus artists, Girls At Work – a program devoted to the work of female theatre artists and in 2011 we are excited to announce Musical Works.

Musical Works will involve the selection of two brand new Australian Musicals to receive a creative development period and short season, affording the opportunity to further develop and showcase these works to industry peers, potential presenters and the general public in a supported environment. Also watch out for associated masterclasses and guest speakers.

Project Coordinator and Art Form Mentor: Aaron Joyner (Artistic Director MAGNORMOS)

Choregrapher/Producer: Joshua Lowe

Dramaturg: Natalie Cursio

Composer: Craig Wood

Costume Designer: Debra Hallam

Lighting Designer: Nicola Andrews

Choreographic Mentor: Adam Wheeler

Dancers: Alexandra Andrews, Kelly Beneforti, David Huggins, Alya Manzart

Vocalists: Charlea Edwards, Tess Hansen

DATES 11th to 24th Jul

Grimra will explore a wild and undefined world that exists for the briefest of moments, in the form of an abstract narrative. It will attempt to capture the beauty, wonder and sadness in a moment akin to a bird being born and then dying not an hour later. This world will be brought to life by ethereal and fantastical creatures and characters also using elements of visual theatre including puppetry and stilt walking.

Based in Launceston, Tasmania, DRILL works with both emerging professional artists and young local performers to create new and exciting works and is known for its high energy and visually spectacular contemporary dance theatre projects.

DRILL PERFORMANCE COMPANY PRESENTSIN THE WORKS

GRIMRA

Collaborators: Beng Oh, Miki Brotzler, Keith Brockett and Christie Nieman

DATES 5th to 9th Sep

GADFLY THEATRE PRESENTSIN THE WORKS

Gadfly is developing a performance script based on an 1895 novel The Yellow Wave, a rare piece of 19th Century Australian speculative fiction set in the futuristic 1940’s about an Asian invasion of Australia. They plan to mash up this work with some contemporary writing.

Gadfly Theatre is a dash of soy on the plain white rice of Australian narratives. It is kecap manis, nuoc cham, a light sprinkling of bonito. Gadfly is committed to creating interesting and as yet untold Asian-Australian stories, to overtly and covertly hurling a bit of yellow at the white canvas of Australian film, television and theatre.

THE YELLOW WAVE

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HOW TO BOOK AT THEATRE WORKSPhone: Bookings can be made by calling (03)9534 3388 between 10am-3pm, Monday to Friday. Credit Card required at time of booking.

Internet: Online Credit Card bookings can be made 24 hours a day by visiting www.theatreworks.org.au

Door: The Box Office opens 45 minutes before the start of the show. Unless SOLD OUT, a number of tickets are available at the door each night.

Booking fees apply to all Credit Card purchases.

THEATRE/FOYER FOR HIREFor all Hiring enquiries and Venue Hire rates please contact [email protected]

FOOD/DRINKTheatre Works is a licensed venue and a range of beer, wine, soft drink and snacks are available pre show, interval and post show.

CAR PARKINGStreet parking is at a premium in StKilda. We recommend arriving early and leaving yourself plenty of time to find a park. Alternatively, you could use the paying car park at the Prince of Wales Hotel which is a 3 minute walk away, located on the corner of Acland and Fitzroy Streets.

PUBLIC TRANSPORTTheatre Works is easy to reach by public transport. Train and bus services provide regular stops and pick-ups within the Fitzroy and Acland Street Shopping Precincts – easy walking distance to Theatre Works.

Tram: 16, 79 & 112

Light Rail: 96

Buses: 600,606,623 and 246

THEATRE WORKS STAFF Operations Manager: Angela Pamic (maternity leave)

Acting Manager: Suzanne Chaundy

Admin/Box Office Manager: Paula Philip

Venue Coordinator: Katelyn B

Book-keeper: Fleur Brett

And a fabulous team of casual Front of House and Technical Staff

THEATRE WORKS BOARD Chair: Liam Nankervis

Deputy Chair: Sarah Austin

Treasurer: Charles Baird

Members: Suzanne Heywood Fr. James Minchin Alison Richards Karen Treloar Richard Vabre Suzanne Chaundy (on leave)

ARTISTIC SUB COMMITTEE Sarah Austin (Convenor)Suzanne Chaundy Alison Richards Suzanne Heywood Richard Vabre

GIFT CERTIFICATESWhy not spoil a loved one with a Theatre Works Gift Certificate? Gift Certificates are available for purchase on-line or by phone. Call the box office 9534 3388 between 10am to 3pm, Monday to Friday, to place your order. Gift Certificates are valued at $50 and $25 and are valid for 12 months from the date of purchase.

DONATIONS AND PARTNERSHIPSTheatre Works is a not-for-profit charitable organization committed to supporting our exciting Independent Arts Community.

Whether it is a $10 or $10,000 donation, your input will be highly regarded and appreciated and contribute to the ongoing support of our vibrant arts community and the cultural identity and vibrancy of Melbourne.

Help us by making your online tax deductible donation via our website or contact Theatre Works by phone on (03)9534 4879 to make a donation or discuss the development of a partnership.

THEATRE WORKS 14 Acland Street Corner St Leonards Ave St. Kilda 3182 PO BOX 1205 St. Kilda South

Booking Line: (03) 9534 3388

Enquiries: (03) 9534 4879

Fax: (03) 9525 3593

Website & Bookings: www.theatreworks.org.au

Email: [email protected]

100% Recycled Paper Australian Made

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Documents

Theatre Works 2011 Brochure