For some
politicians sexuality
is just another game
Written and directed by David Atfield
Supported by
Part of SpringOUT 2018
Media Partner
For some politicians sexuality is just another game EXCLUSION PREMIERES AT THE STREET THEATRE CANBERRA ON SATURDAY 10 NOVEMBER 2018. EXCLUSION IS DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF GEOFFREY, WHO LEFT US WAY TOO SOON. The action takes place in Canberra and Brisbane 2018. The play is presented in two acts.
DIRECTOR'S NOTES When I first sat down to write ‘Exclusion’ the marriage equality debate was in full swing, and I was amazed at how passionate many people were about excluding LGBTIQ people from one of western society’s most valued institutions.
CAST Jasper Ferrier: Craig Alexander Caroline Connor: Tracy Bourne Craig Morrow: Ethan Gibson Jacinta Ferrier: Fiona Victoria Hopkins Michael Connor: Michael Sparks CREATIVE TEAM Writer/Director: David Atfield Stage and Costume Design: Imogen Keen Lighting Design: Hartley T A Kemp Sound Design: James Tighe PRODUCTION TEAM Producer: David Atfield Stage Manager: Angharad Lindley Sound Operator: James Tighe Lighting Operator: Jed Buchanan Set Build: Stephen Crossley, Imogen Keen Production Technicians: Jed Buchanan, Seth Edwards-Ellis Publicity: Su Hodge Photographer: Shelly Higgs Videographer: Scott Holgate Graphic Designer: Alexander Thatcher
Now that we have marriage equality, there are still many ways that LGBTIQ people are excluded from mainstream society, including in the political process. I touch on many of these in the play. But, in the end, ‘Exclusion’ is not a political play – it’s a personal one. It’s about the vital importance of exploring who we are in our core, some may say soul, and not living lives of deception and delusion. We compromise who we are so much in our quest for acceptance, power, financial success and even love, thinking, in this way, to find happiness. But, in the end, it is only when we truly know, and accept, who we are that we can begin the path to happiness. By setting the play in the ultimate world of personal compromise – politics – I can explore this theme in its extreme. I think if more people, including our politicians, were more true to themselves there would be a lot more acceptance and a lot less exclusion.
David At field
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
CAST BIOGRAPHIES
This project would not have been possible without the support of the ACT Government, SpringOUT and The Street.
Craig Alexander : Jasper Ferrier
From David Atfield I would like to thank Kate Gaul who helped me find our amazing lighting designer, the cast who worked on the 2017 creative development that helped me consolidate the script: Dene Kermond, Emma Strand, Nicola Tyndale-Biscoe, Dylan Van Den Berg and P.J. Williams and, most especially, my great friend and ally Jonathan Gavin who dramaturged the creative development. His insights were invaluable. I’d like to thank the current cast, crew and creatives who all worked much harder than they should have, for the money I was able to pay them. They also showed enormous respect for each other in he creation of some often confronting material. I’d especially like to thank designer Imogen Keen who has created miracles out of thin air! I’d also like to thank my sponsors the ACT Government and SpringOUT (especially Paul Eldon, Sean Snell and Lynne O'Brien) for their extraordinary support for the project, and my media sponsor FUSE Magazine, led by the indomitable Alexander Thatcher, who created the gorgeous publicity artwork And I would like to thank everyone at The Street Theatre, especially Caroline Stacey and Dean Ellis, whose support has gone way beyond anything I could have imagined. The Street is a unique Canberra treasure in its support of local artists and the development and realisation of new work. Long may it reign! And of course to my ever patient partner John Beacroft for loving and supporting me no matter what. Finally I’d like to thank all those people who – sometimes inadvertently – shared their personal stories with me. I hope I’ve done them justice.
Craig Alexander is an award-winning actor, writer, film and theatre maker, with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Acting. Recent stage credits include: his performance as Thomas Novechek in Venus in Fur; acclaimed solo production of Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol; various roles in the premiere production of Cold Light by Alana Valentine; Roo in Pigeonhole Theatre’s Summer of the Seventeenth Doll; multiple roles in The Street Theatre’s radio play double bill, War of the Worlds/ Tourmaline. Recent screen credits include Dirt (Next In Line Films), Insecure Digital (ScreenCraft), Life (Short Poppy Productions), Victimas (O’Hallmhurain Films), several national TVC campaigns, and donning a wicked moustache in the hilarious Trainee Bomb Squad. Craig is currently adapting several classic horror tales for the stage and is also a father of four, a motorcycle enthusiast, gamer, somewhat-regular meditator, progressive callisthenics practitioner, Wing Chun Kung Fu student, not very successful organic vegetable grower, often house-husband, Connoisseur vanilla ice cream addict and occasionally finds time to sleep.
Exclusion is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real people, living or dead, or actual events is not intended, should not be inferred and is purely co-incidental.
Tracy Bourne : Caroline Connor
Ethan Gibson : Craig Morrow
Tracy Bourne originally trained as a classical singer (Queensland Con, Melbourne Con) and as an actor at the Victorian College of the Arts (Company 93). She worked professionally in new opera and theatre work in the 1990s including The Two Executioners for Chamber Made Opera, the ABC and Melbourne International Festival. She moved to Ballarat in 2000 to take up the position of Lecturer in Singing at the University of Ballarat, now Federation University, training many music theatre performers who have since worked professionally in Australia and overseas. During her time in Ballarat, Tracy wrote and directed new music theatre work in response to social and environmental issues, and established SEAM Inc. (Sustainable Environment Arts Movement), an organization that creates art projects that engage communities with issues of climate change. Since moving to Bungendore in 2015 she has directed The Only Certain Thing for Canberra Academy of Dramatic Art (CADA), co-Directed the Company Ensemble at Canberra Youth Theatre (CYT) for Poem Every Day in August 2017, and acted in a creative development of Blue by Dylan van den Berg (2017) and Sherpas by Tom Davis (2018) as part of First Seen at The Street Theatre.
Ethan Gibson is a Canberra born actor who has been working for the last ten years and is well known to ACT audiences for his work with NUTS, The Street Theatre, Free Rain and Canberra Youth Theatre (CYT).
In 2016, she completed a PhD on the physiology and acoustics of music theatre voice through Sydney University. She currently teaches singing, voice and acting in Canberra and Bungendore.
Ethan made his professional debut on stage at The Street Theatre in 2014 playing the lead role in Scandalous Boy, also written and directed by David Atfield. He graduated from NIDA in 2017. Whilst at NIDA he was fortunate enough to work with many leading theatre practitioners, including Phillip Quast, Judy Davis, and Kristine Landon- Smith. He is thrilled to be back home for Exclusion and to be working with The Street once again.
Fiona Victoria Hopkins : Jacinta Ferrier
Michael Sparks : Michael Connor
Fiona Victoria Hopkins has studied and worked professionally in the UK and Europe for over 14 years as an Actor and Costume Designer. Fiona was awarded a Bachelor of Arts in Costume Production from Rose Bruford College (2003) and a Masters in Classical Acting from the Central School of Speech and Drama (2005), London, headed by Dr Robert Clare. She studied screen acting in Los Angeles in 2007 and 2014 under international acting coach Lisa Pescia. While in Los Angeles. Fiona performed in the award-winning premiere of Natacha Astuto’s Le Train Denierin at the Hollywood Fringe Festival. Screen credits: A Landscape of Lies (UK 2018), Doghouse (UK 2009), Little Necro Red (Italy, soon to be released) TV credits: Clays P.O.V (Canada, 2014 – 2016). She will take up the lead role of Neptuna again in their 3rd season. Direction for feature length thriller in preproduction set for release in 2019.
Michael Sparks is an actor and designer known to Canberra audiences for his portrayals of Harold Ryan in Happy Birthday Wanda June, Creature in Dr. Frankenstein, Mickey Marcus in The Normal Heart, Uncle Charlie in August: Osage County, George in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Felix in The Odd Couple, Dr Brubaker in The Seven Year Itch, Gallimard in M. Butterfly, Cliff Bradshaw in Cabaret, Hal in Proof, Donnie in The Foursome, Carl in Bus Stop, Father Lamori in In Cold Light, and Harris in Gross Indecency - The 3 Trials of Oscar Wilde. Film and television credits including Lightswitch, The Prime Minister is Missing, and Rake. Michael won the Canberra Area Theatre (CAT) Award for George in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and a CAT award and a Canberra Critic’s Circle award for his design of The Crucible. Michael completed a B.A. in Theatre at the University of Alabama.
Fiona proudly brings all her experience and passion to her students at the Canberra Academy of Dramatic Art.
Michael is a proud member of Equity. This is his professional debut performance at The Street Theatre.
CREATIVE TEAM David Atfield : Direction NIDA graduate David Atfield is one of Canberra’s most respected directors and playwrights and winner of two Canberra Critics’ Circle Awards. Before NIDA David studied drama at UNSW and acting at the Ensemble. In Canberra from 1992, he directed productions for his own company, BITS, including Michael Gow’s Furious and Tennessee Williams’ Something Cloudy, Something Clear, and, for The Street, Scandalous Boy, Ship Of Fools and Blackbird. He won the 1997 Canberra Critics’ Circle Award for Furious. David‘s play Lovely Louise, about silent-film star Louise Lovely, was selected for the 1998 Australian National Playwrights Conference, before David directed it at The Street. Pink Triangles, about the Nazi persecution of homosexuals, followed, which he also directed at The Street in 2000. His production of his own play Scandalous Boy, about Hadrian and his lover Antinous, was named in the Canberra Times top five shows of 2014 and won David a second Canberra Critics' Circle Award. The script was short-listed for the Arch and Bruce Brown Foundation Award, New York, and published by Playlab. David's new play Chiaroscuro, about Caravaggio, was selected by Siren Theatre for a reading at the 2018 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Festival. A production is planned for 2019.
Imogen Keen : Stage and Costume Design Imogen is an award-winning set and costume designer for professional theatre production. Exclusion is Imogen's third collaboration with David Atfield following Blackbird in 2009 and Scandalous Boy in 2014. She has enjoyed a long collaboration with The Street Theatre, including design for: Venus in Fur; Diary of a Madman; The Weight of Light; Boys Will Be Boys; Under Sedation; Constellations; Cold Light; The Faithful Servant; The Chain Bridge; MP; Where I End & You Begin, The Give & Take; To Silence; Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris; Lawrie and Shirley; Albert Herring; Dido and Aeneas. Imogen has received Canberra Critics Circle Awards for Theatre Design (2009; 2011) and an MEAA Peer Acknowledgement Award (2011). She has worked on a wide variety of theatre, film, music and cross-disciplinary productions for: Aspen Island Theatre Company, This Band Will Self Destruct, COUP Canberra, Handel In The Theatre, Barking Spider Visual Theatre, Polyglot Theatre, Canberra Youth Theatre, Little Dove Theatre and Urban Theatre Projects. Imogen graduated from the ANU School of Art in 1993.
Hartley T A Kemp : Lighting Design Hartley is an international lighting designer and theatre consultant whose experience includes Broadway, West End, major UK producing companies, and theatres and arts venues in Europe, North America, Australia and worldwide. In Canberra Hartley has previously lit Cordelia for Little Dove Theatre Art/Motherboard Productions at The Street, and Evangeline for Little Dove Theatre Art at Canberra Theatre Centre. In Australia Hartley has also lit productions for Sydney Theatre Company, Bell Shakespeare, Belvoir, Griffin Theatre Company, Darlinghurst Theatre Company, Melbourne Theatre Company, Malthouse Theatre; and for independent companies Cross Pollinate Productions, Pantsguys Productions, Red Line Productions at the Old Fitz, Ride On Theatre and Siren Theatre Company. Hartley's work in the UK includes designs for the National Theatre of Great Britain and Royal Shakespeare Company (London, Stratford and international), in theatres in London's West End, and for many of London's producing theatres and touring companies. His work in North America includes Broadway, Off-Broadway and regional. Europe includes Austria, Germany, Iceland, Ireland (including Gate Theatre, Dublin), Spain and Sweden. Worldwide work and touring includes Hong Kong, Korea, Russia, South Africa and Singapore. In addition to his lighting design and theatre consultancy work, Hartley is Artistic Director of C venues at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
CREATIVE TEAM James Tighe : Sound Design
James has been working professionally in the live performance industry since graduating from the Australian National University with a Bachelor of Professional Music Practice. James has worked in several varying roles within the industry, with notable credits including Sound Designer for Miss Sagion (ANU Interhall Productions, 2015), and Ali McGregors Alchemy (Hayes Theatre Co 2015). Monitor Technician for Paul Kelly, Neil Finn, Paul Dempsey, and Ben Folds. FOH Audio Operator for Jon Cleary, and Boney M. Stage Manager for Grease: The Arena Experience (Harvest Rain Theatre Company 2018), and The Bar at Buena Vista (ATA Allstar 2018), and Technical Director and Production Manager for The Merchants of Bollywood (ATA Allstar 2018), Miss Saigon (ANU IHP), and 9 to 5 The Musical (Unilodge ANU 2018). James also worked as the Head of Audio at the Canberra Theatre Centre.
PRODUCTION TEAM Angharad Lindley : Stage Manager Angharad graduated with Distinction from the University of Wollongong in a Bachelor of Creative Arts (Performance). Her Stage Management credits include, Lucy Black, The Political Hearts of Children (subtlenuance), Opera at the Forum (Pacific Opera), Rust and Bone, Fireface, Music, Minus One Sister (Stories Like These), Dirty Blonde (Garnet Productions), A Butcher of Distinction (we do not unhappen), The Lightbox (Fat Boy Dancing), Gaybies, Deathtrap, The Pride (Darlinghurst Theatre Company), RENT – The Musical (Highway Run Productions), Resident Alien (Left Bauer Productions - Sydney and Canberra), Songs For The Fallen (Critical Stages), The Dapto Chaser (Apocalypse Theatre Company). For The Street Theatre: Venus in Fur, Diary of a Madman, Boys Will be Boys, Constellations and Cold Light. As Assistant Stage Manager her credits include The Dapto Chaser (Merrigong Theatre Company), Snugglepot & Cuddlepie (CDP Theatre Producers), Alice In Wonderland – NSW Regional Tour 2018 (Michael Sieders Presents), Hamlet and Hedda Gabler (Belvoir).
Jed Buchanan : Assistant to the Lighting Designer Jed is an emerging lighting designer, who is beginning to explore the world of professional theatre in Canberra and beyond. After working extensively with the ANU student theatre community and numerous comedy and theatre festivals, Jed has been working in lighting and production at the Street Theatre and is soon to design the lighting for Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again. Career highlights include working with countless talented performers and directors through The Street Theatre’s dramatic repertoire, and supporting a hilarious cohort of comedians and comediennes over a number of years for the Canberra Comedy Festival. Jed is excited to get further embroiled in the Canberra theatre and live performance community, to shed light on beautiful and moving stories.
Street Staff
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Artistic Director/CEO : Caroline Stacey Producer : Dean Ellis Communications : Su Hodge Customer Service & Ticketing Supervisor : Ketura Budd FOH Team : Daniel Berthon, Logan Craswell, Christiane Nowak Street Board : Henry Kazar, Beverley Hart, Jamie Hladky, Kirsty Easdale, Ann Bounds
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THE STREET IS MANAGED BY THE STAGEMASTER INC., A NOT-FOR-PROFIT ORGANISATION. THE STREET IS SUPPORTED BY THE ACT GOVERNMENT THROUGH ARTSACT AND IS AN ACT GOVERNMENT ARTS FACILITY.
Written and directed by David Atfield
Craig Alexander as Jasper Ferrier Ethan Gibson as Craig Morrow Michael Sparks as Michael Connor Fiona Victoria Hopkins as Jacinta Ferrier
Tracy Bourne as Caroline Connor
THE STREET THEATRE | 9 – 17 NOVEMBER 2018 BOOKINGS 02 6247 1223 | THESTREET.ORG.AU 15 CHILDERS STREET CANBERRA CITY
Photo by: Shelly Higgs