The Dog / The Cat program by Belvoir

The Dog / The Cat

Belvoir presents

The Dog / The Cat The Dog by BRENDAN COWELL The Cat by LALLY KATZ Director RALPH MYERS This production of The Dog / The Cat opened at Belvoir St Theatre on Saturday 20 June 2015. Set & Costume Designer RALPH MYERS Composer & Sound Designer STEFAN GREGORY Lighting Associate BRITTANY JONES Associate Composer & Sound Designer RILEY McCULLAGH Stage Manager MEL DYER With THE DOG Miracle ANDREA DEMETRIADES Marcus BENEDICT HARDIE Ben XAVIER SAMUEL THE CAT Alex / Sophie ANDREA DEMETRIADES Albert / Jeff BENEDICT HARDIE Cat XAVIER SAMUEL

THANK YOU Elizabeth Gadsby COVER ILLUSTRATION Xavier Samuel by Julian Meagher PHOTOGRAPHY Brett Boardman DESIGN Alphabet Studio

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Writer’s Note Brendan Cowell I have realised of late that I have no imagination. Or, perhaps, do not rely on it when it comes to storytelling. Everything I write seems to be derived from my own experience on earth as a human. I can’t, or don’t seem to be able to invent a new planet where a variety of creatures live. A place with its own currency, its own demons, its own values, food and terrestrials. I am not that smart. Or maybe I’m just not that interested. I’ve always liked movies and books set in backyards and kitchens, and more recently bars and bedrooms. I like talking films, talking plays, about talking people. So here is the next instalment of my failure to invent ghouls and vampires and tree-headed-spacehorse-children. Here is a play about love in a park, based on my own experiences

of co-owning a dog and talking to people in parks, or ignoring people in parks which is, sadly, often more my go. This is a play about three people in their early thirties, who are on the cusp of big decisions in their lives. It’s a play about the importance of pets in our lives, and how different or not different we are when it comes to love and bravery. It’s a joy to be back in the room with Ralph and Lally, two of my favourite old mates from the theatre planet. The theatre planet. Where creatures have their own currency, demons, values and terrestrials. Perhaps I do have an imagination. NB: No animals were harmed in the making of this Writer’s Note.

Writer’s Note Lally Katz Ralph Myers first approached me about writing a play about a broken-up couple and their cat a couple years ago when I was recovering from surgery at the Regent’s Court Hotel. I’d gotten sick thanks to a psychic’s curse when we were about to open Stories I Want to Tell You in Person, also in Belvoir’s Downstairs Theatre. Ralph had recently broken up with his wife and they were sharing a cat. He thought that a brokenup couple sharing a pet would make a good story. I like Ralph, relationships and animals in plays, so I thought it would make a good story too. I wrote a few scenes and Ralph and I met and talked about it a lot while I was recovering, but then we forgot about it. Time passed and Ralph and Brendan started sharing a dog. Ralph got in touch again and suggested we produce

a double bill: a play written by Brendan about two men sharing a dog, and a play written by me about the cat break up. I was very excited to be part of this. Luckily (for the play) and sadly (for me) my boyfriend and I had also broken up by then. Very helpful for the writing process. I’m so happy to be working with Ralph and Brendan – two of my favourite people and artists and both of whom have really supported my work in Sydney. I’m thrilled to be working with this super talented and exciting cast. And it’s always so fun to get to make songs with the brilliant Stefan Gregory.

Biographies BRENDAN COWELL Writer Brendan is a writer, actor and director. His play Ruben Guthrie was developed at Belvoir and produced as part of the 2009 Season. The film adaptation, also titled Ruben Guthrie, which Brendan directed and wrote was selected for the opening night film slot at the 2015 Sydney Film Festival and opens nationally in July. Brendan’s most recent play The Sublime had its world premiere season at MTC in 2014 and was hailed ‘an instant classic’ by Peter Craven in the Saturday Paper. As a playwright Brendan has won the Patrick White Playwrights’ Award, The Philip Parsons Young Playwright’s Award and the Griffin Award. Brendan wrote multiple episodes of the TV series Love My Way and The Slap. His work was recognised with an AACTA Award for Television Screenwriting for The Slap and AWG and Logie Award nominations for Love My Way. The Slap was also nominated for a BAFTA and an international Emmy. Brendan’s first novel, How It Feels, was published by Pan Macmillan in 2010 and he is working on his second novel, his follow-up feature film and an original series for Sky TV in the UK. As an actor, Brendan’s theatre credits include Once in Royal David’s City, Miss Julie, The Wild Duck European tour and The Dark Room (Belvoir); Hamlet (Bell Shakespeare); True West, Far Away and The Shape of Things (STC). His screen acting credits include television series The Borgias, The Slap, Love My Way and feature film lead roles in Noise and Beneath Hill 60.

LALLY KATZ Writer Lally is one of the most produced playwrights in Australia. Her plays Stories I Want to Tell You in Person, starring Lally herself, and Neighbourhood Watch, starring Robyn Nevin, were developed and had their world premieres at Belvoir. Belvoir’s production of Neighbourhood Watch was subsequently presented at MTC and the play enjoyed a new production at STCSA in 2014 starring Miriam Margolyes. Stories has been performed in New York City, Mexico City, Brisbane, Adelaide and Albury. Her plays The Black Swan of Trespass and The Eisteddfod (Stuck Pigs Squealing) were part of Belvoir’s B Sharp seasons in 2005 and 2007, and both toured to New York. Earlier this year Lally’s libretto for the opera adaptation of John Marsden’s The Rabbits was a sellout hit at the Perth International Arts Festival and the show returns later this year to the Melbourne International Arts Festival. Lally’s most recent production, Timeshare, just closed at Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne, where Lally has a long history of producing work, including Goodbye Vaudeville Charlie Mudd, A Golem Story and Criminology (co-written with Tom Wright). At STC Lally has written The Mysteries: Genesis, Frankenstein, Waikiki Palace, Hip Hip. For TV, Lally has written episodes of Wentworth, The Elephant Princess and Spirited. She has won two Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, a New York International Fringe Festival Award and several Green Room Awards. Lally has

been awarded a Churchill Fellowship, a British Council Realise Your Dreams grant and a playwriting grant from The Australian Writers’ Foundation. RALPH MYERS Director & Designer Ralph is Belvoir’s Artistic Director. For Belvoir he has directed Peter Pan, directed and designed Private Lives, and designed The Wizard of Oz, Elektra / Orestes, Kill the Messenger, Is This Thing On?, The Government Inspector, Coranderrk, Hamlet, Stories I Want to Tell You in Person, Death of a Salesman, Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, The Seagull, The Wild Duck, Measure for Measure, Toy Symphony, Parramatta Girls, Ray’s Tempest, The Spook, The Fever, Conversations with the Dead and The Cosmonaut’s Last Message to the Woman He Once Loved in the Former Soviet Union. Ralph’s other credits include The City, A Streetcar Named Desire, Blackbird, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, A Kind of Alaska/ Reunion, The Lost Echo, Mother Courage and Her Children, Boy Gets Girl, This Little Piggy, Far Away, Morph, Endgame, The 7 Stages of Grieving and Frankenstein, which he also directed (STC); Enlightenment, Cruel and Tender, Dinner, Frozen (MTC); Othello (Bell Shakespeare); Wonderlands (Griffin Theatre Company/HotHouse Theatre Company); Borderlines, Sweet Phoebe (Griffin Theatre Company); Frame of Mind (Sydney Dance Company); Eora Crossing (Legs on the Wall/Sydney Festival); Black Box (Ballet de l’Opera de Lyon); Caligula (English National Opera); The Marriage of Figaro, Peter Grimes, Così fan tutte (Opera Australia); La Bohème (New Zealand Opera); and Two Faced Bastard (Chunky Move).

ANDREA DEMETRIADES Miracle / Alex / Sophie Andrea is a NIDA graduate. Her theatre credits include Oedipus Rex, The Book of Everything (Belvoir); Perplex, Pygmalion (Sydney Theatre Company); Intimate Letters, Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night, Pericles (Bell Shakespeare Company); Helly’s Magic Cup (State Theatre Company of South Australia) and Winter (Griffin Theatre Company). Andrea’s feature films include the title role in Alex and Eve, Around the Block and Nerve. Her television credits include Janet King, Crownies, Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, Mr and Mrs Murder, Think Tank and All Saints. Andrea has received two Green Room nominations for Bell Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and Pericles. MEL DYER Stage Manager For Belvoir Mel has stage managed Is This Thing On?, Cain and Abel, Angels in America Parts One and Two and Every Breath, and was assistant stage manager on Peter Pan (New York tour), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Private Lives, Death of a Salesman, As You Like It, Neighbourhood Watch, The Seagull, The Diary of a Madman, Measure for Measure, The Promise, the 2009 Australian tour of Page 8 and the 2008 tour of Keating!. Mel has also appeared on stage for Belvoir in As You Like It, Neighbourhood Watch, The Seagull and Keating!. Her other credits include stage manager for Lawn, Edgar, Remember Me, Legless (Splintergroup/Festpeilhaus, Austria); Roadkill (Splintergroup/

Performing Lines); Underground (Dance North/Performing Lines) and Night Café (Dance North), and assistant stage manager for Boys Will Be Boys (Sydney Theatre Company); Masquerade (Griffin/STCSA) and Assembly (Chunky Move). Mel is a 2007 graduate of NIDA’s production course. STEFAN GREGORY Composer & Sound Designer Stefan’s composition and sound designs for Belvoir include Mother Courage and Her Children, Elektra / Orestes, A Christmas Carol, The Glass Menagerie, The Government Inspector, Hamlet, Forget Me Not, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Peter Pan, The Wild Duck, Private Lives, Medea, Death of a Salesman, Old Man, Thyestes, Strange Interlude, B Street, As You Like It, The Seagull, Measure for Measure and That Face. His other work includes Medea (Toneelgroep Amsterdam); Baal (Malthouse Theatre/STC); The Cherry Orchard (MTC); Suddenly Last Summer, Face to Face, Money Shots, Dance Better At Parties, The War of the Roses (STC); King Lear, Hamlet, Othello (Bell Shakespeare); Puncture, Symphony (Sydney Festival/Legs on the Wall); L’Chaim! (Sydney Dance Company); Infinity – There Is Definitely a Prince Involved (Australian Ballet); and Citizens Band, an installation by Angelica Mesiti (ACCA). Stefan was a band member of Faker until 2008, earning a platinum single and several ARIA nominations. He has been awarded a Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship. Stefan received a Sydney Theatre Award for Best Score or Sound Design for Thyestes.

BENEDICT HARDIE Marcus / Albert / Jeff Benedict is an actor, playwright and Artistic Director of The Hayloft Project. Working with the company since 2008, he co-devised and performed in By Their Own Hands, co-wrote and co-directed 3xSisters, co-wrote and performed in The Nest, wrote and directed Delectable Shelter, The Boat People, Arden V Arden and The Seizure, and wrote and performed in Yuri Wells. For Belvoir, Benedict co-adapted A Christmas Carol with Anne-Louise Sarks. Benedict graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2007, and his stage credits include Julius Caesar (Bell Shakespeare); Life Without Me (MTC); Wake in Fright (STC Rough Drafts); and Crime and Punishment (Stork Theatre). His film and TV acting credits include The Water Diviner, The Light Between Oceans, Strangerland, Deadline Gallipoli, Molly, Childhood’s End and The Outlaw Michael Howe. BRITTANY JONES Lighting Associate Originally from Brisbane, Brittany has been involved in theatre and the arts from a young age. She graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Arts’ Production course in 2014, and earlier had studied at the Queensland Academy for Creative Industries, majoring in Theatre and Film. Brittany has been assistant stage manager on Elektra / Orestes and Oedipus Schmoedipus (tour) at Belvoir. She has also worked on Madama Butterfly (Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour) and various shows at NIDA including The Illusion, Kasimir

& Karoline, Writing for Performance: A Personal View, The Lieutenant of Inishmore, Cymbeline and The False Servant. Brittany also writes, produces and directs her own theatre pieces and short films. RILEY McCULLAGH Associate Composer & Sound Designer Riley is studying a Bachelor of Sound and Music Design at the University of Technology, Sydney. His second album, Beezwax, was released on 13 April this year. XAVIER SAMUEL Ben / Cat Xavier graduated from Adelaide’s Flinders University Drama Centre in 2005. His theatre credits include The Seagull (STCSA); Mercury Fur (Theatreworks Co. Initiative/Griffin); Osama the Hero (La Mama/The Old Fitzroy); Two Weeks With the Queen (Windmill Performing Arts); Hamlet, Pyscho Beach Party, Dreaming, Mud, The Share, Talk Radio (Flinders University Drama Centre). Xavier’s film credits include Henry Joseph Church, Love and Friendship, Frankenstein, Fury with Brad Pitt, Healing opposite Hugo Weaving, Plush, Adore with Robin Wright and Naomi Watts, Drift, A Few Best Men, Bait, Anonymous, The Twilight Sage: Eclipse, The Loved Ones with Robyn McLeavy, September alongside Mia Wasikowska, Newcastle and 2:37. Xavier was awarded Best Actor at the Louisiana International Film Festival for Frankenstein.

Ralph Myers & Riley McCullagh

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Lally Katz