EDITION 3 – 2016
Nick Schlieper Illuminated
Shaun Micallef A likely pair
Zindzi Okenyo Identity parade
Kate Mulvany Repeat performances
A new team for 2017 Inside information
At the end of April, I was delighted to announce Sarah Goodes and Dean Bryant as MTC’s new Associate Directors, starting full-time from October. One of the greater pleasures of being an Artistic Director of a major arts organisation is working with talented creative professionals as they take crucial steps in their careers. After several years of following the careers of Sarah and Dean, I was thrilled we had the opportunity to welcome them to MTC as our new Associate Directors. Dean Bryant, of course, has had a long association with the Company, beginning in 2005 when he was Assistant Director on Urinetown. He subsequently assisted Simon Phillips on a series of musicals, before taking the helm on major productions in commercial and independent theatre and cabaret. We welcomed him back to MTC as director of Next to Normal in 2011 and since then he has directed I’ll Eat You Last in 2014 and Skylight, which has just finished its successful season in the Sumner. Sarah Goodes has not yet directed for MTC, but she’s about to. In September, she’ll be bringing her acclaimed Sydney Theatre Company production of Joanna MurraySmith’s Switzerland to the Sumner. After training here in Melbourne at Victorian College of the Arts and beginning her career in independent theatre, Sarah became one of STC’s Resident Directors in 2013. She returns to Melbourne with a strong reputation for developing and staging new work.
The spectacular finale in Dean Bryant's Next to Normal (2011)
Cover: Sarah Peirse in Joanna Murray-Smith's Switzerland Scenes is a publication of Melbourne Theatre Company. All information was correct at the time of printing. Melbourne Theatre Company reserves the right to make changes. WRITER Paul Galloway DESIGN AND ART DIRECTION Helena Turinski COVER IMAGE Brett Boardman Melbourne Theatre Company is a department of the University of Melbourne.
tragedies and all generic shades between. I look forward to the unique impact they’ll have on both the Company and the broader theatre landscape in Melbourne and beyond. I should also take this opportunity to once again thank Sam Strong and Leticia Cáceres, our outgoing Associate Artistic Director and Associate Director, for three years of hard work and great theatre. Though, I must say, it hardly feels as if they’ve left. Since he took up the reins at Queensland Theatre Company at the beginning of the year, Sam has returned twice to MTC, directing Double Indemnity and, currently, Jasper Jones. And Leticia, who has returned to a freelance career, has been at MTC directing both The Distance and more recently our family show Egg. They have been terrific colleagues and we look forward to following their wonderful careers for years to come. Although they haven’t started at the Company full time yet, Dean and Sarah have been working closely with us on MTC’s 2017 Season. Not that I can reveal any details yet. That will have to wait for the 2017 Season Launch, the date of which will be announced soon. In the next few weeks invitations will go out to all 2016 Subscribers. In the meantime, enjoy the wonderful shows coming up. Best wishes Brett Sheehy Artistic Director
MTC’s Associate Directors are integral to the artistic vibrancy of the Company taking on the widest range of theatre projects on large stages and small, from classics to new Australian plays, from comedies to dramas to
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Everything is illuminated Veteran designer Nick Schlieper paints in light
Switzerland by Joanna Murray-Smith plays at the Sumner from 16 September to 29 October. See videos and podcasts about MTC productions at mtc.com.au/backstage.
According to Nick Schlieper, Lighting Designer of MTC's forthcoming production of Switzerland, painting comes closest to what he does. His brother, Michael, elder by eleven years and who died last year, had been a painter, and the younger Schlieper spent his teenage years watching his pictures develop, layer upon layer, from the bare canvas to the finished work. ‘That was my good fortune, from early age,’ says Schlieper, ‘because, once you’ve moved past some fundamental differences, there are an awful lot of common factors between using light and using pigment. The oil painting principle of building up translucent layers to allow layers of paint to come through and affect the top layer is also a fundamental principle of lighting design. Of course, all the fundamentals of composition and balancing a space, of unbalancing a space, and knowing you’re doing so are common to painting as well.’ Asked whether designers, like painters, had their own style, Schlieper says, ‘Yes, there are some designers where I can look at their work and have a good guess about who it is. More often than not I’ll be right, but never to the extent that you might look at an oil painting and know that is by such and such.’ And does he have a distinct style? ‘The first adjective that people used when I was starting out was “Teutonic”’, he says. ‘At the time I was a little miffed and also confused about what “Teutonic” might be.’
Sarah Peirse and Eamon Farren in Switzerland (Sydney Theatre Company) Photos: Brett Boardman
Albert Speer at Nuremberg perhaps, I say, and he laughs. ‘At the time it was said half in jest, because I tended not to use much colour, which is a perceived feature of the German theatre. And perhaps a certain severity in terms of the angles the light is coming from most of the time.’ The late actor Bob Hornery christened him ‘Celia Sidelight’, because Schlieper’s lights always seemed to be in his eyes as he was trying to find his exit. ‘That turned out to be a pretty good description and, to an extent, true,’ Schlieper says. ‘And when I started going to Germany, I recognised it. I thought, yes, my personal aesthetic does kind of come from here. It’s interesting.’ Schlieper is well into his fourth decade as a professional lighting designer, with a reputation extending across
every major performing arts company in Australia and, further, to Europe and America. As well as his extensive work for German theatre companies, he lectured in lighting design there for more than a decade. Since 1990, he has on occasion designed or co-designed the set as well as the lighting, most notably co-designing the Adelaide Ring Cycle in 2004 with Michael Scott Mitchell (who is Set and Costume Designer on Switzerland) and also last year with director Simon Phillips on MTC’s North by Northwest. ‘It’s not something I’d want to do all the time,’ he says. ‘I wouldn’t like to design a lot of boring boxes of people’s living room interiors and decide what colour the cushions on the sofa might be. I tend to design sets when there are very specific things to say about them, as it were. With [North by Northwest], the mechanics of that piece are so obvious and the production had to flow. Anything that got in the way of that flow was going to be a bad idea, no matter how beautiful it looked. So collaborating with Simon [on the entire design] seemed the sensible thing to do, which wasn’t hard when you consider that North by Northwest marked our twenty-fifth year working together.’ His collaboration with Michael Scott Mitchell goes back even further and they also work as a team, solving the set and lighting problems together as they go. Joanna Murray-Smith’s Switzerland, which had a successful season at STC in 2014, threw up quite a few problems arising from an early and crucial decision, in consultation with the director Sarah Goodes, to give the single room set a low ceiling. For any lighting designer, not being able to light from above is a severe restriction. Frontal lighting tends to flatten everything out, so Schlieper had to find ways of sneaking light into the set, and footlights were part of the solution – a happy one as it turned out, considering that the play’s lead character is thriller writer Patricia Highsmith. ‘A lot of that production is lit upwards from the floor, with other light coming through slits and cracks in the set,’ he says. ‘It creates a sort of film noir atmosphere that’s wholly appropriate to a play about the woman who wrote novels like Strangers on a Train. And on one level, this play is an absolute, straight-out thriller.’ Nick Schlieper spoke to Paul Galloway.
Prompt Corner
Craig Silvey’s novel Jasper Jones has been a favorite with readers since its initial publication in 2009. Sales of the book are still brisk and set to be brisker when a new film version is released next year. Meanwhile, Kate Mulvany’s stage adaptation, which MTC audiences are about to see, has already been successfully staged by Barking Gecko in Perth last year and Belvoir in Sydney a few months ago. The MTC production is a brand new staging directed by former MTC Associate Artistic Director Sam Strong, with a cast led by Rachel Gordon (pictured below left; last seen at MTC in David Williamson’s Let the Sunshine), Ian Bliss (North by Northwest) and Hayden Spencer (Elling pictured above). Playing the younger characters are some fine up-and-coming actors in their first mainstage MTC show: Nicholas Denton, Harry Tseng, Taylor Ferguson, and Guy Simon, who plays the title character. Ayad Akhtar’s vicious dinner-party play, Disgraced, won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2013 and MTC’s forthcoming production is directed by Nadia Tass (The Other Place). Mitchell Butel (below centre left, The Grenade) and Kat Stewart (The Speechmaker) return to the Company, while Hazem Shammas, Kane Felsinger, and Zindzi Okenyo (see the interview with her in this edition of Scenes) all make their MTC debuts. Director Sarah Goodes will join MTC as Associate Director next year, but in the meantime she comes to the Company in September with her successful STC production of Joanna Murray-Smith’s Switzerland. For her main character, Murray-Smith drew on the acerbic real-life figure of Patricia Highsmith, author of the diabolically clever novels Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr Ripley. The play, not surprisingly, is a psychological thriller starring Sarah Peirse (Tribes) and Eamon Farren (below centre right), working at MTC for the first time. The final show for 2016 is Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple, with TV’s Mad as Hell’s Shaun Micallef and Francis Greenslade playing the mismatched flatmates. Directed by Peter Houghton (True Minds), the production gathers together a great comic cast, including returning actors Grant Piro (below right; Realism), Michala Banas (Birdland), Christie Whelan Browne (The Drowsy Chaperone), and, fresh from Jasper Jones, Hayden Spencer. Drew Tingwell and David Ross Paterson appear for us for the first time. ANNUAL REPORT For those wanting to know how their favourite theatre company is faring in these straitened times, our 2015 Annual report is now available for perusal on our website (mtc.com.au/about/annualreport). Or, if spreadsheets aren’t your bag, you can have a brisk wander down the
memory lane provided by pages dedicated to a review of each 2015 show that includes photos, cast lists and excerpts from reviews. FAREWELL Staff and friends of MTC were saddened recently to hear of the deaths of Lewis Fiander and Ronald Falk, two veteran actors who had long associations with the Company. Lewis Fiander, who died in Melbourne on 24 May following a stroke, first appeared for the Union Theatre Repertory Company (precursor to MTC) in 1959 in Arms and the Man, Venus Observed, The Entertainer, and Moby Dick – Rehearsed. After a successful period in Britain he returned to Australia and worked for this company many times, most recently in The Visit (2003) and Enlightenment (2007). Ronald Falk who died on 29 June, had a very similar career path, beginning with stage and radio dramas in the late fifties, spending time working on stage and TV in the UK in the sixties, and returning to Australia in the early seventies. For the 1972 season, he joined MTC’s ensemble, appearing in, among others, Macquarie, Danton’s Death, Tonight at 8.30, and The Cherry Orchard. He was kept busy with stage and television work until very recently, lately appearing for MTC in Apologia (2011), Elling (2012), and, again, in The Cherry Orchard (2013), playing Firs. Our sympathies go to Ronald and Lewis’s family and friends. Fuller biographies can be found on our website, mtc.com.au/backstage.news.
FREE CAST AND ARTIST Q&AS All those who enjoy a little mental preparation before their theatre visit should not miss our Free Cast and Artist Q&As. Led by the director, often with the actors and members of the creative team also contributing, these Q&As allow audiences an insight into the creative process and a chance to slake their curiosity with a few pointed questions. Usually, the briefings are held on stage – often surrounded by set in mid-construction – at 6pm on the Monday evening before the first preview. By all means come with friends, even if they’re not Subscribers. The next Q&As are:
Jasper Jones The Sumner Monday 25 July, 6pm Disgraced Fairfax Studio Monday 15 August, 6pm The Odd Couple The Sumner Monday 31 October, 6pm Please note that there will be no Q&A for Switzerland.
(From top) Hayden Spencer in Elling (2012); Lewis Fiander and Pamela Rabe in Private Lives (1996); Ronald Falk (right) with Roger Oakley in The Cherry Orchard (2013)
A likely pair Shaun Micallef talks about his odd coupling with Francis Greenslade ‘Could I live with Francis?’ Shaun Micallef sips his tea as he ponders this hypothetical yet vaguely disturbing question. He and long-time co-star Francis Greenslade will appear together for MTC in October in Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple, about Felix and Oscar, a fussbudget and a slob, two divorced men who disastrously decide to share a New York apartment. So it felt appropriate to ask whether Micallef and Greenslade could ever be happy flatmates. ‘Well, I could probably live with him, but he couldn’t live with me’, Micallef says. ‘Because I annoy him apparently. I didn’t realise this for about two years. But he’d be reading in his dressing room – he likes to read and do crosswords – and I’d come in and think: “Oh, he’s not doing anything. I’ll talk to him.” And it wasn’t until at least two years of this that he mentioned to me that, actually, he was doing something: he was reading a book. He wasn’t waiting to be entertained by me, as it happened. So I’m sure MTC will give us separate dressing rooms and that will be a good thing.’ Micallef and Greenslade only occasionally socialise outside work, but they’ve known each other for more than thirty years, meeting as students at Adelaide University in the early eighties. Micallef, then in his second year, was involved in the Footlights Club and Greenslade was one of the young freshers auditioning to join. ‘He impressed me, because he was the only person I’d seen that day who had any talent at all.’ Micallef recalls. ‘He could play the piano. He demonstrated an actual ability. Most of us did comedy by default, because we couldn’t do anything else; couldn’t dance, couldn’t sing, couldn’t do anything. He auditioned with Herod’s song from Jesus Christ Superstar! and blew us away. So we were both about eighteen and we fell into working with each other. It’s become a habit now.’
‘We were looking for a property for Francis and me to do. And the doubleact aspect of the play was appealing … ’ Shaun Micallef and Francis Greenslade in The Odd Couple
The Odd Couple by Neil Simon plays at the Sumner from 5 November to 17 December. Learn more about The Odd Couple at mtc.com.au/theoddcouple.
If that’s true, it must be a pleasurable habit for both of them. There’ll be only a small break between the end of this current season of Mad as Hell on ABC Television, where Greenslade’s job is to play a disorienting array of characters for Micallef to interview, and the start of rehearsals for The Odd Couple. The show was all their idea. ‘We were looking for a property for Francis and me to do,’ Micallef says. ‘And the double-act aspect of the play was appealing. We’ve worked on so many things – on television, in the early days at University, on stage – and usually the material was something I had written myself. So we thought, let’s go for the best material possible and be equals in it. It is rather nice just to give ourselves over to a director and serve [someone else’s] script. Such a great script.’
They approached MTC’s Artistic Director Brett Sheehy, who thought Micallef, Greenslade and Neil Simon’s classic comedy was an irresistible combination. However, they were gently dissuaded from another idea they had. ‘Part of the original pitch was that it would be nice to alternate the roles,’ he says. ‘If you think about it, while you’re rehearsing anyway and have learnt the play, you might as well learn the other role and do a little GielgudOlivier switch about halfway through the season. Maybe people would come more than once to see the alternate interpretations. Perhaps not everyone, but a third, perhaps, would come again. That’s not too much to expect, is it? A quarter? Anyway, apparently this brilliant idea proved too problematic in terms of organising, announcing and selling it. It was thought best to keep it simple.’ Still, there remained the question of who would play which role. ‘I was happy either way, though I thought I’d be a more natural Felix. So I wasn’t pushing to play Oscar, but Francis wanted to play Felix. So, after getting the show up, we basically had to audition for our roles. We did a reading for Peter Houghton, the director, and switched roles after lunch. We showed him our alternate versions in a chair-and-table environment, but in the end Peter felt that me as Felix was the wiser casting. And it was good for me because there are fewer lines.’ Partly that’s because Felix doesn’t come on for at least ten minutes after the start, I remind him. ‘Yes, so as I walk on, I expect the audience will give me a round [of applause]. And Francis won’t get one, because he’s discovered when the curtain comes up.’ I tell him that getting a round from the audience on entrance might be more a Broadway tradition. Melbourne audiences tend to expect you to do something for your applause. He feigns disappointment. ‘Perhaps, I can give a slight bow or something,’ he says. ‘Apparently, there are little tricks that you can do to milk a round from the audience. A certain way you hold your body as you enter, a pause.’ He thinks for a second and sips his tea. ‘Yes, I need to speak to a few old pros about how that’s done.’ Shaun Micallef spoke to Paul Galloway.
Identity parade In Disgraced, actor Zindzi Okenyo touches some sore spots
(above) Kat Stewart and Mitchell Butel in Disgraced
Disgraced by Ayad Akhtar plays at the Fairfax Studio from 19 August to 1 October. Disgraced is presented with the support of Production Partner Little Real Estate. See more videos and podcasts about MTC productions at mtc.com.au/backstage.
When people describe racial and ethnic identity in America as a minefield, as they frequently do, they are not just reaching for the accepted cliché. What else could you call these issues that lie beneath the surface of ordinary life ready to blow up at the slightest misstep? You will see how touchy and explosive such issues can be when Disgraced comes to MTC in August. Writer Ayad Akhtar received the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his dinnerparty play in which the host, a lawyer called Amir, believes himself somehow above the politics of race only to be brought down to earth over a single evening. Preparing to go into rehearsals, Zindzi Okenyo, who plays Jori, a co-worker from Amir’s law firm, acknowledges that being an African-American carries far more cultural baggage than being an African-Australian, as she is. Okenyo, who was born in Adelaide to a Kenyan father and a white Australian mother, says, ‘I have had a lot of conversations with friends who are African-Australian and we’re all trying to work out what that is. We’re not sure where we fit in with Black Australia and White Australia and all the various immigrants over the years. You are part of this thing called Australia, but there’s uncertainty about what part that is. ‘That’s not to say Australia doesn’t have issues, but they’re different issues, different problems [to America’s]. When you look at America there are so many sore spots. In the play, you have a Muslim man, a black woman, a Jew and a white woman, and each of them are attached to a long, complex history of what that means. There are all these things that they’re connected to. I think, in terms of identity politics in Australia, our national identity is still evolving.’
Okenyo’s parents split up when she was very young and she grew up ‘all over the place’, including in indigenous communities in Queensland, where her mother worked as an English as a Second Language Teacher. During her high school years in Hobart, she developed a taste for performing and successfully auditioned for NIDA. For the past decade since graduating, she has been based in Sydney, building her stage career, especially at Sydney Theatre Company. She has gathered a few television credits, too, including work as a presenter on Play School. In recent years, she has been writing and performing her own music. Disgraced is her first production at Melbourne Theatre Company. As she speaks about her career, the issue of her race – or perhaps, more accurately, her racial appearance – is a recurring theme. For any actor, appearance is a crucial factor in the roles they receive. Typecasting has never gone away and actors depend a great deal on whether they have the right ‘look’ for a role. That makes casting decisions highly subjective. ‘When you are a white person and you walk on stage, you are just there,’ she says. ‘But if you are of colour you can’t help bringing all these things, political and social, with you. That’s not your choice and can be frustrating. But, my way of looking at it is, instead of getting frustrated with it, I need to understand what that is and how I can use it. It’s a journey for me, I guess.’
Yet, for a black actor, at a time when there are increasing number of black roles coming available, there can be advantages, which Okenyo admits has helped her. ‘I’m in the great position that my colour hasn’t necessarily held me back,’ she says. ‘I’ve been in the position where a great black role would come along, such as this one, and I’m able to take it. Also, for the majority of my career, I‘ve played roles in which the colour or ethnicity of the character is non-specified. That’s a privileged position to be in. Though, I must say that Australia is still learning about colour-blind casting. Sometimes my colour seems to be an issue with producers and directors when it shouldn’t be. You go overseas and see that it’s not such a big issue there. There are a lot more opportunities.’ But in the end, she says, she’s just another working actor in an uncertain business. ‘It’s a funny thing being an actor, because, yes, you have to be talented and, yes, you have to work hard, but so much of it is completely out of your control. It’s all quite tenuous. The only thing that I have any control over is continually trying to get better. And be true to myself, too.’ Zindzi Okenyo spoke to Paul Galloway.
Three of a kind Adapter of Jasper Jones Kate Mulvany looks forward to the play’s third incarnation
Nicholas Denton and Guy Simon in rehearsal
Jasper Jones based on the novel by Craig Silvey, adapted by Kate Mulvany, plays at the Sumner from 1 August to 9 September. Jasper Jones is presented with the support of Production Partner Goldman Sachs. See writer Kate Mulvany and director Sam Strong talk about the production at mtc.com.au/backstage.
Jasper Jones, which opens at the Sumner on 1 August, will be, unusually, the third separate production of the play within as many years. This is almost unheard of in Australian theatre. Sometimes a new Australian play will receive a production which travels from one theatre company to another, but it’s rare for a play to receive three fresh productions in succession. Kate Mulvany’s adaptation of Craig Silvey’s popular novel was originally commissioned and performed by West Australian company Barking Gecko in 2014. Earlier this year, Belvoir mounted a successful new production, directed by Anne Louise Sarks, and now Sam Strong directs the play anew for MTC. Mulvany, who also appeared in the Belvoir production, is delighted that the play has had a vigorous afterlife. ‘I have been completely lucky,’ she says. ‘And I think it should definitely happen more often. Speaking as a playwright, when you spend three to four years writing a new Australian play, I hate that you get just three to four weeks on stage and then it’s gone. The play more or less disappears from view. I feel at last the tide is changing a little. It’s great that major companies are putting money into plays which have already had so much work put into them.’ Mulvany’s luck began the moment a few years ago when Barking Gecko’s Artistic Director John Sheedy put the novel in her hands and asked, ‘Have you read this?’ As a matter of fact, she had. Sheedy told her he had the rights to it and asked whether she wanted to adapt it for him. ‘It was just like being given a great big chuck of gold. It was gorgeous. Like a jewel just placed in my hand. Though I knew I had a tough task ahead, because it was such a well-loved book. Such a part of Australian literary history. So I was scared but also excited to take it on.’
‘What frightened me was [ Jasper Jones] had so much in it. It covers so much ground. It talks about racism and sexism, the Vietnam War and refugees, domestic violence and abuse; it has these set pieces about super heroes and cricket, which people love …’ Published in 2009, Jasper Jones, Silvey’s second novel, became something of an instant classic. It’s a coming-ofage story with broad appeal. Although it has become a popular set text for high school English, it is also the young adult novel that many older adults love to read. Many have likened its open, tough, touching story to Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. It deals with similar subject matter: a death in a small town and its unfolding consequences as seen from the young protagonist’s point of view. ‘What frightened me was it had so much in it,’ Mulvany says. ‘It covers so much ground. It talks about racism and sexism, the Vietnam War and refugees, domestic violence and abuse; it has these set pieces about super heroes and cricket, which people love. It was a big task to take on.’ Barking Gecko specialises in theatre for young people, so her original script dealt with all those difficult issues with a teenage audience in mind. Mulvany pulled back on the more graphic scenes, while making connections between events a little more explicit. When Belvoir picked up the play, she rewrote passages to toughen it up for an adult audience. But she doesn’t think she went far enough. ‘So with the MTC production coming up, with Sam’s blessing, I asked whether we could make it even a bit more adult, hard hitting, so that the funny moments would be funnier and the darker moments a little darker. Some of it was just fine-tuning it for a bigger space at the Sumner and a bigger theatrical audience.’ At every stage during the original writing and during every rewrite since, Mulvany kept in contact with Craig Silvey, who lives in Fremantle and has been supportive of all her artistic choices. Consultation is important to Mulvany, because it will always remain Silvey’s story. ‘It came from
his brain, his heart and his gut. It’s the least I can do to keep him in the loop. But he was also incredibly generous. He said right off, “Do what you need to do.”' She made changes, some substantial, but always reluctantly and always with his blessing. ‘I wanted to keep as true to the book as possible,’ she says, ‘but the thing that bothered me was that the female characters were underwritten. I suppose, because we’re seeing everything through thirteen year-old boy’s eyes. When I brought that up with Craig – very delicately – he said, “I agree, I agree. Go for it. Flesh them out.”' An adaption is never an act of pure translation from one medium to another, Mulvany believes. The adapter can’t help but put herself into the play. As far as possible she kept Silvey’s lines – ‘he has such a rich, evocative turn of phrase’ – but all the time she drew from her own upbringing in a small West Australian town, not too different from the Silvey’s fictional mining town of Corrigan. ‘A lot of the characters use words and lines from my own history,’ she says. ‘It’s important as an adapter to put your own self into it as well. The beating heart of it is still Craig Silvey’s amazing story. This is his book on stage. But it’s also important ultimately for it to be a Kate Mulvany play.’ Kate Mulvany spoke to Paul Galloway.
Corporate Partnerships
Opening and closing Audi Audi Australia is celebrating five years as a Major Partner supporting MTC Opening Nights. With a long history of supporting the finest artistic organisations in Australia, Audi holds a shared passion for pushing the limits of creativity and innovation. Audi Australia’s Managing Director Andrew Doyle says, ‘Our support of MTC enables us to engage with a sophisticated, artappreciative audience and offer inspiring and unique experiences to our dealers and clients. It also provides us with a way of giving back to the community which supports the growth of the brand.’ Audi will host the upcoming Opening Nights of Jasper Jones and The Odd Couple. We sincerely thank Audi Australia for all their support over the years, and for making our Opening Nights even more memorable.
Network Ten Network Ten, Australia’s entertainment network, is passionate about supporting local artists on stage and on screen. They care about fostering new Australian drama, and their sponsorship of MTC’s Closing Nights is just one of the ways they are showing their support. Many actors that star in Network Ten television productions also grace the stages in Melbourne Theatre Company productions, exemplified by Kat Stewart’s upcoming performance in MTC's Disgraced. Stewart is arguably best known for her portrayal of Billie Proudman in the hugely popular Network Ten television series Offspring. You can watch the AACTA winner on Wednesday nights at 8.30pm, and also see Kat play Emily in MTC’s Disgraced from Friday 19 August at Arts Centre Melbourne, Fairfax Studio.
Central Equity Leading Melbourne property developer Central Equity, an MTC Premium Season Partner, has recently launched its brand new Southbank apartment project, Southbank Place. Combining modern design, stylish finishes and a premium Southbank location, this landmark tower will provide for the best of city living. Walk to the CBD, the Arts precinct, Crown, Southgate restaurants and bars, South Melbourne shopping and more. Southbank Place is only minutes from Melbourne’s vibrant arts scene. Central Equity has proudly supported MTC since 2012.
THE TEN NETWORK IS A PROUD MAJOR MEDIA PARTNER OF MTC
(above) Audi S3 Cabriolet at Opening Night of MTC's Skylight. Photo: Benjamin Healley (left) A rendering of Southbank Place apartment
Philanthropy
The business is creative
Peter Clemenger at work, Clemenger BBDO Building St Kilda Road, 1990
As to the seventy years of growth, I ask how he balances business acumen with creativity, and creative individuals: ‘Well, the business is creative. It’s a business, the advertising business … The business of advertising is creative.’ Peter speaks with clarity and authority and I am reminded that in 1988 he was awarded World’s Most Outstanding Managing Director by the International Advertising Association – ‘Was I? I don’t remember that. I truly don’t.’ In the foyer of Clemenger BBDO, the marketing and communications company, the huddling workers look cool in funky anoraks, duck shoes and hipster beards, while discussing nut-milk lattes. The crowd around the multiple espresso coffee machines parts as a confident, much older man strides through clutching a rolled-up designer tie in his left hand. Some nod deferentially – ‘Mr Clemenger’, or, ‘Peter’ – and he sits in the Danish occasional chair opposite me. Immediately he asks about Tom Holloway’s adaptation of Double Indemnity – one of the more than twenty plays commissioned for MTC thanks to the Joan and Peter Clemenger Trust over the past decade – and he then wonders as to MTC’s trade so far this year. Short on pleasantries and long on charm, directness and smarts, Peter Clemenger (above), with his brother John, oversaw the extraordinary expansion of Clemengers from a Bourke Street basement into today’s multi-awardwinning multinational. Going strong in its seventieth year, Clemenger BBDO is made up of fifty different companies, 1,700 staff and annual billings of $1.8 billion. And Peter was there at the start, not that it was a career he chose: ‘I was pitchforked into it’ he says. Back in 1946, Clemengers were as much a production company as an ad agency, with ‘the most extraordinary staff: a fully paid comedian, Max Reddy; an orchestra leader, Bob Davidson; a compere, Doug Elliot; and a writer, Leo Keen. No other agency in history has had people of such different abilities.’
His interest has always been broader than just the business. ‘My whole life has been based on an interest in the creative process. Early on I was the Creative Director. I saw every ad that came out of the place. Nothing gave me greater joy than seeing a new commercial or a new ad that I thought was really terrific. Fortunately, we produced a few over the years.’ He has been long enough in advertising to well remember Madison Avenue in the 1950s and how, Mad Men style, ‘the Chief Executive bought out the whisky bottle and the glasses every night at five o’clock. All the senior executives came in, they sat around and they chatted. They talked business, but that happened every night.’ The central message of his many years’ experience has been regular, open communication and ‘that you need to have creative people who take a lead and who are very, very senior.’
His commercial success has seen the establishment of The Joan and Peter Clemenger Trust which supports not just theatre but social justice, and all the arts. Peter qualifies: ‘Let’s put it this way, art has become a major part of our lives. It goes back to when Joan and I were first married … and we started buying paintings for our home. They have brought us great joy. I think we are all the richer for them.’ As to the plays he has enjoyed and his ongoing relationship with MTC, he won’t single out a particular play for comment, but he is clear about the connection between his work and MTC’s: ‘We’ve been happy to support MTC because, just as creativity is the backbone of our business, so it is with MTC. You can buy some plays from overseas, but it is absolutely essential that you support Australian playwrights. We know that not every play is going to succeed, but you’ve still got to do it. If we have helped a few succeed then that has given us great pleasure.’ Peter Clemenger ao spoke to MTC’s Literary Director Chris Mead
He has been long enough in advertising to well remember Madison Avenue in the 1950s and how, Mad Men style, ‘the Chief Executive bought out the whisky bottle and the glasses every night at five o’clock … They talked business, but that happened every night.’
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MTC Members
Taking Flight MTC Members abroad, final call to take up membership for 2016 and an exciting new video commission with MTC Partner, Artbank. Artbank + MTC Commission We warmly congratulate Sydney-based artist Técha Noble, who has received the inaugural Artbank + MTC Commission. Supported by the physical and technical resources of MTC, the commission offers the opportunity for mid-career and established Australian artists to create a new video work. Combining the theatre environment, live performance and video to create alternative realities that experiment with the perceptual experience of the body and time, Noble’s piece, An Island with No Yesterday, will be rehearsed at MTC Headquarters and filmed in the Lawler in October. It will incorporate materials from MTC’s costume and wig collection, creating metamorphic beings that explore the blurring of the self and the other, and question the boundaries of the body. Inspired by the novels The Crystal World by JG Ballard and The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares, An Island with No Yesterday will also reference early cinema and theatrical forms through its performers and use of filmic techniques. Artbank’s Director, Tony Stephens explains that ‘the inaugural commission is an evolution of our ongoing partnership with the MTC. Commissioning is one of the priorities and commitments that we share with the MTC, a way of ensuring that artists receive the support they need to create ground-breaking work, and we were blown away by artist Técha Noble’s submission. The realisation of her amazing artwork, An Island with No Yesterday, is exactly what this commission is about, and reflects Artbank’s and the MTC’s shared passion for supporting outstanding talent.’
Techa Noble, Day for Night, Mardi Gras 2015. Photo: Daniel Boud
Qatar Airways Competition The Qatar Airways competition gave all MTC Members who took up membership by 1 December 2015, the chance to win a trip for two to London, and tickets to see a show during their stay. Gillian Marsden, the lucky winner of the competition, flew to London in style with her husband John in late May. Theatre-lovers and MTC subscribers, Gillian and John received tickets to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time as part of the prize. From London, Gillian wrote ‘Thank you. We felt very special being able to see The Curious Incident thanks to MTC and Qatar Airways.’ Thanks again to Major Partner Qatar Airways for their support of MTC Members.
Curious about MTC Members? Finish Season 2016 in style and enjoy the benefits of membership, including access to the Qatar Airways MTC Lounge and invitations to exclusive MTC Members events, for up to half the price. Become an MTC Member today at mtc.com.au/members
Qatar Airways MTC Lounge. Photo: Haydn Cattach
For more information, please visit mtc.com.au/members or contact Memberships and Partnerships Coordinator Syrie Payne on 8688 0958 or members@mtc.com.au
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Deeper into the jungle NEON NEXT
Lilith: The Jungle Girl, A Sisters Grimm Production Southbank Theatre, the Lawler 1 September to 1 October
Ash Flinders in Lilith: The Jungle Girl
After three thrilling and successful years hosting the NEON Festival of Independent Theatre, MTC moves into a new phase as an incubator for fresh, innovative theatrical expression with NEON NEXT, beginning in September. It marks the latest evolution in our relationship with the Independent theatre sector and a chance to switch the focus towards commissioning, developing and presenting new works for the stage. MTC Artistic Director Brett Sheehy believes that ‘this latest iteration of NEON is the best and most logical step for a program that has helped to develop the skills and emerging careers of Melbourne’s most interesting stage artists.’ The first NEON NEXT commission to reach the stage will be Sisters Grimm’s latest cultural discombobulation Lilith: The Jungle Girl, about a feral child and the scientist who tries to tame her. Directed by Declan Greene and starring Ash Flanders (Buyer and Cellar), this NEON NEXT premiere is equal parts The Elephant Man and She’s All
That. It’s a welcome return engagement for Sisters Grimm, who presented their multi-award-winning production The Sovereign Wife in our inaugural NEON Festival in 2013. Also building on their relationship with NEON, Daniel Schlusser (Menagerie, NEON 2013) and Nicola Gunn (Green Screen, NEON 2014) have both received new NEON NEXT commissions for future productions. As well as curating fifteen independent productions since 2013, MTC’s NEON has also hosted special events, panel discussions, readings, workshops, open rehearsals, masterclasses and keynote addresses, helping to bring debate to life, share knowledge and foster collaboration with the city's large community of theatre workers. NEON NEXT will continue to provide a program of free professional development workshops and masterclasses. Details will soon be released and will be available at our website mtc.com.au/neonnext.
Shakespearagoria Exhibition To mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, Melbourne University, in conjunction with the State Library of Victoria and Melbourne Theatre Company, presents After Shakespeare, an exhibition in the Baillieu Library at the Parkville Campus of books, papers and artefacts that explore the poet’s posthumous legacy for the world and Australia. There is a particular focus on how Shakespeare has been received in Australia, from the earliest colonial times to the present. The exhibition brings together two of only five known Australian copies of the Second Folio of Shakespeare’s works (1632), a unique promptbook for a slated Gold Rush era performance of Antony and Cleopatra at Melbourne’s Theatre Royal in 1856, and a fascinating range of production artefacts and ephemera. After Shakespeare also contains photos, marketing
materials, costumes and props from MTC’s many Shakespearean productions, from our 1954 production of Twelfth Night to our 2012 production of Queen Lear. After Shakespeare opens on 14 July and runs through to January next year in the Noel Shaw Gallery in the Baillieu Library, University of Melbourne, Parkville Campus. For the full range of commemorative events in Shakespeare 400 Melbourne go to: events.unimelb.edu.au/shakespeare
Robyn Nevin, Alexandra Schepisi and Greg Stone in Queen Lear (2012)
Special offers Film Offer
DVD Offer
Love & Friendship
The Daughter
An exquisite comedy of matchmaking and heart-break, Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Whit Stillman (Metropolitan, The Last Days of Disco) is in top-form directing his own adaptation of Jane Austen’s early novella concerning the sensational Lady Susan Vernon. Set in the opulent drawing rooms of eighteenth-century English society, Love & Friendship follows the deliciously scheming and manipulative Lady Susan Vernon (Kate Beckinsale). Aided and abetted by her loyal friend Alicia Johnson (Chloe Sevigny), Lady Susan is on a mission to find a husband for herself and her long-suffering daughter Frederica. But two young men, the handsome Reginald DeCourcy (Australia’s Xavier Samuel) and wealthy Sir James Martin (Tom Bennett), severely complicate their plans.
In the last days of a dying logging town, Christian (Paul Schneider) returns to his family home for his father Henry’s (Geoffrey Rush) wedding to the much younger Anna (Anna Torv). While home, Christian reconnects with his childhood friend Oliver (Ewen Leslie), who has stayed in town working at Henry’s timber mill and is now out of a job. As Christian gets to know Oliver’s wife Charlotte (Miranda Otto), daughter Hedvig (Odessa Young) and father Walter (Sam Neill), he discovers a secret that could tear Oliver’s family apart. As he tries to right the wrongs of the past, his actions threaten to shatter the lives of those he left behind years before.
For your chance to win a double pass to Love & Friendship email offers@mtc.com.au with AUSTEN in the subject line.
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Special Offer
For your chance to win a copy of The Daughter on DVD email offers@mtc.com.au with DAUGHTER in the subject line.
DVD Offer
Damon Bradley Dessert Special – Southgate Be tempted by indulgent desserts paired with wines and stickies, stewed fruits, sharing plates, specialty chocolates, pastries and cakes, Sundaes for the Young at Heart, dessert martinis and plenty of teas and coffees. Our High Tea selection includes a fanciful Bradley Bear High Tea for the kids and the Truly Scrumptious High Tea, a hit with young and old. In this exclusive offer for MTC subscribers, enjoy a dessert of your choice paired with a matching glass of wine for $38 for two people.* *Offer available to MTC subscribers only upon presentation of this offer. Offer valid until 30 September. Excludes dessert martinis and sharing plates. Damon Bradley, mid level, Southgate. Ph 9645 5966
Make Dad’s day From birthdays to anniversaries, to that perfect gift on Fathers’ Day, MTC Gift Vouchers are the best way to treat your friends and family to a great night out, any day of the year. For gift vouchers and more gift ideas visit mtc.com.au/giftideas. MTC is a department of the University of Melbourne
On Golden Pond Directed by the Academy Award-winning writer Ernest Thompson and filmed on a sound stage in Los Angeles, On Golden Pond reunites Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer for the first time since starring together in the highly successful 1965 hit The Sound of Music. The television version of this classic character-driven story has been released on DVD for the first time, and follows the story of an elderly man coming to terms with his age, and the nearing of the end; a middle-aged woman attempting to enter into a belated relationship with her father, whom she has never known long or closely; and a young teenager dealing with the sudden consequences of parental divorce. For your chance to win a copy of On Golden Pond on DVD email offers@mtc.com.au with GOLDEN in the subject line.