Taming of the Shrew
BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE DIRECTED BY DAMIEN RYAN
Queensland Theatre acknowledges the Jagera and Turrbal people who are the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we work, and their unique relationship with the lands, seas and waterways. We pay our respects to their Elders both past and present, and to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
QUEENSLAND THEATRE IS ASSISTED BY THE AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT THROUGH THE AUSTRALIA COUNCIL, ITS ARTS FUNDING AND ADVISORY BODY. QUEENSLAND THEATRE IS SUPPORTED BY THE QUEENSLAND GOVERNMENT THROUGH ARTS QUEENSLAND.
Lee Lewis Artistic Director
Welcome to a great big glorious Shakespearean night in the theatre created for us by one of Australia’s great directors of classics, Damien Ryan.
Even though COVID continues, theatre here in Australia is rising up again to fill our nights and delight out story-loving souls. As 78 Montague Road filled up with this big loud group of actors who had come to wrestle this great play, the building started to vibrate more and more with the work of theatre making. The covers were taken off the sewing machines, the machinery of the workshop swung into action and the whole Company geared up. It is lovely to be running at full tilt again, to feel the day start to accelerate towards showtime, to look out the office window and see the carpark starting to fill, to hear the buzz in the foyer, and to wonder what you are going to think of the play! Taming of the Shrew has always been a complex play. When I was growing up, Kate was one of my heroes — a woman willing to speak her mind despite the cost of doing so. She is still my hero. And so is Damien Ryan for being willing to tackle a play that is currently so contested. We must continue to engage with complexity and not subside into the comfortable illusion of simplicity. Shakespeare wrote a complex critique of relationships between women and men in the society in which he lived. Some things have changed, some things have not. Every day I have watched some of our smartest actors come through the front door on their way to rehearsal, happy, energised, engaged. At lunchtime, they are talking so much about the play you can barely get a word in. As they leave at the end of the day, their faces are good tired.
All around the building there are the trails of joy that happen when they are asked to use all their brain and all their heart and all their spirit to understand and interpret some of the greatest writing in our theatre tradition. We will always have Shakespeare as a part of our theatre heritage. We will always be drawn to the inherent challenges in revisiting his stories. And as we look forward to creating new stories, Australian stories, stories that speak of who we are as Queenslanders, the challenges are just as huge. Which is why we value our partners so much — the people and institutions who share our belief that the now is a conversation between the past we must understand and the future we must work towards. Griffith University is our Production Partner in tonight’s enterprise of preservation and creation. RACQ reaches across the whole year, understanding that tonight’s play sits within a whole year of conversations about the state of our nation. And of course, none of the work of this Company could exist without the support of the Queensland Government and the federal government through the Australia Council. As theatres around the world are collapsing for want of any income as the pandemic continues, the government support for the arts here in Australia is ensuring that our theatres will survive. Our stories will live to challenge audiences of the future, just as Shakespeare is challenging us tonight. We will always need and want stories about women who speak. 3
Taming of the Shrew
Classic
Comedy
It's Complicated
BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE DIRECTED BY DAMIEN RYAN Two sisters. One wants to marry, one doesn’t. What could possibly go wrong? It’s Lights! Camera! Action! on an Italian silent film set in a bygone era. The suitors are lining up to woo movie mogul Baptista’s enchanting film star daughter, Bianca. But there’s a catch: Bianca can’t marry until her elder sister is wed. Enter Kate — bold, free and fierce, the last thing she wants or needs is a husband. Men conspire to marry this wild woman off to any man who will have her.
Enter Petruchio — Navy captain, in need of a wife. The stage is set for one of the most powerful clashes of wills in history. With a sprinkle of old-time movie magic, director Damien Ryan rescues this classic love story from the clutches of controversy, by transporting it to a time when Kate is less of a problem and more of a promise of great women to come. This may not be the Shrew you were expecting, but it will be an irresistible night in the theatre filled with glamour, romance, song and laughter. And a plane.
‘Over the course of his career, Shakespeare used the shrew more and more openly, radically and forcefully as the guardian of justice, the voice of reason and the keeper of a kind of active, positive female virtue far distant in character from the obedient, chaste, silent version. Our attitudes to the wielding of power, verbal or otherwise, by women should have changed since the time these characters were created, but has it?’ — Anna Kamaralli, Shakespeare and the Shrew
CREATIVES Writer William Shakespeare Director Damien Ryan Design Realisation Adam Gardnir Lighting Designer Jason Glenwright Sound Designer Tony Brumpton Stage Manager Kat O’Halloran Assistant Stage Manager Nicole Neil
8 MAY – 5 JUN BILLE BROWN THEATRE
CAST Tania Ellen Bailey Petruchio Nicholas Brown Biondello/Tailor/Player Leon Cain Lucentio Patrick Jhanur Vincentia/Haberdasher Barbara Lowing Katharina Anna McGahan Baptista John McNeill Rosa/Curtis/Ensemble Wendy Mocke Gremio/Grumio Bryan Probets Hortensio David Soncin Bianca Claudia Ware
DURATION 2 hours and 50 minutes, including a 20 minute interval
CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS Fight Coordinator Samuel Valentine Movement Coordinator Ellen Bailey Videographer David Soncin Flamenco Teacher Simone Pope
LOCATION Queensland Theatre 78 Montague Road, South Brisbane
WARNINGS This play contains theatrical haze and sudden loud noises. The use of photographic or recording equipment is not permitted inside the theatre.
PRODUCTION PARTNER
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John McNeill, Patrick Jhanur
Damien Ryan
Damien Ryan Director
Shakespeare’s plays are about family. Every one of his stories extends outward and inward from that most basic human nucleus. We are all experts on family dysfunction and he traded on that, using it to x-ray the fractures and fissures that human beings have always caused each other in living and loving together.
Shakespeare places these studies of family – in this play the Minola family of Padua, the Vincentia family of Pisa, and the Petruchio family of Verona – in the context of a broader community. Padua, “nursery of arts”, is Shakespeare’s satirical target in Shrew and he doesn’t miss. His Padua is a merciless, selfinterested, socially combative, narcissistic town, driven by mercantile superficiality and a culture bred on gossip, on the fame of one’s name, public profile or personal wealth. A town where the most meaningful contracts in life – love, marriage, friendship, education – are traded for profit. Such a society can only be fuelled by deep anxieties. Every scene in this play is a contest, grasping and desperate, with each character, at some point in the story, gambling with everything they have. It is a world both casually and aggressively misogynistic and one that inevitably provokes a subversive recalcitrant like Katharina Minola into being. So, like all of Shakespeare’s comedies, and Shrew is among the funniest, this is a very serious play. It offers a unique and incredibly detailed psychological study of a relationship between a man and a woman, and between that woman and her family, who would prefer to trade her off to a stranger than to confront the problem she presents them with. And that
problem is that she will not acquiesce to the feminine model of silence. Simply by speaking, by answering back, speaking her mind, the behaviour that defines a ‘shrew’ – making unwanted noise – she raises the temperature and anxiety of the men around her, revealing the fragility of their misogynistic power structures – structures they must therefore protect by pouring their derision upon her. And where her tongue fails, her fists speak volumes, perhaps protecting the woman inside her, the one she keeps hidden and sacred, the one that no one can get to know until Petruchio wears away at the mask, as she does his, until both of these misfits are, by some strange alchemy, reborn. As Australia, to its shame, can testify, contemporary societies still struggle with outspoken women who challenge the status quo – in politics, in business, in education, in social circles, on social media. The revelation that our parliamentary culture has been routinely defiled by sexual hazing, abuse and territorialism has been exposed graphically in recent weeks. How commonly are the old words fished out to describe a woman who expresses her opinion or demonstrates leadership – a bitch, nag, hag, harpy, ‘ditch the witch’ etc. The play remains sickeningly prescient. 7
Barbara Lowing
Shakespeare cleverly characterises the entire play within an almost preBrechtian convention of role-playing that reinforces the façade that is Padua – an endlessly self-reflexive theatrical game in which almost every character is playing a role, with the plot largely dictated by the best of the play’s ‘actors’ (Tranio, in this production, Tania), the cunning and brilliant sister to Lucentio who writes much of the play from within, until she confronts her mother and her own history of anger, pain, and sense of stifled agency – Tania is another powerful shrew in the making. And Bianca, like her sister Kate, has subsumed her true self too, within a performative costume of submissive, dutiful obeisance, perhaps only fully recognising that her methods of coping with the world are insufficient as the play closes, and yet another shrew is born from the ashes of her sister’s rage. Kate’s exit leaves behind new troublemakers and bringers of change. It is revealing that the line which introduces the Minola family to us in Act 1 is Tania’s – “some show to welcome us to town”. The ‘unreality’ of this place, a city obsessed with its own vain self-image, built on entirely artificial ideas of romance, false constructions of gender through crossdressing and performance, shallow ideals of love, beauty and happiness, where the 8
family home has all the reality of a flimsy on-location film façade, provides a means to explore what is so very funny and so very ugly about this play. Shakespeare was a shrew-balladeer. He writes a plethora of female characters who routinely transgress and speak out, but in Shrew the consequences are made most palpable and the discussion of how and why women are silenced actually takes place live on stage in front of us. We can never fully read Shakespeare’s personal politics and we can never really know if he was plainly misogynistic, but he plainly reveals the world as such a place and leaves the audience’s hearts and sympathies firmly in the hands of his female characters. It is easy to forget too that Shrew is a play-within-a-play, not a reality, but part of a wish-fulfilment dream, performed to a drunken tinker by a series of players, but unfortunately that story has come down to us unfinished and is thus seldom performed. The central metaphor in Shakespeare’s play is that of flight and freedom – specifically the training of a wild falcon, the fastest creature on earth. The task of falconry is a brutal business, so it is a brutal metaphor and there beats the play’s sexist heart. The falconer would starve the bird, watch the bird, not let it
sleep, try to look it in its resistant eyes until a trust developed, always tender but ruthlessly committed to the process, before finally releasing it to fly, in the hope that it would return to the arm. It may not, and that’s the moment the falconer fears and cherishes. Kate is of course the bird of Shakespeare’s metaphor – an aviatrix in this production – striving for freedom, an image of self-dependence, hungry for excitement and rush, a death-wish perhaps, a desire for escape at least. Meanwhile, in Petruchio’s language, Shakespeare relentlessly conjures images of the sea, the indefinable mystery of the ocean, its implacability, its overwhelming force. Petruchio’s language is riven with loneliness and placeless drifting. So in Shakespeare’s tapestry of linguistic images, he is the ocean and she is the air – meaning neither of them are much good at standing on solid earth, perhaps until they do it together. So at the play’s climax, Petruchio asks Kate to speak, knowing the ‘falcon’ may well fly away from him with a savage rebuke. She speaks, relentlessly. Ignoring the content of her words for a moment, (only as a technical exercise!) her speech is as balanced, as clear, as soaringly beautiful a piece of poetry as he ever wrote, so easy to say on a verse level, to know when to breathe, to hold and release, to
rise and fall – it takes off in flight, it glides, it’s almost effortless and flows like no other speech in the play. Now return to its content and, let’s face it, it makes us feel sick, it is disturbing, so difficult for the modern actor to say, so hard for us to hear. A beautiful noise that hurts to listen to – perhaps like Wagner – ‘much better than it sounds’. Kate was an outlier at the play’s opening, and is even more so at its closing, devastating the other women on stage with sentiments they did not expect, nor can respect, before dropping the mic and leaving, going her own way… again. But why? Well that is the question. Does Petruchio earn such faith and selflessness? Is it… love? Or, as Anna and Nicholas have explored in this rehearsal period, a secret unknowable contract of allegiance and even game-playing that Kate is acknowledging by her own choice and agency – a first wild thrashing of wings in a new direction, but ever upward, into an unknown sky where both she and he will at least breathe rarer air than the sorry pack of Paduans they leave beneath them, until they find a place to land or burn up in the sunset. In films, things end happily, in life… who knows? Damien
Leon Cain
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Bryan Probets
Patrick Jhanur, Ellen Bailey
Wendy Mocke
from our production partner At Griffith University, we are committed to transforming lives by adding to human knowledge and understanding in ways that create a better future for all. For our performing arts students, that means exploring the power of theatre to transform lives through storytelling. With this foundation, our graduates confidently face the future with the knowledge and skills to make a lasting contribution to society. Through this partnership, our students and staff enjoy valuable opportunities to work with Queensland Theatre’s talented artists. Griffith University is proud to continue its long-term association with Queensland Theatre by supporting the 2021 Season. Professor Scott Harrison Pro Vice Chancellor (Arts, Education and Law) Griffith University
The power of theatre Live theatre can transform, transport and inspire; that’s why Griffith University is proud to partner with Queensland Theatre in 2021. Through our relationships with key arts organisations, and our award-winning teachers, we’re producing graduates ready to take the stage and shape the future.
griffith.edu.au/conservatorium
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Claudia Ware, Anna McGahan
Ellen Bailey
Nicholas Brown
Damien Ryan Director
Adam Gardnir Design Realisation
Jason Glenwright Lighting Designer
Theatre Company/ Melbourne Theatre Company: The Father; Bell Shakespeare: Hamlet, Henry IV Parts 1&2, Henry V, Romeo and Juliet; Sport for Jove: Venus & Adonis, Romeo & Juliet, The Crucible Shakespeare’s History Cycle from Richard 2 to Richard 3, Merchant of Venice, Antigone, Antony and Cleopatra, The River at the End of the Road, Cyrano de Bergerac, No End of Blame, Othello, The Tempest, Away, The Taming of the Shrew, Macbeth, Love’s Labour’s Lost, The Importance of Being Earnest, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, All’s Well That Ends Well, Twelfth Night, The Libertine; Old Fitz: Look Back in Anger. As Actor: Belvoir: Life of Galileo, Twelfth Night, Nora; Bell Shakespeare: As You Like It, Antony and Cleopatra, Richard 3, Comedy of Errors, Hamlet; Sport for Jove: Othello, Romeo and Juliet, Cyrano de Bergerac, Julius Caesar; SAT: Crime and Punishment, Under Milk Wood; Harlos: Mother Courage, Isolde and Tristan, Hamlet, King Lear. Positions: Founder and Artistic Director, Sport for Jove. Awards: Green Room Award – Best Production Henry V; Sydney Theatre Awards – Best Production and Best Director Antigone; Best Production and Best Director Henry V; Best Production and Best Director Cyrano de Bergerac; Best Production All’s Well That Ends Well; Best Production The Libertine; Glugs Award – Best Director The Father; Best Production Look Back in Anger. Damien is a proud MEAA member.
Neighborhood; Sydney Theatre Company: Saturn’s Return; Belvoir: Paul, The Promise, Love Me Tender; Melbourne Theatre Company: Grace, Buyer and Cellar, Birdland; Malthouse: The Eisteddfod, Drink Pepsi Bitch, A View of Concrete, The Autobiography of Red, The Yellow Wallpaper; Black Swan State Theatre Company: The Glass Menagerie; Brisbane Festival: Die Winterreise, Happy As Larry; The Australian Ballet: Semele; Opera Australia: The Little Sweep, The Beggar’s Opera; Victorian Opera: The Bear, Angelique, Albert Herring, Rembrandt’s Wife; Pinchgut Opera: L’Ormindo; The Production Company: Anything Goes, The Producers, Gypsy; Cat Stevens Productions: Moonshadow. As Associate Set Designer: Really Useful Group: Love Never Dies. Events: As Costume Designer: Global Creatures: Walking With Dinosaurs. As Set Designer: Nine Network: The TV Week Logie Awards. As Precinct Designer: White Night Melbourne, Melbourne Commonwealth Games Cultural Festival. Positions: Executive Director, Altitude Theatre; Producer, Queensland Performing Arts Centre; Producer, Brisbane Powerhouse; Board of Directors, Midsumma Festival. Training: Bachelor of Dramatic Arts (Design), Victorian College of the Arts; Masters of Business Administration, Australian Institute of Business. Awards: Green Room Award – Best Design of an Opera Angelique.
Theatre Company), The Longest Minute (with debase & JUTE Theatre), Rice (with Griffin Theatre Company), Country Song, Argus (with Dead Puppet Society), Rumour Has It (with Little Red), I Want to Know What Love Is (with The Good Room), A Tribute of Sorts (with Metro Arts), The Removalists, Faustus (with Bell Shakespeare), Water Falling Down, The Little Dog Laughed, Thom Pain (Based on Nothing). Other credits: Opera Queensland: A Flowering Tree, Kiss Me, Kate; La Boite: Laser Beak Man (with Dead Puppet Society and Brisbane Festival), Lady Beatle (with Little Red), The Tragedy of King Richard III, A Midsummer Night’s Dream; JUTE Theatre: To Kill A Cassowary, Bukal, Here We All Are. Assembled, Joh For PM; SK Entertainment: Friends The Musical Parody, Menopause The Musical; Myths Made Here: Cinderella; The Good Room: One Bottle Later, I Just Came to Say Goodbye, I’ve Been Meaning To Ask You (with Brisbane Festival); shake & stir theatre co: Jane Eyre, A Christmas Carol, Endgame, Dracula, Wuthering Heights, Fantastic Mr Fox, Roald Dahl’s George’s Marvellous Medicine, Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes & Dirty Beasts; Little Red: Your Song, The IsoLATE Late Show; Queensland Conservatorium: Hansel & Gretel The Opera. Awards: Matilda Awards – Best Lighting Design Carrie: The Musical; Best Technical Design Dracula; Matilda Awards – Gold Matilda Award for Body of Work; Groundling Awards – Favourite Lighting – Body of Work (2010, 2012–13), Del Arte Chart Awards – Favourite Lighting Design (2009–2015, 2018–2020).
Queensland Theatre: Debut. Other credits: As Director: Sydney
Queensland Theatre: Debut. Other credits: La Boite: The
Queensland Theatre: The Holidays, City of Gold (with Griffin
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Tony Brumpton Sound Designer
Kat O’Halloran Stage Manager
Nicole Neil Assistant Stage Manager
Antigone, City of Gold (with Griffin Theatre Company), The Wider Earth (with Dead Puppet Society), Tartuffe (with Black Swan State Theatre Company), Quartet, The Odd Couple, Grounded, Gasp! (with Black Swan State Theatre Company), The Mountaintop, Australia Day, Black Diggers (with Sydney Festival), Design For Living, Other Desert Cities (with Black Swan State Theatre Company), Managing Carmen (with Black Swan State Theatre Company), Tides, Pygmalion, No Man’s Land (with Sydney Theatre Company), Sacre Bleu!, Macbeth (with Brisbane Festival), Fat Pig, The Little Dog Laughed, The Crucible, God of Carnage (with Black Swan State Theatre Company), I Am My Own Wife, Private Fears in Public Places, Absurd Person Singular, The Removalists, Waiting for Godot, Hurry Up and Wait (with debase Theatre Company), Eating Ice Cream With Your Eyes Closed, Beckett x3, Maxine Mellor’s Mystery Project (with State Library of Queensland). As Co-Sound Designer: Rice (with Griffin Theatre Company), The August Moon, Anatomy Titus Fall of Rome: A Shakespeare Commentary (with Bell Shakespeare Company), Stones in His Pockets. Other credits: As Composer and/or Sound Designer: Dead Puppet Society: Hive Mind, Laser Beak Man, Mega Fauna, The Harbinger, The Timely Death of Victor Blott; White Rabbit Theatre Company: The Grand; Centenary of Canberra Festival: Kungkarangkalpa (Seven Sisters Songlines); Brisbane Festival: Freeze Frame, King Here After; I-Pin Lin’s Productions: Bamboo, Harmony, 4orces and 1984–2005; QUT Dance: Neural Dust, Current, Accented Bodies, Altered States. Positions: Affiliate Artist (2014), Associate Artist/ Head of Audio (2011), Emerging Artist (2010), Queensland Theatre; Resident Artist, Dead Puppet Society; Founder, Tone Black Productions; Lecturer, QUT.
Sydney Theatre Company), Hydra (with STCSA), Hedda, The 39 Steps, Rice (with Griffin Theatre Company), Once in Royal David’s City (with Black Swan State Theatre Company), Switzerland, Happy Days, Treasure Island, An Oak Tree, Hurry Up and Wait!. As Deputy Stage Manager: Twelfth Night. As Assistant Stage Manager: Scenes from a Marriage, An Octoroon, Tartuffe (with Black Swan State Theatre Company), Quartet, The Seagull, God of Carnage, Rabbit Hole. Other credits: As Stage Manager: Opera Australia: Madame Butterfly (regional tour); Creative Regions: It All Begins With Love. As Event Co-ordinator: Sydney Festival. As Assistant Stage Manager: SpoonTree Productions: The Man The Sea Saw; Sydney Festival: Domain Concert Series; Queensland Ballet. Training: Bachelor of Fine Arts (Technical Production), QUT. Positions: Technical Coordinator, Brisbane Festival.
Shot, The Wider Earth (with Dead Puppet Society). As Assistant Stage Manager: Much Ado About Nothing. Other credits: As Stage Manager: La Boite: Naked and Screaming, Neon Tiger, Laser Beak Man (with Dead Puppet Society); Dead Puppet Society: Laser Beak Man (national tour); Brisbane Festival: You Should be Dancing; QPAC: Spirit of Christmas 2019. As Deputy Stage Manager: Opera Queensland: Orpheus & Eurydice (with CIRCA), Tosca, Peter Grimes, The Merry Widow, Ruddigore (Brisbane season & regional tour); QPAC: Spirit of Christmas 2020. As Assistant Stage Manager: La Boite Theatre: A Streetcar Named Desire; Opera Australia: Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour – West Side Story, Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour – La Bohème; Opera Queensland: The Pearlfishers, The Barber of Seville (Brisbane season & regional tour); shake & stir theatre co: American Idiot, George’s Marvellous Medicine (Brisbane season & New Zealand tour). Training: Bachelor of Fine Arts (Technical Production) and Bachelor of Fine Arts (Drama), QUT.
Queensland Theatre: As Sound Designer and/or Composer: Mouthpiece,
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Queensland Theatre: As Stage Manager: Triple X (with
Queensland Theatre: As Stage Manager: The Holidays, The
Anna McGahan, Nicholas Brown, Wendy Mocke
THEATRE RESIDENCY WEEK 2021
Theatre Residency Week returns to Brisbane these September holidays. A week-long intensive theatre camp for students in Years 9–12. Theatre Residency Week participants spend each day immersed in actor training, social and cultural activities and live theatre performances.
When 20 – 25 September Where Stuartholme School, Toowong Bookings queenslandtheatre.com.au/trw
HURRY! CAPACITY IS LIMITED AND BOOKINGS ARE FILLING FAST.
Ellen Bailey Tania
Queensland Theatre: Wisdom, Storm Boy (with Melbourne Theatre
Company and Dead Puppet Society), Much Ado About Nothing, Oedipus Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Macbeth. Other credits: Dead Puppet Society: Laser Beak Man; Shock Therapy Productions: Medea, The Forwards, Viral; QPAC: Armistice; La Boite Theatre: Tender Napalm; Sydney Theatre Company: Roadtrain; Zeal Theatre: A Secret Place; 4MBS Shakespeare Festival: Hamlet; GOMA: HEARD*BRISBANE. Film: Bloody Hell, Clubland. Television: Harrow, Home & Away. Training: Bachelor of Fine Arts (Acting), QUT; Advanced Training Programme, Frantic Assembly; Physical Devising & Puppetry, Complicité; Summer School Programme, LISPA (Berlin). Position: Movement Consultant – Wisdom, Queensland Theatre; Teaching Artist (2015–present), Queensland Theatre. Awards: Gold Coast Film Festival SIPFest – Best Actor Lavender; Matilda Award nomination – Best Female in a Leading Role The Forwards.
Nicholas Brown Petruchio
Leon Cain Biondello/Tailor/Player
Company: The Long Forgotten Dream, Still Point Turning: The Catherine McGregor Story; New Theatricals: Come From Away; Belvoir: Counting And Cracking, Frozen; Griffin Theatre Company: Lighten Up; Merrigong Theatre Company: Dead Man Brake; Australian Shakespeare Company: Wind In The Willows; Disney India: Beauty And The Beast; Tamarama Rock Surfers: Fewer Emergencies; SBW Stables Theatre: Spunks; Hi-5: Hi-5 Space Magic; Ace Productions Mumbai: Jesus Christ Superstar; Project 88 Mumbai: Seven Jewish Children; Kunsten Festival Des Arts, Belgium: Doctrine: How To Survive Under Seige; Royal Albert Hall and UK/European Tour: Miss Bollywood The Shilpa Shetty Musical. As Writer: Griffin Theatre Company: Lighten Up; Riverside: The Yam Corsage (Myths & Legends). Film: Laka, Sedition, Dance Academy, Pratichhaya, Unindian, Random 8, Love You To Death, Kites, A Man’s Gotta Do, Temptation. Television: Amazing Grace, The Unlisted, Harrow, The Letdown, Play School (Regular Presenter), The Code 2, The Elegant Gentlemen’s Guide To Knife Fighting, Mr And Mrs Murder, Home & Away, Packed to the Rafters, Underbelly: The Man Who Got Away, City Homicide, The Cooks, White Collar Blue, Heartbreak High. As Writer: ABC: The Unlisted, Play School, The Wonder Gang. Training: Bachelor of Dramatic Art, NIDA. Awards: Mike Walsh Fellowship recipient.
Man Equals Man, School Of Arts, That Face, Away, Oedipus The King, A Winter’s Tale. Other credits: La Boite: Summer Wonderland, The Wishing Well, I Love You Bro; shake & stir theatre co: Fantastic Mr Fox, George’s Marvellous Medicine, Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes and Dirty Beasts, Endgame, Out Damn Snot; Melbourne Theatre Company/ Kay McLean Productions: North By Northwest; NIDA: Only Ten Minutes To Buffalo; Someone Productions: He Died With A Felafel In His Hand; Oscar Theatre Company: The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee; Merrigong Theatre Company: Thieves Like Us; Brisbane Powerhouse/Adelaide Fringe: Oman Ra; Metro Arts: The Boy and the Goat. Film: The Dog Days of Christmas, Mental, Nice Package, The Suicide Theory, Sisters of War (ABC telemovie). Television: Young Rock, Harrow, Safe Harbour, Terra Nova, The Straits, H2O Just Add Water. Awards: Sydney Theatre Critics Award – Best Newcomer Away; Matilda Award – Best Emerging Artist, Best Actor I Love You Bro; Lord Mayor’s Fellowship Award recipient.
Queensland Theatre: Debut. Other credits: Sydney Theatre
Queensland Theatre: The 39 Steps, Kelly, An Oak Tree. Orphans,
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Patrick Jhanur Lucentio
Barbara Lowing Vincentia/Haberdasher
Anna McGahan Katharina
Theatre: Single Asian Female (national tour); Sydney Theatre Company: Banging Denmark, Rough Draft #44 - Orange Thrower, Hot Tub (play reading); State Theatre Company of South Australia: Terrestrial; Griffin Theatre Company: Leviathan (Griffin Theatre Scratch); Shakespeare by Night/Red Line Productions: Taming of the Shrew; Kings Cross Theatre/ bub Productions: Australian Open; QUT: The Man Who Came To Dinner, Hot l Baltimore, The Cherry Orchard, Romeo & Juliet. Film: I Am Woman. Television: Riot, Diary of an Uber Driver, Drop Dead Weird, Sea Patrol. Short Film: Joy Boy, Thrush, Halfsies, Without A Tracey. Training: Bachelor of Fine Arts (Acting), QUT. Awards: Casting Guild of Australia – 2020 Rising Star Award; Matilda Award nomination – Bille Brown Award for Best Emerging Artist Single Asian Female; Adelaide Theatre Guide Curtain Call Award nomination – Best Male Actor Terrestrial.
The China Incident, Toy Symphony, Prisoner of 2nd Ave, Hamlet (with STCSA), Away (with Griffin Theatre Company), The Memory of Water, The Works, Cooking With Elvis, Top Dogs, Antigone, Navigating (with Melbourne Theatre Company), Explosions, The Gift of the Gorgon, The Barretts of Wimpole Street, Les Liaison Dangerueses. Other credits: Playlab Theatre: Magpie; Brisbane Powerhouse/JUTE: Joh for PM; JUTE: Here We All Are. Assembled; Metro Arts: Motherland; shake & stir theatre co: Tequila Mockingbird; Dead Puppet Society: The Harbinger; Belloo: Motherland; Empire Theatre: April’s Fool; STCSA: November; Aspire Theatre Arts: The Passion; 23rd Productions: My Night With Harold; Queensland Arts Council: Tales My Mother Told Me, A Doctor in Spite of Himself, Federation Show; La Boite: The Removalists, Closer (with Genre Theatre Company); First Asylum, The Taming of the Shrew, The Matilda Women; Dogs on the Roof/Metro Arts: Three Points of Contact; Brisbane Festival: Ozone; Green Theatre Company: The Misanthrope; Performers Independent Theatre: Macbeth; Gary Penny Productions: Top Silk; Hole in the Wall: The Alchemist, Hamlet. Television: Mako Mermaids, Secrets and Lies, Medivac, Hero’s 2, Stringers, The Family Law, Harrow. Training: WAAPA. Positions: Vocal and Acting Coach, Expressions Dance Company, Aboriginal Centre for the Performing Arts; Voice Over Tutor, USQ. Awards: Matilda Awards – Gold Matilda Award for Body of Work, Best Actress Away; MEAA/Equity Awards – Best Actress and Best Ensemble Cast Away; Goldie Award – Best Commercial Voice Over Artist, Queensland; Groundling Awards – Outstanding Contribution by a Female Actress. Proud MEAA member since 1987.
Theatre Company), Managing Carmen (with Black Swan Theatre Company). Other credits: La Boite Theatre: Julius Caesar; Melbourne Fringe Festival: The People of the Sun. Film: 100 Bloody Acres, Project Eden, Dog Days of Christmas, Spirit of the Game. Television: Glitch, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Dr Blake Mysteries, House Husbands, Anzac Girls, Underbelly: Razor, Spirited. Training: Bachelor of Fine Arts (Acting), QUT. Awards: Matilda Award – Best Emerging Actor; Inside Film Award – Out of the Box; Heath Ledger Scholarship (2012).
Queensland Theatre: Debut. Other credits: La Boite
Queensland Theatre: The Seagull, Australia Day, The Pitch &
Queensland Theatre: Hydra (with STCSA), The Effect (with Sydney
John McNeill Baptista
Queensland Theatre: Debut. Other credits: shake & stir theatre co: Endgame; La Boite: Ruben Guthrie; Opera Queensland/ Brisbane Festival: Peter Grimes; Queensland Shakespeare Festival: Henry V, Richard III, A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Sydney Theatre Company: Away; Belvoir: The Readers; Sport for Jove: Of Mice and Men; Critical Stages: The Dapto Chaser; Tamarama Rock Surfers: Bondi Dreaming, Thrall. Film: Australia Day, Candy, Dirty Deeds, Kangaroo Jack, The View From Greenhaven, Burns Point. Television: Frayed, Dive Club, Doctor Doctor, Harrow, Homecoming Queens, Hoges, The House of Bond, The Gods of Wheat Street, Rescue Special Ops, World Animal Championships, Rake, Underbelly, Tricky Business, Crownies, Blue Murder, Water Rats, McLeod’s Daughters, The Cut, Scorched, White Collar Blue, Double The Fist, The Alice, Heartbreak High, Home & Away, Head Start, All Saints.
Wendy Mocke Rosa/Curtis/Ensemble
Bryan Probets Gremio/Grumio
David Soncin Hortensio
Jove: Macbeth, Moby Dick; Darlinghurst Theatre: Jelbu Meri; NIDA: The Hypochondriac, Realism, Woyzeck, Twelfth Night; Centre for Australasian Theatre: Cargo Club #6, Cargo Club #3; Tropical Arts: Much Ado About Nothing; Old 505: Home Invasion; Seymour Centre: Moby Dick. As Writer: Griffin Mini Studio: REALish; STC Virtual: Tiger Scare; Reg Cramphorn Studio Residency: Voices of West Papua. Television: The Code. Short film: Chicken. Positions: Creative Director, Melanin Haus; Writer, Griffin Mini Studio; Emerging Writer, Sydney Theatre Company; Emerging Writer, JUTE Theatre, Cairns. Training: Bachelor of Dramatic Arts, NIDA. Awards: Sydney Theatre Award nomination – Best Female Actor in a Supporting Role Moby Dick.
Night, The 39 Steps, 600 Ways to Filter a Sunset (The Scene Project), St Mary’s in Exile, Much Ado About Nothing, The Odd Couple, Australia Day, Design For Living, Pygmalion, Waiting for Godot, The Alchemist (with Bell Shakespeare), The Importance of Being Earnest, Private Fears in Public Places, A Christmas Carol, The Venetian Twins, Scapin, The Lonesome West, Mano Nera, The Cherry Orchard, Road to She-Devil’s Salon. Other credits: shake & stir theatre co: A Christmas Carol, George’s Marvellous Medicine, Tequila Mockingbird, 1984, Animal Farm; La Boite: Edward Gant’s Amazing Feats of Loneliness (with Sydney Theatre Company), As You Like It, The Wishing Well, The Danger Age, The Year Nick McGowan Came to Stay, Operator, Creche and Burn, Way Out West, Milo’s Wake, Hermes and the Naked Flame (with Queensland Arts Council); Opera Queensland: Candide; Zen Zen Zo: Vikram and the Vampire; Queensland Music Festival: Credo the Innocence of God; Queensland Ballet: The Amazing Magician Goes Troppo; Harvest Rain: The Woman in Black; Hot House Theatre Company: Australia: The Show. Film: Sweet River, Bloody Hell, Celeste, Don’t Tell, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, The Railway Man, Tracks, The Great Gatsby, Singularity, Punishment, Daybreakers, Subdivision, Triangle, Hildegarde, The Proposition, Nim’s Island, A Heartbeat Away, The Horseman. Television: Young Rock, Tidelands, Monarch Cove, Starter Wife, Fat Cow Motel, Pyjama Girl, Love Weights. Positions: Associate (2004–06), Emerging Artist (2003), Queensland Theatre. Awards: Matilda Commendations The Lonesome West, Road to the She-Devil’s Salon; Matilda Award – Best Supporting Actor As You Like It; Gold Matilda Award Winner for Body of Work.
Players, Macbeth; Sport for Jove: Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night; Red Line Productions: Infinity Taster, The Judas Kiss, A View From The Bridge (national tour); WildCard Productions: Romeo And Julien; White Box Theatre: The Shifting Heart; MopHead: The House Of Ramon Iglesia; Bontom: The House At Boundary Road, Liverpool. Film: On The Move, River. Television: Love Child. Training: Bachelor of Fine Arts (Acting), QUT. Awards: Glugs Award nomination– Most Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role A View From The Bridge.
Queensland Theatre: Debut. Other credits: As Actor: Sport for
Queensland Theatre: The Holidays, The Longest Minute, Hydra (with STCSA), Twelfth
Queensland Theatre: Debut. Other credits: Bell Shakespeare: The
Claudia Ware Bianca
Queensland Theatre: Debut. Other credits: Darlinghurst Theatre Company: The God of Isaac; Sport for Jove: The Tempest, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Macbeth, Measure for Measure, Servant of Two Masters; Sydney Theatre Company: Lethal Indifference (understudy). Training: Bachelor of Arts (Acting), WAAPA.
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Thank you to our donors Queensland Theatre wishes to extend a heartfelt thanks to all our donors. Each gift, large and small, helps us make great theatre.
QUEENSLAND THEATRE VISIONARIES Rainmakers Tim Fairfax AC & Gina Fairfax
Ian & Cass George
Liz Pidgeon & Graeme Wikman
Artistic Director's Circle 1 Anonymous Doug Hall Foundation
Elizabeth Jameson AM & Abbe Anderson
The Jelley Family Foundation Pamela Marx
The Mather Foundation Cathryn Mittelheuser AM
John & Gay Hull Colin & Noela Kratzing Bruce & Sue Shepherd Dr Marie Siganto AM
Trevor St. Baker AO & Judith St. Baker David Williamson AO & Kristin Williamson
Dr Geoffrey Hirst AM & Dr Sally Wilde Kim & Michael Hodge David & Katrina King Dr Joan M Lawrence AM Stephen & Terry Leach
Andrew & Kate Lister David & Jennifer Lynas The Nicklin Family Greg & Wendy O'Meara Nigel & Liz Prior Stack Family Foundation
Rachel Crowley Alan Galwey William Glasson AO & Claire Glasson Justus & Tamara Homburg Geoff & Michele James
Amanda Jolly & Peter Knights Susan Learmonth & Bernard Curran David & Erica Lee Charles & Catherine Miller
Andrea Moor Karl & Louise Morris Debra & Patrick Mullins John Reid AO & Lynn Rainbow-Reid AM
Louise M Gourlay OAM John Graham & Craig Syphers Sue & Mike Gowan John & Lois Griffin Alexandra Grove & Peter Dawson Sophia Hall Andrew Harding Prof Lawrence Hirst & Mrs Jill Osborne Kevin & Joanne Holyoak Barbara Houlihan Marc James Tempe Keune Fleur Kingham Karen & Peter Lane Fred & Margaret Leditschke Lee Lewis & Brett Boardman Barbara Lloyd John & Janice Logan
Katrina Low & Ilan Klevansky Marina Marangos In memory of Jann McCabe Bill McCarthy John & Julienne McKenna Mark Menhinnitt Richard & Denise Morton R & B Murray Kartini Oei Shay O'Hara-Smith Leanne O'Shea & Peter Gilroy Kim Parascos Joanna Peters Katharine Philp G. Pincus Blayne & Helen Pitts Tina Previtera George & Jan Psaltis Catherine Quinn
Angela Ramsay Tim & Kym Reid John Richardson & Kirsty Taylor Crispin Scott Dr Josephine Sundin Courtney Talbot Nick & Barbara Tate Damien Thomson & Glenise C. Berry Cornelia Van Zyl & Ian Reid Peter G Williams Margaret Williams Suzanne & Bo Williams Dr Catherine Yelland Ian Yeo & Sylvia Alexander Tony & Linda Young
Leaders 2 Anonymous Australian Communities Foundation - Keith & Jeannette Ince Fund
Barbara Bedwell John & Lynnly Chalk The Frazer Family Foundation
Benefactors 1 Anonymous Roslyn Atkinson AO & Richard Fotheringham AM Christopher & Margot Blue Sue Brown & Lisa Worner
Michael & Anne-Maree Byrne Dr John H Casey Barbara Duhig Ian & Ruth Gough Dr Anita Green
PCF
Collaborators 3 Anonymous Tracey Barker Andrew & Trudi Bofinger Communication, Speech & Performance Teachers Inc. Bruce & Helen Cowley
PCF
Patrons 3 Anonymous J M Alroe Michael & Anne Back Noela Bartlett Jennifer Batts Virginia Bishop Robert Bond Sarah Bradley Lisa & William Bruce Phillip Carruthers & Sharni Cockburn Rodd & Wendy Chignell Nic Christodoulou Ross & Tina Claxton Zoë Connolly Fabienne Cooke Sheryl Cornack Kerry & Greg Cowderoy Andrew & Leonie Douglas H G Fryberg Dr Sara Gollschewski PCF
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PCF
PCF
PCF
PCF
PCF
PCF
PCF
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LANDMARK PRODUCTIONS FUND SUPPORTING CAST 4 Anonymous Anne & Peter Allen Geoffrey Beames Charles Beatty Leela Bishop Bob Cleland Debra Cunningham Russell & Joan Dart Suzanne & Peter Davies Michael Farrington Lisa Forbes Daryl & Trish Hanly David Hardidge Michael Keating Mark Leary Dr James Mackean Gerard McDonald
Georgia Miles Philip & Fran Morrison Jim Murphy PSM Denise O'Boyle Diane & Robert Parcell Don & Isobel Perry-Keene Jodie Siganto Nicholas Smith & Maureen Owen Kevin Vedelago & Karen Renton Jacqui Walters Richard Whittington OAM Peter & Mary Wilson Tracey Wood
TRUST AND FOUNDATION PARTNERS Australian Communities Foundation - Davie Family Fund
Thank you to the Visionaries who generously support our Landmark Productions Fund, cementing Queensland Theatre as a national leader in the development and staging of productions of significant scale. In 2021, Trent Dalton’s Boy Swallows Universe, adapted for the stage by Tim McGarry, will amaze audiences as it catapults the blockbuster Brisbane novel into real life.
Australian Communities Foundation - Keith & Jeannette Ince Fund Copyright Agency Cultural Fund Tim Fairfax Family Foundation William Angliss (Queensland) Charitable Fund
Tim Fairfax AC & Gina Fairfax Ian & Cass George Elizabeth Jameson AM & Abbe Anderson
BEQUESTORS Realised Bequests Peggy Given
Notified Bequests 1 Anonymous
The Mather Foundation Liz Pidgeon & Graeme Wikman Trevor St. Baker AO & Judith St. Baker
Acknowledging Visionaries who individually support special Queensland Theatre funds: Landmark Productions Fund PCF
Play Commissioning Fund
Annual donations over $500 are acknowledged in play programs for 12 months from the date of donation. Current as at April 2021
Together we are making our ambitions a reality For more information about our giving programs, please contact Zoë Connolly, Director of Development, on 07 3010 7602 or zconnolly@queenslandtheatre.com.au
Partners make it possible Principal Partner
Production Partners
Program Partner
Trust and Foundation Partners
Company Partners
Corporate Ally
Season Partners
Government Partners
Building the Universe 2021 Workshop and Wardrobe Appeal Colossal 7 metre high set. Over 50 costumes. 94 props and counting… Building Trent Dalton’s Boy Swallows Universe, adapted for stage by Tim McGarry, will cost more than twice the amount of any production Queensland Theatre has ever staged.
SCAN HERE TO DONATE
Please help us build the universe.
David Soncin
Bryan Probets, Barbara Lowing
PATRON His Excellency the Honourable Paul de Jersey AC, Governor of Queensland MEMBERS OF THE BOARD Elizabeth Jameson (Chair) Rachel Crowley (Deputy Chair) Tracey Barker Susan Learmonth Dr Andrea Moor David Williamson AO ARTISTIC DIRECTOR Lee Lewis EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Amanda Jolly EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT Donna Maher ARTISTIC ASSOCIATE ARTIST Isaac Drandic ASSOCIATE ARTIST Daniel Evans DESIGN DIRECTOR Renée Mulder DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT Zoë Connolly CORPORATE PARTNERSHIPS MANAGER Merryn Csincsi PHILANTHROPY COORDINATOR Georgia Lynas DEVELOPMENT COORDINATOR Hannah Barr EVENTS ASSISTANT Matthew Filkins
MARKETING AND TICKETING DIRECTOR OF MARKETING Laura Oliver PUBLICITY AND COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER Amanda Lawson SENIOR MARKETING COORDINATOR Maneka Singh MARKETING COORDINATOR (DIGITAL ENGAGEMENT) Cinnamon Smith MARKETING ASSISTANT (DIGITAL ENGAGEMENT) Thomas Manton–Williams GRAPHIC DESIGNER Aleesha Cuffe DATABASE SUPERVISOR Jeffrey Guiborat TICKETING SUPERVISOR Madison Bell TICKETING OFFICER Rosie Hazell BOX OFFICE Alana Dunn SEASON TICKETING Matthew Filkins, Ngaire Lock, Daniel Sinclair
PRODUCTION DIRECTOR, TECHNICAL AND PRODUCTION Toni Glynn TECHNICAL MANAGER Daniel Maddison TECHNICAL COORDINATOR Lachlan Cross HEAD OF WORKSHOP FINANCE AND OPERATIONS Peter Sands CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER COMPANY CARPENTER / Valerie Tam HEAD MECHANIST ASSISTANT ACCOUNTANT John Pierce Georgia Knight COSTUME SUPERVISOR FINANCE OFFICER Nathalie Ryner Sarra Lamb WARDROBE COORDINATOR FACILITIES AND OPERATIONS MANAGER Barbara Kerr Shaun Kelly CARPENTRY APPRENTICE VENUE AND BAR MANAGER Kane Ernst Kimberley Mogg ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS PHOTOGRAPHY Brett Boardman DESIGN ASSISTANT Madeleine Barlow
GERMAN TRANSLATIONS Nicole Lauder MOVIE POSTER ARTWORK Aleesha Cuffe
PROGRAMMING DIRECTOR OF PROGRAMMING Rod Ainsworth ARTISTIC COORDINATOR Samantha French PRODUCER, NEW WORK Shari Irwin ARTISTIC ADMINISTRATOR Zena O’Shannessy EDUCATION, YOUTH AND REGIONAL ENGAGEMENT DIRECTOR, EDUCATION, YOUTH AND REGIONAL ENGAGEMENT Laurel Collins ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR Steve Pirie EDUCATION COORDINATOR Emma Funnell PROJECT OFFICER Alana Dunn INDIGENOUS REFERENCE GROUP Nathan Jarro (Chair), Dr Valerie Cooms, Isaac Drandic, Angelina Hurley FOUNDING DIRECTOR AIan Edwards, AM, MBE (1925–2003) QUEENSLAND THEATRE PRODUCTION STAFF HEAD LX & OPERATOR Tim Gawne SOUND CONSULTANT Brady Watkins STAGE HAND/ASM Sophie Watkins AV OPERATOR Chris Goeldner SET BUILD Aleksis Waaralina, Chris Maddison, Richard Aishford WARDROBE MAINTENANCE Jack Parry ART FINISHER/MILLINER Olga Dumova COSTUME CUTTER/MAKER Kiara Bulley WIGS/DRESSER Michael Green ALTERATIONS Hannah Beier, Ella Lollback, Shannon Tonkin STAGE MANAGEMENT OBSERVATION Angela Roff REHEARSAL OBSERVATION Jazleen David De Busch, Dakotah Love QUT SECONDMENT STAGE MANAGER Katherine Crocker QUT SECONDMENT LX Ray Parks Information correct at time of printing
THANK YOU
Sport for Jove Theatre and its cast and crew on a previous iteration of elements of this production, Anna Gardiner and Barry French for design and David Stalley for videography and Queensland Maritime Museum and United Services Club for allowing us to film at their venues.
Keep the good conversations going on the trip home! Hosted by our Artistic Director Lee Lewis, Queensland Theatre’s Quality Time podcast turns the house lights up and invites you to get to know the people who helped bring Taming of the Shrew to the stage. Available on iTunes, Spotify and anywhere good podcasts can be found.
Loved taming of the shrew? Make 2021 a year filled with theatre and treat yourself to a Season Ticket package. Put your Taming of the Shrew ticket towards a 3 play package upgrade and gain all the savings and benefits our Season Ticket holders enjoy.
WHITE PEARL
prima facie
BY ANCHULI FELICIA KING
BY SUZIE MILLER
DIRECTED BY PRISCILLA JACKMAN
DIRECTED BY LEE LEWIS
TRENT DALTON'S
boy swallows universe TIM MCGARRY SAM STRONG
ADAPTED FOR THE STAGE BY DIRECTED BY
RETURN TO THE DIRT BY STEVE PIRIE DIRECTED BY LEE LEWIS
PLUS SPECIAL EVENT
robyn archer: an australian songbook DEVISED AND PERFORMED BY ROBYN ARCHER
Book online at queenslandtheatre.com.au/upgrade
Exclusive Lounge Bar Access Fully Reclinable Luxurious Seats
Gourmet Seasonal Menu In-seat Dining & Bar Service
Helping to rebuild Queensland community groups
Through the RACQ Foundation and your membership, we are able to help community groups get back on their feet after natural disasters. Your RACQ membership makes all the difference. Community groups can apply for an RACQ Community Grant today at racq.com/foundation
Coming soon to the Bille Brown Theatre Beauty
Blemishes
LOLs
white pearl BY ANCHULI FELICIA KING DIRECTED BY PRISCILLA JACKMAN
17 JUN – 10 JUL A SYDNEY THEATRE COMPANY AND RIVERSIDE’S NATIONAL THEATRE OF PARRAMATTA PRODUCTION
PRODUCTION PARTNERS