MTC
scenes Spring 2013
Eddie Perfect Raising the steaks Shaun Gurton Last night in Memphis Julie Forsyth Child’s play get ready for the 2014 season launch
Diving into the digisphere Inside information Well, it’s not long now until we unveil our 2014 Season. While our hardworking production departments continue to bring our 2013 Season shows to life, the administration team at MTC HQ is in high gear getting everything ready for 2014. We’re now putting the final touches on our season brochure, preparing our posters and printing the ticket stock – and there’s a definite buzz in the building. Such a great deal of care, effort, and pride goes into preparing both the season and the brochure, that it can be a genuine challenge to keep a lid on our excitement and not reveal anything to you before the launch. That’s particularly so for me and our Marketing Assistant Daniel as we interact with you on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram while loading the 2014 Season information onto the MTC website, blog and YouTube channel.
New-look website
If you’re a regular user of the MTC website, you would have noticed that it had a facelift in July. After months of work behind the scenes, it was wonderful to finally reveal the new design with its simpler navigation, improved functionality, and enhanced image and video content. The site is now faster and easier to use, and allows us to share detailed information about our productions much more clearly. We hope you enjoy using it.
Subscribing online
Those of you who have subscribed online in the past will also be thrilled to learn that we are completely overhauling our online subscriptions
Cover: Eddie Perfect's The Beast Scenes is produced quarterly and 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.
process this year to make it faster and easier for you to use, whether you’re booking a package for just yourself or for multiple households. A labyrinth of pages has been reduced to a simple six-step process: provide your names and contact details, select the size of your package, choose plays and dates for you and your friends (all on one page!), select any additional performances, review your purchase, and checkout.
Scenes Online
Regardless of how you book your 2014 subscription, please provide us with your email address. Email is the fastest, easiest, and most environmentally-friendly way for us to keep you up to date on all our productions, events and Company news. We currently send a monthly subscriber eNews, reminders about your upcoming performances, and notifications about special events and offers. Many of you have also told us that you would prefer to receive Scenes in an online format rather than in the mail. We shall be trialling an email version soon, so if you’re one of
those who would prefer to receive Scenes online, please ensure we have your email address so we can send you the link. And do send us an email with your feedback – we’d love to know what you think. One of the biggest challenges I face in my role at MTC is the speed at which the digital realm continues to grow and shift. We are constantly striving to ensure the service you receive online is as seamless and user-friendly as possible – but keeping up with technology is not always cheap. If you can spare even a couple of dollars as a donation when you next make an online purchase, it will help us continue to make your online booking experience quick, easy, and even enjoyable – no matter what the Apple, Google and the other digital gods throw at us. See you in the digisphere, Megan Byrne Digital Manager
Join us on: Go behind the scenes at mtc.com.au/blog
REMINDER MTC 2014 Season Launch
Monday 16 September, 6.30pm Arts Centre Melbourne, Hamer Hall
EDITOR Paul Galloway GRAPHIC DESIGN Bethany Wilksch MAIN PHOTOS Jeff Busby, David Parker, Newton & Talbot, Marcel Aucar, Mandy Jones, Benjamin Healley Melbourne Theatre Company is a department of the University of Melbourne
MTC Headquarters 252 Sturt St, Southbank Vic 3006 TELEPHONE 03 8688 0900 FACSIMILE 03 8688 0901 E-MAIL info@mtc.com.au WEBSITE mtc.com.au Southbank Theatre 140 Southbank Blvd, Southbank Vic 3006 BOX OFFICE 03 8688 0800
In for the chop Eddie Perfect’s The Beast is a trip from hoof to hook A few years ago Eddie Perfect was living out in Healesville and enjoying the Yarra Valley lifestyle, which included, memorably, a large dinner party in which a fatted calf was slaughtered and butchered before the guests. Its various cuts were subsequently cooked and served in many ways, each matched with an appropriate wine. This sort of nose-to-tail dining was new to Perfect, who had an enjoyable night and an edifying one, too. ‘The whole idea is to introduce people to the realities of the farm,’ he explains. ‘You get to see where the cuts of beef come from. It makes you interested and engaged in the process. There’s no bullshit about it. It’s farm life.’ The evening, however, was not without its drama. On entering the refrigerated truck to carve up the carcass, the butcher slipped and cut open his hand. He was rushed to Ringwood Hospital, but happily returned some time later, stitched up and keen to finish the job. ‘And while we were waiting, we all talked about what we’d do if he didn’t come back,’ says Perfect. ‘Or worse, what if the guy that slaughtered the calf hadn’t turned up. And that seemed to me to be a great idea for a play: if you have these tree-changing couples that have to kill the cow themselves, who have the theory but not the expertise. What would that mean? And so from that point the idea devolved. Basically, The Beast became a satire about middleclass people dealing with the feelings of guilt that come with their affluence.’ The trick of satire, according to Perfect, is to poke fun at human inconsistency and weakness, rather than evil. Pretence is funny. ‘Sometimes people get attached to a cause not just because they want to do good, but because they want to be seen to be doing good,’ he says. ‘And then the whole thing becomes about status. Their environmental concern becomes a power play, a contest of who can display the greatest amount of good. The stakes become incredibly high over things which might otherwise seem quite unimportant, like what lettuce is on trend, or what car they’re driving,
what nappies they’re using, or what Sauvignon Blanc is good to drink.’ Over the past decade or so, Eddie Perfect has kept adding strings to his bow and awards to his shelf. Many of you would know him from his television appearances in Offspring, others from the hit stage show Shane Warne – the Musical, which he wrote and starred in. Musician-actorcomposer-musical performercomedian-singer-musical director – now, with The Beast, he adds ‘playwright’ as the caboose in this impressive train of epithets. Taking a considerable leap of faith, Artistic Director Brett Sheehy, within his first weeks at MTC, commissioned the play on the strength of its intriguing premise. ‘Brett called me in to ask me whether I had any ideas for musicals,’ Perfect recalls. ‘I said I didn’t, but I had this idea for a play. The great thing about this idea is that everyone gets it in a couple of sentences. Everyone sees its satirical possibilities. And within fifteen minutes Brett was saying, “Yeah, let’s do that!” And I thought – “Oh hell! Now I’ll have to write it!”’ Since being announced as the production to drop into the open Zeitgeist slot, The Beast has undergone extensive rewrites. The Company held a week-long workshop which, Perfect admits, opened his eyes to some problems with his early draft. ‘You learn some hard lessons when you give it to actors,’ he says. ‘I mean, it’s a comedy for a start, so you know right away when a line isn’t funny. And in a reading you become very much aware of whose role is well realised and whose isn’t. The female characters I found in particular – well, there wasn’t really much on the page for them. And in the workshop, once I heard certain actors speak the lines it made a massive difference. It became much easier to write those characters. As a consequence the possibilities sort of exploded. ‘The best thing Iain Sinclair, the director, asked the cast was: “Is there anything you would like to see happen with your character that’s not in the play?” And the surprising overall response from everyone was to go darker, do more disturbing things. So as a consequence I’m now writing a show that’s actually more raw and brutal than I first thought. And it is really fun to go there.’
Eddie Perfect's The Beast
The Beast by Eddie Perfect runs at Southbank Theatre, The Sumner from 3 October to 9 November.
Happy talk Prompt corner Toby Truslove, Pamela Rabe, Katherine Tonkin, Roger Oakley and Eloise Mignon in The Cherry Orchard (2013)
The first week of September brings conversation and controversy to MTC with two separate public discussions of issues raised by the plays on our stages. On Thursday 5 September at 5.15pm, the City of Melbourne hosts a special Melbourne Conversation on the set of Rupert at the Playhouse. Dr Leslie Cannold chairs a panel consisting of playwright David Williamson, activist and journalist Stephen Mayne, and journalist and academic Dr Margaret Simmons who will discuss Objectivity and Dissent: The future of Australia’s old and new media. Using Williamson’s play about Rupert Murdoch as a starting point, the panel will exchange their views on media ownership and its relationship to power, transparency and accountability. This is a free event, but bookings are essential. Go to our website to reserve your seat: mtc.com.au.
Book Club
Our other September panel discussion is for lovers of Chekhov and his cleareyed perspective on the unintentional comedy of our lives. In collaboration with culture magazine Kill Your Darlings and their online Book Club, MTC has invited the Age’s Rebecca HarkinsCross, our Literary Director Chris Mead and Cherry Orchard Assistant Director Zoey Dawson to discuss Chekhov’s final great comedy. Or is it a tragedy? With questions and comments from the floor, it is sure to offer insights and new perspectives on a dramatic masterpiece. So join us at 6.30pm Friday 6 September at Southbank Theatre. All are welcome, but bookings are essential; events@mtc.com.au.
Casting news
Even before MTC Artistic Director Brett Sheehy announced that The Beast would fill the Zeitgeist slot, that tantalising space we left open in the
schedule, the casting department had been moving quickly to secure a top shelf cast. Too good to wait for 2014, Eddie Perfect’s ripping black satire about thirty-something middle-class tree-changers will feature a full-on comedy ensemble. Returning to the Company will be Hamish Michael (above left, last seen at MTC in Ray’s Tempest), Travis Cotton (Hamlet), Hayden Spencer (Elling) and Virginia Gay (centre left, On the Production of Monsters). Actor and writer of The Seed (Season 2012) Kate Mulvany (centre right) will make her MTC acting debut, as will Tom Budge (right) and Sheridan Harbridge. For his second stage production after debuting with Red for MTC last season, film director Alkinos Tsilimidos has chosen another two-hander, Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop. Two favourites with the Company, Bert LaBonté (currently performing in Rupert) and Zahra Newman (also on our stages in The Cherry Orchard) will play Martin Luther King, Jr and the mysterious maid who appears in his motel room the night before his assassination.
Subscriber Briefings
To give you a little foretaste of what’s in store for each of our mainstage shows, MTC presents a special Subscriber Briefing, usually on the Monday before the show goes into previews. Listen to the director, often accompanied by the
cast and creative team, speak about the play and the approach of the production. Note, however, that there will be no briefing for our special family show, The Book of Everything. Subscriber Briefings are free to all. Be our guest and bring your friends to the final briefings for our 2013 Season: The Beast by Eddie Perfect Monday 30 September, 6pm Southbank Theatre, The Sumner The Mountaintop by Katori Hall Monday 28 October, 6pm Arts Centre Melbourne, Fairfax Studio
Dishing it out to the stars
With fifty or more permanent staff and the casts of up to three shows rehearsing at MTC Headquarters at any time, the MTC café can get pretty busy. We are always looking for reliable casual staff on call to cover leave and to help with special catered functions. So if you have catering or professional kitchen experience, including basic cooking skills, and would like to work in a friendly environment – or know someone who does – please call our Catering Manager Andrea Purvis on 03 8688 0905.
Site specific For The Mountaintop, Shaun Gurton recreates an ordinary room with extraordinary significance There was nothing special about Room 306 at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Its amenities and comforts were standard: two single beds, a black-and-white TV, a lamp, a nightstand and side-tables, a telephone, a few cheap prints on the wall and a Gideons Bible in a drawer. Today, however, restored to its untidy yet unremarkable condition on 4 April 1968, the room has become the holy of holies of a secular shrine. The old motel has been converted into the National Civil Rights Museum and, if you ever visit Memphis, you can take your turn at the protective glass to see room 306 as its most famous occupant, Martin Luther King Jr, left it on the evening of his assassination. For the second time in two years, designer Shaun Gurton will recreate a specific historical room on stage. Last year, for Red, Gurton pored over photographs of painter Mark Rothko at work in order to reconstruct his New York studio as precisely as possible. This year, designing Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop, a fantasia on King’s last night alive, Room 306 of the Lorraine Motel has been his model, although for staging reasons some liberties have been taken. ‘The way the actual room is laid out can’t be reproduced in the Fairfax [Studio],’ Gurton says, ‘because the
sightlines are horrendously difficult. In a proscenium arch theatre, the layout wouldn’t cause as many problems, because you’d have three walls to work with. But having to remove the two side walls means rearranging and abstracting many of the elements. What we’ve done is select enough of them to tell the story, but we can still work with many of the actual details: the colour of the walls and the carpet, the type of bedspread, the particular green of the doors.’ Gurton stresses that it’s pure happenstance that the two set designs he has created with director Alkinos Tslimidos, Red and The Mountaintop, have asked for an evocation of a particular place. ‘I don’t put any special value on getting [specific details] right,’ he says. ‘For me, a design is all about doing what the play is asking for. My style depends on the play. And, in fact, early on Al and I discussed whether there was a way to take the action out of the motel room, or abstract it, or do it some other way. And maybe we could have found a way, but it wouldn’t have been the play [Katori Hall] wrote. And I’m about honouring what the writer has written. I mean, I’ll give it an edge, an interpretation, but I like to honour the play.’ This ethos of honouring the play came gradually to him. During his early years as a designer, working for the State Theatre Company of South Australia in the seventies, he admits that he was overly influenced by contemporary European theatre. He was a tyro designer reacting to the heavily decorative stage settings of the time. ‘I didn’t care what the play was – Major Barbara, Pinter’s Old Times, everything – it was always
about pulling back, minimalism. Eventually I learnt not to force a particular style on a play. Now I adapt my technique to find the best way to help not only the playwright but the actors as well.’ Gurton began as an actor in his late teens and performed many times at MTC, but by his mid-twenties he thought he’d try directing. In 1972, he got a job at the STCSA as an actor/trainee director, but it turned out to be an apprenticeship in all the theatre arts. When the designer for a show called Alpha Beta pulled out, the director George Ogilvie turned to Gurton and said ‘You could do this.’ And that got him started in design. Helped by a patient production department at STCSA, he learnt on the job, building an interest in architecture and a few technical drawing skills to create a successful forty-year career. The Mountaintop has been designed the way Gurton has designed everything since the earliest days. He doesn’t sketch ideas, nor does he use computer-aided drafting to create his plans, as perhaps most designers now do. His way is hands-on, somewhat oldschool. He starts with the model box and goes from the model to the drawing board, back and forth, until he has an accurate model and a detailed technical drawing. ‘That’s what I love, starting out with a big sheet on my drawing board, working in pen and ink, until I’ve got the whole show filled out.’ The Mountaintop by Katori Hall runs at the Fairfax Studio from 1 November to 14 December.
Martin Luther King, Jr (centre) at the Lorraine Motel, Memphis, with Jesse Jackson and Ralph Abernathy. 3 April 1968.
Farewell John Sumner Special Memorial Event
John Sumner AO OBE Born: London 27 May 1924 Died: Melbourne 24 May 2013
On May 24, Melbourne Theatre Company lost its founding father and longestserving Artistic Director, John Sumner, a few days short of his eighty-ninth birthday. Our thoughts had already turned to our imminent Sixtieth Anniversary in August, giving extra weight to the loss. In 1953, by setting up the Union Theatre Repertory Company, Sumner showed that a professional theatre season drawing from classics, the best new work from around the world, and, eventually, works of Australian writers could find a large and dedicated audience. This is the model all the state theatre companies follow to this day. There’s no overstating his importance to the development of a vibrant Australian professional theatre: John Sumner transformed the landscape and MTC is his finest legacy.
We invite you to celebrate John Sumner’s life and theatrical career in a special Memorial Event at 2pm on Friday 11 October at Southbank Theatre, The Sumner. Speakers will include former MTC Artistic Directors Simon Phillips and Roger Hodgman and there will be tributes from many actors and creative people who knew and worked with him. The event is free, but you must reserve your seat through the MTC Box Office on (03) 8688 0800 or online via our website: mtc.com.au.
Main photo: John Sumner Clockwise from top left: A Delicate Balance (1967) with Margaret Reid and George Whaley; Moby Dick – rehearsed (1959) with Mary Hardy and Lewis Fiander; The Removalists (1974) with Simon Chilvers and William Gluth; The Homecoming (1964) with Alan Hopgood, Jennifer Claire, Frank Thring and Malcolm Robertson; and Summer of the Seventeenth Doll (1955) with June Jago The production shots on this page are just a small sample from the hundred or more productions Sumner directed for the Company. A larger photo gallery has been placed on the MTC website: mtc.com.au/ sumner-memorial
All in the family Actor Julie Forsyth returns to MTC in a show for ages nine to ninety The best children’s stories go to the darkest places. The popular story by Dutch writer Guus Kuijer and turned into a fine play by Richard Tulloch, The Book of Everything doesn’t have everything in it, but it does deal in some serious issues. Set in the Netherlands during the difficult years following World War II, its hero, nine year-old Thomas, grows up in an unhappy and fearful family dominated by a violent, puritanical father. The play is about how Thomas copes and comes to understand the emotional landscape of the adult world. It’s undoubtedly tough stuff, but Julie Forsyth, who has played the family’s eccentric neighbour, Mrs Van Amersfoort from Belvoir’s original Sydney season to its acclaimed run in New York, knows that the children in the audience can take it. ‘What you learn with these types of family shows is never to underestimate the understanding that kids have of life or particular issues,’ she says. ‘You can’t assume, either, that children haven’t already dealt with or experienced many of these issues, the harder aspects of family life. No one grows up in a completely sanitised, happily-ever-after world. ‘We’ve found it’s often the adults who are more emotional at the end of the show. They’re the ones sitting quietly wiping away a tear. The kids are clapping away. They recognise that Thomas has triumphed through the power of his imagination, his love of reading, and with the help of some wonderful women.’ It helped enormously, she believes, that the play was directed by Neil Armfield, whom she has known for almost thirty years and worked with many times. She was in Armfield’s acclaimed production of The Small Poppies, another runaway family hit that toured throughout Australia and overseas. ‘Neil has an intuitive touch, a delicacy, a lightness of tone. He understands how to pitch it perfectly. These could be very bleak issues. But Neil's use of humour and the way he makes the show work theatrically, with Kim Carpenter’s visual design and Iain Grandage's magical music, tells the audience that this is just a story. He creates a safe and compassionate place for these things to be discussed, a
portal through for the audience so that the kids are not threatened or confused by what they are watching. Kids will go there. They’re not afraid of the complex issues in the story. They’re involved. They know it's theatre, and they understand and discover.’ There are only a few contemporary dramas in Julie Forsyth’s CV. For more than thirty years, she has forged a busy career in non-naturalistic plays, particularly comedies. She has appeared in almost every Absurdist play you can think of – perhaps most memorably as Winnie in Beckett’s Happy Days (in two separate productions, twenty years apart) and in a Helpmann Award-winning performance in Ionesco’s Exit the King for Belvoir. At MTC, her credits reflect her strengths in classic comedies and new plays that make robust stylistic statements: Return to Earth, The Madwoman of Chaillot, The Visit and Man the Balloon, to name the most recent. This specialisation (if you can call playing everything from Molière to Matt Cameron ‘specialisation’) began early in her career in the eighties when she was a regular performer at Anthill Theatre under the direction of Jean-Pierre Mignon. She never went to drama school, coming to acting straight from student theatre, so her time at Anthill was formative.
Julie Forsyth with Eloise Mignon in Return to Earth (2011)
‘The opportunity to work with one company and do thirty or forty plays over a fourteen year period, all under one director, was certainly the foundation of my whole career as an actor. Directors like Jean-Pierre and also Neil Armfield, who’s always been present throughout my career, were the white-hot, innovative directors of that time. And I developed with them. Their's was the theatre that influenced me and my aesthetic. ‘And I was blessed with the repertoire that Anthill was doing. As well as contemporary European work, we were doing Molière, Chekhov and Ibsen. It was the most amazing material to engage with and learn from. I tackled major parts even when I was possibly too young for them. (I first played Winnie when I was thirty, I think.) Now looking back, I’m so very grateful I had all those opportunities and experiences.’ The Book of Everything, by Guus Kuijer, adapted by Richard Tulloch, plays at the Sumner from 27 November to 22 December.
The school of arts Patrons The greatest legacy you can leave behind is a future for someone else. Denis Irving may not be a household name, but his impact on Australian theatre will be felt for many generations to come. An accomplished lighting designer and technical all-rounder, Denis first came to notice lighting the 1955 premiere of Ray Lawler’s Summer of the Seventeenth Doll. He later became one of Australia’s first theatre design consultants, and was actively involved in the design and technical specification of many theatres, concert halls and performing arts centres, including Arts Centre Melbourne and Southbank Theatre.
because MDE are so connected with the theatre development and construction industries, it gave me a glimpse into the whole industry. Then spending a month at MTC, I was able to see how Southbank Theatre works and learn about putting all that technology into practice.’
When Denis became ill and was unable to work, long-time friend and business associate Peter Fearnside, Managing Director of international acoustic engineering consultancy Marshall Day Acoustics, acquired Denis’s theatre design company Entertech. Following Denis’s death in 2008, Marshall Day Entertech (MDE), in conjunction with MTC, established an annual award to encourage students to follow in Denis’s footsteps.
‘A lot of lighting technicians miss out on actually getting inside the equipment and rewiring it, and that experience was fantastic. It reinforced that equipment doesn’t just come to you as a finished product, you can play around with it to suit the needs of the show, and Kerry is the master of that.
During his time at MTC, Nick shadowed Technical Manager of Light and Sound Kerry Saxby during production week for Queen Lear and The Golden Dragon, assisting in the bump-in of the shows, as well as learning about wiring up stage lighting.
‘It’s really great that Denis thought about the people coming after him and recognised it can be difficult to get a
leg up. He provided that opportunity for me, and I’m very grateful.’ At 28, Nick is still contemplating which path his career will take, but he is confident that with his degree and the scholarship experience behind him, he has opportunities in lighting and technical stage management. On September 16, Nick will stage manage one of his biggest productions to date, our 2014 Season Launch at Hamer Hall. Mandy Jones Fundraising and Events Manager
MTC is fortunate to be supported by a small number of philanthropic trusts and foundations. If you would like to discuss how you can support us and in turn benefit the next generation of theatre makers, please contact Adrienne Conway a.conway@mtc.com.au or 03 8688 0959.
Awarded annually to an outstanding graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts Production course, the beneficiary of the scholarship receives two months paid employment shared between MDE and MTC’s technical production department. Nick Wollan was awarded the Denis Irving Scholarship at the conclusion of his VCA Production course in 2011 and accepted placements in 2012. Having specialised in Stage Management during his course, the placements gave Nick invaluable hands-on technical experience. ‘It was handy doing the work at MDE,’ Nick says, ‘because I was constantly getting a preview of theatre technology trends and how theatres are built. And
Peter Fearnside, Managing Director Marshall Day Acoustics.
Suzie Westwood, Louise Myer and Genevieve Spittle at Lunch with the Leading Men of The Crucible
Nick Wollan, Denis Irving Scholarship winner 2011.
Sandi Hoskins, Susanna Mason and Pamela Shaw with Crucible leading man Paul English.
For good Development Upcoming Patron Events
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? MTC’s Annual Gala Fundraising Dinner Monday 16 September immediately following the 2014 Season Launch Trocadero $1000 per head (includes an $850 donation to MTC) The Beast Patron Post-Show Reception Thursday 10 October, following the 8pm performance VIP Rooms, Level 2, Southbank Theatre $55 per head for MTC Patrons, $60 per head for guests The Mountaintop Progressive Dinner Tuesday 12 November following the 6.30pm performance Entrée, main and dessert served at different restaurants within Southgate and an opportunity to dine with cast and creatives from The Mountaintop. $99 per head
K&L Gates has been a sponsor of MTC since 2007. Established more than a hundred years ago, it has grown through several mergers, to today, where more than 130 lawyers work closely with their colleagues in the other offices to provide a full range of commercial legal services throughout Australia. The firm encourages its lawyers to provide pro bono legal representation and participate in other charitable, community, educational, and professional activities and believes that every attorney has the professional responsibility to provide such services. World-wide K&L Gates handles hundreds of pro bono matters a year. Among other things, its lawyers litigate civil rights cases, establish and advise not-for-profit organizations, assist such organizations in transactions, and represent the disadvantaged in consumer, landlordtenant, and immigration matters. They also provide legal counsel and public policy advocacy to help organisations advance their public service programs, and accept court appointments to provide pro bono counsel in both civil and criminal matters. The Arts Law Centre of Australia (Arts Law) provides legal advice and information on a wide range of artsrelated legal and business matters, including contracts, copyright, employment and taxation to artists and arts organisations across all art forms. Each year, Arts Law honours the lawyers who have made an outstanding contribution to the arts community on a voluntary basis.
This year Arts Law introduced a new category for individual arts organisations to acknowledge the voluntary work done by a lawyer for their community. The awards were presented in June by Justice Margaret Beazley, President of NSW Court of Appeal, who commented: ‘We received twenty-five nominations and the decision was very tough … In the end we decided to give two community awards because of the calibre of the nominations.’ One of the two winners of the Arts Community Award was Jonathan Feder from K&L Gates in Melbourne. Jonathan has been an MTC Board member since 2010 and has provided the Company with advice on legal matters, administration and governance issues, particularly through the significant transitional period of new leadership. He has backed this footwork with personal philanthropic contributions through his generous individual giving and support of fundraising events. MTC is extremely grateful for the support it receives from K&L Gates and Jonathan, and congratulates Jonathan on receiving this year’s Arts Community Award. Support of this calibre helps with the finances, of course, but it has a very different quality to it when individuals like Jonathan take a personal interest. Andrew Boyd Development Director
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WHETHER IT’S PRE-SHOW, INTERVAL, OR THE AFTER SHOW BREAKDOWN, Genovese is perfect for any conversation. www.genovese.com.au
SCAN THIS CODE WITH YOUR MOBILE PHONE
The Collector CentreStage One of the joys of managing MTC’s CentreStage program is the opportunity to speak with people who share our love of theatre. We recently met with one of our members who has lived a fascinating life, shared between practising the law and seeing hundreds, if not thousands, of productions. Barry Sacks is a collector. He collects beautiful artworks, interesting sayings, and theatre memorabilia. He has been collecting all sorts of theatre, ballet and opera programmes since his school days and while he still keeps a significant assortment of items, many of his
programmes now reside in the Victorian Performing Arts Museum collection. Among the myriad of theatrical articles are programmes and playbills from the Union Theatre Repertory Company, the precursor of MTC.
Upcoming Dress Rehearsals
Even before he studied Law at the University of Melbourne, Barry was already a regular at the Union Theatre when John Sumner managed it. He was almost a fixture at the theatre in those days and recalls meeting Sumner several times. He savours his memories of those times. Now retired from the law, Barry remains an avid theatre-goer and, after sixty years, still enjoys MTC productions.
The Mountaintop by Katori Hall 2pm, Friday 1 November, Arts Centre Melbourne, Fairfax Studio
‘I like that when you enter a theatre there’s a hush, a sacred feeling about it. People are coming to enjoy what I enjoy - in law they say we’re all ad idem: we’re all of the same cast, as it were. When it’s a good play and everybody’s concentrating, there’s no coughing or rustling of lolly papers, people are all being moved along together by what they are watching.’
CentreStage Christmas Lunch
Barry continues to collect programmes, brochures and flyers for every production he sees and he is proud to be a Member of CentreStage.
CentreStage Member Barry Sacks holding a theatre programme from the UTRC’s Fourth Season.
‘I became a CentreStage Member for the same reason I joined the Opera Society, and Friends of the Ballet – because it fulfils my life,' he says. ‘And that’s why I keep the programmes. They’re ready-made memories. Every five years or so, I’ll open up a box and look through and think fondly about the productions.’
The Beast by Eddie Perfect 2pm, Thursday 3 October, Southbank Theatre, The Sumner Members Lounge will be in operation from 12.30pm
To book for Dress Rehearsals, please phone Ryan Nicolussi on 8688 0953 or email membership@mtc.com.au specifying number of members and guests attending. Remember, bookings are essential and Dress Rehearsals are subject to change or cancellation. This year’s CentreStage Christmas Lunch will be held on Friday 15 November, 12.30pm to 3pm at Southbank Theatre. What better way to kick-start the festive season than a lovely lunch with friends, games and prizes, and a chance to meet some of the talented actors and creative team members from Season 2013. Further details will be communicated in the next couple of months, but for now please make a note of the date in your diary. Mandy Jones Fundraising and Events Manager
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Upper Level, Southgate Arts Complex, Southbank Minutes away from The Arts Centre & a short walk to Southbank Theatre Phone: 03 9699 9544 Email: info@thedeckrestaurant.com.au www.thedeckrestaurant.com.au
Proud MTC sponsor for 10 years
Rupert on US tour Among the many wonders we share with America, Rupert Murdoch, the world’s most famous Australian-born US citizen, might be the most wondrous. A deeply enigmatic character, Murdoch plants a foot in each of our nations’ media landscapes like a colossus. So, in a fitting act of trans-Pacific cultural exchange, our current production of David Williamson’s Rupert will be travelling to the US in March next year. Our fast-paced bio-satire, directed by Griffin Theatre Artistic Director Lee Lewis, has been invited to the World Stages: International Theater Festival at the John F Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington DC. ‘We’re delighted to be participating in this festival,’ says MTC’s Brett Sheehy, who, of course, as a former Artistic
Poppets
Director of the Melbourne International Arts Festival, knows first-hand the value of such events. ‘It offers a wealth of ideas and opportunities for cultural exchange that will enhance our own dynamic theatre practice.’ It will not be the first MTC tour to the United States. In 1982, our acclaimed production of Ron Elisha’s Einstein was performed in festivals in Denver, Colorado and Oswego in New York. The hope is that Rupert will be the first of many more tours of MTC shows, especially of home-grown drama.
official reception hosted by Australia’s US Ambassador Kim Beasley, you will be helping to win new friends for Australian theatre. For more information contact Adrienne Conway on (03) 8688 0959 or email a.conway @mtc.com.au.
And you can be part of Rupert making its mark on the world stage by making a donation and becoming an Associate Producer. With an invitation to the Opening Night in Washington and to the
Sean O’Shea in Rupert
Open House Melbourne For the hundreds of people who visited Southbank Theatre on Sunday 28 July as part of Open House Melbourne, one beguiling highlight would have been the display of actor Julia Blake’s poppets. As Opening Night gifts for her fellow cast members in The Crucible, Blake knitted small woollen versions of their characters, each kitted out with distinguishing little props and set on a stand with a quote from the play. They are utterly charming and even Arthur Miller’s more fearsome characters, such as Deputy Governor Danforth (played by Brian Lipson), became less imposing when rendered in No 3 yarn. (You can go to the blog on our website for more pictures of Julia’s handiwork: mtc.com.au.about us/blog.)
The Company was participating for the first time in Open House Melbourne, an annual event in which many of Melbourne’s distinctive buildings throw open their non-public spaces to the public. The 340 or so visitors who took the backstage tour were given a rare view of The Crucible from the actor’s point of view. They saw the dressing rooms and scenery deck, and examined the extensive lighting rigging and the understage trap system. For the architecture buffs, the foyer displays also included architects Ashton Raggatt McDougall’s original plans and models of Southbank Theatre, as well as designs and models for MTC’s productions of Red (2012, by Shaun Gurton) and The Crucible from Dale Ferguson.
Reverend Hale and daughter
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Special offers Winter 2013 Movie Offer
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I’m So Excited
From 19 September
Legendary Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar (All About My Mother, Volver) is back with a kitsch, camp and outrageously funny comedy. When a Mexico-bound flight's landing gear malfunctions, and the plane is put in a holding pattern, it is left to the flamboyant cabin crew to deal with the crisis. The film stars many of Almodóvar’s greatest Spanish character actors including Javier Cámara (Talk to Her), Cecilia Roth (All About My Mother), Lola Dueñas (Volver), Blanca Suárez (The Skin I Live In) and features special appearances from Penélope Cruz, Antonio Banderas and Paz Vega.
For your chance to win one of a hundred double-passes to see I’m So Excited courtesy of Transmission Films, email your name and Subscriber details to offers@mtc.com.au with EXCITED in the subject line, or call (03) 8688 0900.
Great Art on Screen: Vermeer and Music
1 October
Captured from a live event from Britain’s National Gallery and screened in High Definition, Cinema Nova presents the exhibition of one of the most startling and fascinating artists of all-time – Johannes Vermeer, painter of ‘The Girl with a Pearl Earring’. Although the focus of this exhibition is on his art in relation to music, a popular theme of Dutch painting, it also will tell the story of Vermeer's life and detail many other of the artist's great works.
For your chance to win one of a hundred double-passes to attend a special preview screening at 7pm, Tuesday 1 October at Cinema Nova, email your name and Subscriber details to offers@mtc.com.au with VERMEER in the subject line, or call (03) 8688 0900.
Fairfax: The Rise & Fall
Available now
In Fairfax: The Rise & Fall Colleen Ryan gives a definitive account of the fate of Fairfax. It is the story of greedy media moguls, angry and ambitious politicians, foolhardy heirs and heiresses, zealous journalists, muddling management and the rise of digital media. The once-mighty Fairfax has been a victim of them all. A drama-filled saga that reveals how far Fairfax has fallen.
Melbourne University Publishing is offering subscribers a 25% discount on their bestselling new title Fairfax: The Rise & Fall by Colleen Ryan. To access this special price, subscribers simply need to visit mup.com.au, add the book to their shopping cart, and use the promotional code MTCFF25 when prompted at the checkout. The offer is valid until 31 December 2013.
Blue Jasmine
From 5 September
Cate Blanchett’s extraordinary portrayal of the troubled Jasmine in Woody Allen’s new film Blue Jasmine is both complex and richly observed. With a strong supporting cast including Alec Baldwin and Sally Hawkins, this emotionally powerful drama about a New York socialite starting over after her life falls to pieces is wise, tender and funny in equal measure.
Hopscotch eOne is offering MTC Subscribers a Two-for-One ticket deal for Blue Jasmine. Simply present this coupon at any participating cinema to receive one free ticket with the purchase of one full-priced adult ticket. Valid from 5 September 2013 until the end of the film’s theatrical season at all participating cinemas (excludes public holidays, discount days or after 5pm on Saturday).