MALTHOUSE THEATRE PRESENTS A Windmill Theatre and State Theatre Company of South Australia PRODUCTION OF
Duration 2 hours 10 mins (20 min interval)
CREATIVE TEAM
CAST AND CHARACTERS
Rosemary Myers .............................................................. Director & Creator Julianne O’Brien .................................................................................... Writer Jonathon Oxlade .................................................................................Designer Chris More .............................................................................. Video Designer Geoff Cobham .................................................................... Lighting Designer Jethro Woodward.............................................. Composer/Musical Director Andrew Howard....................................................... Sound System Designer Pete Brundle ................................................................... AV System Designer Carol Wellman Kelly ...................................................................... Movement
Danielle Catanzariti........................................................................... Blue Girl Jude Henshall ............................................................................................... Cat Derik Lynch ................................................................................................. Fox Nathan O’Keefe ................................................................................ Pinocchio Geoff Revell....................................................................................... Stromboli Sam Routledge ...................................................................................... Cricket Alirio Zavarce .................................................................................... Geppetto Shireen Khemlani ............................................................................. Musician Paul White ......................................................................................... Musician
A Word from the Director AND Writer Team Carlo Collodi wrote the original Pinocchio story in Italy in 1883 and there have been hundreds of adaptations since. The book is quite dark and very episodic. There is one theory that its genesis was actually as a newspaper series, so our first challenges were to choose the most exciting events and well-loved characters to include, and to work out how to structure these elements into a three-act play. The next fun part was to develop the characters to make them fresh and identifiable to a modern audience by giving our Pinocchio and his friends Cat, Fox and Blue Girl their own contemporary twists. Before you can tell a story you must find your own connection to it and we were immediately excited by some of the central images in this classic tale like a nose that grows when you tell lies, the desire to be real and a conscience embodied as a cricket. Pinocchio is the ultimate naughty boy and we knew that playing out the consequences of his actions would give us plenty of scope for fun and games. Our way of making theatre is very collaborative and starts with our key creative team and talented actors getting together to explore and develop our ideas. We find this creative process soon uncovers the story that is burning to be told. In the early stages of the development, the next thread we found was the strength of a father’s love for his child and so, in amongst Pinocchio’s hilarious adventures, fibs and escapades, ultimately this story is about love. The show has come together over the past eighteen months with loads of passion from the entire team. It has been a journey of imagination with one or two sleepless nights to make a Pinocchio that rocks. We are thrilled to be working in collaboration with our good friends at State Theatre Company of South Australia and in particular to have the benefit of the incredibly talented craftsmen and women in State Theatre’s in-house wardrobe and workshop departments. Thank you. We hope you enjoy the show. Rose Myers and Julianne O’Brien
ROSEMARY MYERS – DIRECTOR AND CREATOR
JULIANNE O’BRIEN – WRITER
Rosemary is the Artistic Director of Windmill Theatre. She was the Artistic Director of the 2010 Out of the Box Festival for QPAC and, prior to this, she was the Artistic Director of Arena Theatre Company and the Artistic Director of the Union Theatre at Melbourne University. Her productions have toured extensively both nationally and internationally and her independent work includes: ABC Television, Back to Back Theatre Company, Victorian College of the Arts, Sydney Theatre Company and Creative Director for the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games Opening Ceremony. For Windmill, Rosemary has directed Boom Bah!, The Wizard of Oz, Fugitive, Girl Who Cried Wolf and School Dance.
Julianne is a playwright with many stage and screen credits including Blue Heelers (Southern Star) and Backberner (ABC TV Sydney). She consults as a dramaturge for theatre companies throughout Australia, lectures in story design at Victoria University, teaches comedy writing for Swinburne University and writes features for The Age. Julianne was dramaturge on the Arena Theatre multimedia trilogy – Autopsy, Mass and Panacea which won the 1999 ASSITEJ President’s award for ‘Best in the World’, presented in Norway. Both Autopsy and her highly acclaimed first play, The Women There, have toured Canada as invitees of major theatre festivals. Julianne wrote Arena Theatre’s Eat Your Young that toured to Taiwan and Australian capital cities.