Celebrate in September with Queensland Theatre Company and Brisbane Festival 3 Play Package
4-13 Sept Bille Brown Studio
Photography by Gerwiyn Davies.
Queensland Theatre Company and The Good Room, in association with Brisbane Festival present
18 – 27 Sept Bille Brown Studio
Photography by Ian Golding.
Queensland Theatre Company, in association with Brisbane Festival present
A Queensland Theatre Company and Sydney Festival production
24 Sept – 12 Oct Playhouse, QPAC
Book all three shows and receive 10% off Call 136 246 or visit qtix.com.au
Photography by Branco Gaica.
Queensland Theatre Company and Brisbane Festival, in association with QPAC and The Balnaves Foundation presents
Gloria. By Elaine Acworth
Cast 19 July – 16 August 2014 Bille Brown Studio, The GreenHouse
Gloria will run for approximately 90 minutes, no interval.
Christen O’Leary
Gloria
Naomi Price
Maggie/Rose
Steven Rooke
Ned
Kevin Spink
John/Walter
Elijah Wellsmore
Justin
David Bell
Director
Bill Haycock
Designer
David Walters
Lighting Designer
Andrew McNaughton
Composer/Sound Designer/Musician
Louise Gough
Dramaturg
Pip Loth
Stage Manager
Yanni Dubler
Assistant Stage Manager (Rehearsals)
Ariana O’Brien
Assistant Stage Manager (Performance)
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Recycle this program Cover: Binge Advertising + Design Cover Photography: Aaron Tait
Support Greening QTC and recycle this program after the performance in the recycling bins provided in the foyer. Read the program before the show at queenslandtheatre.com.au 1
Welcome Note Wesley Enoch, Artistic Director
Dear Patron, Supporter and Friends, Welcome to Gloria, a brand new work by local writer Elaine Acworth, starring the talents of the indefatigable Christen O’Leary. We haven’t seen a work from Elaine Acworth on the QTC stage for over 20 years. Long time supporters will remember her amazing piece called Composing Venus in the Suncorp Theatre in 1995, directed by David Berthold who was Artistic Associate with QTC at the time. Elaine continues her love of musicality and poetry in this world premiere production - Gloria. This work has taken almost three years to develop and bring to the stage. From when Elaine was developing the idea to when she pitched it to us, the commissioning process, working with actors and
creative artists on developing the play, through rehearsals to now bringing it to the stage. There is a lot of hard yakka that goes into making a new work and many, many people. I think Elaine is saying this is draft eight but that is not a true indication of the various versions I have seen come across my desk … I counted 30 at one stage. What I love about a new work is seeing the potential of an idea come to fruition. At the time when you are deciding whether to commission a writer, all you have is the potential of the idea, the skills of the playwright and a sense of hope and trust … then the hard work starts. Watching this play take shape and grow is a great honour, observing the skills of all those involved has been humbling and, finally, bringing this poetic and moving piece of original drama to you is a privilege.
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A special mention to David Bell, Christen O’Leary and Louise Gough for their special care of this fragile new-born. Elaine is a robust and moving writer who thinks in musical notes and long poetic interrogations of the human condition. Enjoy the play and the newly renovated GreenHouse … we are growing our gardens like we grow our plays … with imagination, care, some pruning and the space to grow. Sit back and enjoy. Love,
Wesley
Synopsis Gloria Clare has led an extraordinary life. With a searing intellect and boundless talent, she ran from smalltown Australia to Europe in her reckless youth, became a diva and found love. She’s been chanteuse and composer, rebel and romantic. But these things are dim and distant for her. In her fifties and having recently suffered a stroke, Gloria’s memories are slipping away. Now, Gloria uses the language of her heart to remember things – she sings. Music is the sextant by which she navigates her stormy memory. Singing helps her recall the painful episode in her past when, as a young unmarried mother in ’70s Australia, she was shamed, cowed and harassed into giving up her child for adoption. Before Gloria’s mind deserts her completely, she has one mission: reconnect with Ned, the boy she lost so long ago, get to know his family, and make some kind of amends. But as you’d expect from such a strong-willed, independent woman, she’s going to do it her way, by her rules.
Christen O'Leary
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Writer's Note Elaine Acworth
A few years ago I noticed that my mother was forgetting things – simple, small things like where she had put her glasses and whether my sister or I had said we would drop by. It was nothing dramatic, simply age-related memory loss that resulted in her calling us all of her sisters’ names before she arrived at the correct one. So I became “Pat-Jan-Jen-Elaine” and we all laughed at that. Then I realized that she was writing everything down on her calendar. It was one of those chemists’ calendars and she had appointment dates, times, addresses, visits, neighbours’ phone numbers, plant names, handymen’s contact details – she had so many things scribbled in the boxes and down the sides of the page it was almost impossible to read. On a very practical level, she was trying to retain the order of her life. She would realise that she had forgotten something and become frustrated with herself. The family called in every day but we began to worry that she might forget turning on the oven, or leave something on the stovetop, and my mother knew that – and was more upset with herself.
And then she had a stroke, drastically affecting her short-term memory, and I learned about memory loss and expressive dysphasia, and began to question whether our memories truly do shape our sense of ourselves.
Music became important – it would be the language that Gloria turned to when she lost her words. So she became a singer. Ned’s family life as an adult came into focus – a precious thing, modeled on the values of his adoptive parents.
This was the kernel from which Gloria grew.
Gloria is a play about family – family, for good or ill – how it shapes us, and how we can shape it. It is a play about grace and grandchildren, about music and second chances. Above all, it is a play about those moments of beauty and of pain that make us who we are and yet give us the freedom to become something else.
The play is the story of a woman trying to re-establish contact with the child she gave up for adoption over 30 years before. The attempt is urgent – however, on the verge of making that contact, she has a stroke and loses her memory. We follow her struggle to ‘regain’ herself and meet her son, Ned, and Ned’s struggle to understand what her place in his life might be. How crucial are their memories of the past in determining whether they will ever come together? How much does ‘then’ shape who we are and what we want ‘now’? Of course, from that initial seed, Gloria shifted and changed, as every growing thing does.
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So many people have been involved in Gloria’s journey toward this first production and they all have my love and gratitude. It is such a huge endeavor, making a new piece of theatre, involving actors, directors, lighting and set and sound designers, composers, and the enormous effort of the company staff (workshop, wardrobe, finance, administration, marketing, production, executive) who support every show.
I do want to acknowledge some people particularly who aren’t included above – Kathryn Kelly, for her immense belief; the QTC creative development team in 2013 who took a leap of faith, in particular Todd MacDonald; everyone involved in the Rodney Seaborn Sydney reading last year, especially David Fenton; and finally, Wesley Enoch who has believed in Gloria’s story from the beginning.
L-R: Naomi Price, Steven Rook
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L-R: Kevin Spink, Christen O'Leary
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Director's Note David Bell
In his family memoir The Hare With The Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance, Edmund de Waal writes of his grandparents Emmy and Viktor Von Ephrussi in post WW1 Vienna “There was a huge falling away; things were so much better and fuller before. Perhaps this was when there were the very first intimations of nostalgia. I begin to think that keeping things and losing them are not polar opposites. You keep this silver snuff-box, a token for standing as second in a duel, a lifetime ago. You keep the bracelet given by a lover. Viktor and Emmy kept everything - all these possessions, all these drawers full of things, these walls full of pictures - but they lost their sense of a future of manifold possibilities. This was how they were diminished”. Gloria and her son Ned have also kept everything. For them the events of the past have both fuelled their lives and stopped them from moving forward. Gloria, an only child born to station hands in Charters Towers has used the events of the first twenty years of her life to fuel a career as a singer-songwriter in Europe but is emotionally stuck in the
moment she gave up her child for adoption. Although she has gone on to have a successful but ‘cult’ career, she has never returned to Australia, never seen her family again, never had a long-term relationship. Her music is deeply personal and brutally honest. She can communicate with her audience through her songs, but is not able to speak to those about whom the songs were written. Her now adult son Ned has also created a successful life despite, or perhaps because of the devastation he suffered; a good job, a loving wife and son and fond memories of the grandparents who raised him. However, his ‘happy families’ are constructions and are at odds with the secrets and lies that underpin them. Unable to speak about the pain he carries, Ned’s life has become a lonely vigil guarding against cracks in the facade. In this play, Elaine Acworth has imagined what would happen if mother and son are thrown together by fate. Perhaps if Ned knows the truth, he will understand, but what can possibly be said after all these years that will make a difference? Are their stories, 7
their histories, their memories, an accurate representation of the events or just a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy becoming ever more distorted? How can there ever be a final version of the truth? Stuck in a death grip, Gloria and Ned must come to the realisation that unless they let go of their cherished ‘possessions’, unless they are able to forgive themselves, unless they forgive the situation, unless they realise the situation is over, they will forever be diminished.
Designer's Note Bill Haycock
Designing any new play is always a great excitement and a very real challenge. There is no production history to be nurtured by or to react against, no inspired ideas to steal or reinterpret and no clichés to avoid. You are exposed in making the choices that give this first production visual substance, coherence and fluidity for its first time in front of an audience. Whatever the play, there are always a wide range of ways to approach the designing of it. These spring centrally from the script itself but are also affected by the other ‘givens’ like the space and resources available, the budget, personnel, time and place of the performance and so on. In literal terms Gloria is in hospital in a stroke unit and we briefly considered making our version of a medical space: clean, sterile, neutral. We soon realised though, we weren’t actually in a ‘real’ space but inside Gloria’s poetic, fractured brain and a much messier landscape was needed; an expression of the fragmented mind of the title character, trying like the audience, to make sense of this disordered mess …
The Bille Brown Studio is unusually wide for a performance space – about 20 metres. Sometimes that might be daunting but for us it presented a fantastic opportunity to scatter her memories and make real the inner workings of this creative yet torn soul, and to do it on a cinematic scale. Gloria’s strokes have broken apart the connections to these memories, but not lost them to her forever, and through the journey of the play she reconnects with them and reveals their significance to us. The idea of the set evolved into the space you see (and often only partly see) – an installation – a consciously artistic environment of memories that is evocative with partial suggestions of places and experiences through colours, textures and significant objects. As ever, but especially when your title character is an artist herself, I looked to the works of other artists for inspiration and two significant (yet perhaps lesser known in Australia) artists ‘contemporary’ with Gloria sprang to mind: Kiki Smith and Nancy Spero. Both artists deal with female 8
imagery and personal experience in ways that are often seemingly simple and visually direct, underpinned by a great refinement and emotional resonance. Drawing from images and references in the script (often from Gloria’s deeply personal song lyrics) these two artists further inspired me to explore these memories in specific visual form. Given the consciously artistic ‘landscape of the mind’ that the set became, we decided that the costuming by contrast should be as real and as much like ordinary, real clothes as possible. Gloria, the artist, in hospital-issue gown and nappy is surrounded by people in uniforms of various sorts, some only partly concealing the individuality of their wearer, some embodying their emotional armour. The people who surround her are real – a carer and her remaining ‘family’. In contrast to the set, all characters imagined by Gloria are in her head and it is for the actors, the soundscape and lighting, not costume changes, to help guide us to ‘see through her eyes’ to understand who they are and were …
L-R: David Bell, Elijah Wellsmore, Naomi Price
L-R: Kevin Spink, Christen O'Leary
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The Anatomy of Memory Baz McAlister
For years, the metaphor that defined the study of memory was a storehouse: a cavernous chamber of neatly labelled chests, boxes or cabinets. This led to the image of the memory as a physical part of the body, with limits to what it can hold. But it’s not – it’s more a process or a “skill” of the brain. Memories are made when a smell, touch, sight, sound or taste is analysed, filtered and ‘encoded’ by the brain into either the short-term memory, which can only hold a few pieces of information for about 30 seconds, or long-term memory – which is capable, in theory, of storing infinite amounts of data. This ‘encoding’ makes memories naturally fragmented. When you call something to mind, you’re really reassembling it from small pieces of information scattered across disparate regions of the brain. How to drive a car; the rules of the road; the route to where you’re going; the purpose of your journey; whether or not you need petrol; why you should wear a seatbelt. These databursts come together unconsciously to allow you to accomplish a single task.
Encoding filters out mundane information, which is why what you had for lunch last Tuesday, or where you put your keys often don’t make it into long-term memory. Or, perhaps that memory is in there, but you need an external ‘trigger’ to recall it – which is why you’re wandering the house, seeing if you can spark a recollection of where you were when you put your keys down. Triggers are vital to exploring the full extent of memory. Often, a recollection is buried so deep it requires outside stimulus to bring it surging to the surface. This can be something as diverse and unpredictable as a sound, a smell, a piece of music, a date, a pair of shoes, a tone of voice. Scent is reportedly a powerful trigger, which is why a waft of a particular perfume can suddenly bring the highlights of an old love affair to mind. In fact, these buried memories are often ones the brain has hidden deep because the heightened emotions they evoke can be overwhelming – both positive and negative.
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If a person has suffered extreme trauma or crippling fear, chances are their memory of the experience is repressed by the brain – but triggers can set that memory off, often hijacking the brain as a vivid flashback. This is an inbuilt survival mechanism – by slugging you with the memory of past pain in a potentially threatening situation, the brain is attempting to ensure you don’t make the same mistake twice. However, often, your brain gets the trauma trigger hopelessly wrong – a scene from a film can ignite a traumatic memory just as easily as being in a bona fide dangerous situation. The ageing process can adversely affect memory, as the brain’s synapses spark less brightly, the hippocampus starts naturally losing cells, and the processes that manufacture memories break down – but studies have shown that with sufficient mental stimulation and physical exercise, the process of memory can remain sharp. The brain is just like any muscle in the body: without exercise, it will atrophy.
L-R: Kevin Spink, Elijah Wellsmore, Christen O'Leary
L-R: Steven Rook, Elijah Wellsmore, Naomi Price
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THE ARTS, LIFESTYLE AND YOUR WORLD Found in 1,500 venues across Australia avantcard.com.au
Biographies Elaine Acworth WRITER
David Bell DIRECTOR
Elaine Acworth has been writing for live performance for nearly 20 years with a break in the middle for the birth and early years of her son. Her work has been awarded several times: Gloria was a finalist in the prestigious Rodney Seaborn Playwright’s Award; she won the George Landon Dann Award for Composing Venus and was selected for the Sydney Theatre Company/SACD French Playwrights Exchange with this work; Solitary Animals earned her a Matilda Award, short-listing for the ANPC/New York New Dramatists Exchange and unanimous election to France’s l’Association Nationale Theatrale; her tragi-comic exploration of three neighbours going to war over water restrictions, Water Wars, earned eight Groundling Award nominations, three Matilda Award nominations and was a 2011 finalist for the inaugural national Artshub Innovation Award. Other work includes Bod, a play about Tibet, and the short works Grace and The Runner. She has been produced by both the independent sector and mainhouse producers nationally (Queensland Theatre Company, Sydney Theatre Company, Darwin Theatre Company, La Mama, Canberra’s The Street Theatre, Renegade, Belvoir Downstairs, Umber) and internationally (Vieux-Colombier in Paris, Radio France, Hackney Empire Studio, London and Edinburgh Festival). Gloria was commissioned by the Queensland Theatre Company and supported by the Company through the play’s development process. Acworth and her husband founded Umber Productions in 2008 and they live in Brisbane with their son and excitable spoodle. Queensland Theatre Company: End of the Rainbow, The Game of Love and Chance, Shimada, The Marriage of Figaro, The Family, Gigi, Simpatico. Other Credits: QPAC: The Ring, The Waking Hour; La Boite Theatre Company: (includes) Bouncers, The Threepenny Opera, The Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, Mirandolina, When I Was A Girl I Used To Scream And Shout; Playbox: Thieving Boy, Like Stars in My Hands, The Dogs Play, Miss Tanaka; Opera Queensland: Love Burns, Don Giovanni; Handspan Visual Theatre: (includes) Raised By Wolves (with Regurgitator) 16
(for Melbourne and Adelaide Festivals), The Synesthesia Project, Lift ‘em Up Socks (Melbourne, Brisbane, NT, Montreal, Vienna); Red Stitch Actors Ensemble: The Little Dog Laughed, This Wide Night, Creditors, The Motherf*cker With The Hat; TN! Theatre Company: (includes) The Popular Mechanicals, Speed The Plow, The Lady Aoi. As creator/co-creator: Flame of Freedom (Australia Remembers 1945–1955: 50th Anniversary of the End of World War 2), The Waking Hour, Children Of The Devil, Eurydice, Opening Ceremony Pacific School Games. Positions: Artistic Director – Handspan Visual Theatre, Artistic Director - La Boite (1991-1993), Artist-inResidence – Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts, Lecturer – WAAPA, VCA, QUT, National Theatre Drama School. Awards: Loudon Sainthill Fellowship for Australian Stage Design, Sir Winston Churchill Memorial Fellowship, Matilda Awards (Bouncers, The Game Of Love and Chance, The Flame Of Freedom), Green Room Awards: Body Slam, Like Stars In My Hands.
Bill Haycock DESIGNER
Queensland Theatre Company: 1001 Nights, End of the Rainbow, Romeo & Juliet, Stradbroke Dreamtime (coproduction with QPAC), The Memory of Water, Europe, Molly Sweeney, Top Dogs, After the Ball, Broken Glass, Arcadia, The Hope of the World, Simpatico, Gigi, Dancing at Lughnasa, The Beaux’ Stratagem, A Cheery Soul, The Game of Love and Chance, Mrs Klein, The Glass Menagerie, Ghosts. As Costume Designer: Camille, Love’s Labour’s Lost. Other Credits: La Boite Theatre Company: The Drowning Bride, Zig Zag Street, Half and Half, A Paper House, A Beautiful Life, Supermarket Pavane, The Idiot, Mirandolina, Miranda, Burn This, The Shoehorn Sonata (co-production with QPAC); ZenZenZo: Cabaret, The Odyssey; Queensland Ballet: Orpheus, Rite of Spring, Salome, The Sleeping Beauty, Giselle, Frankie and Johnny, Medea, The Studio, Burning; TN! Theatre Company: Accidental Death of an Anarchist, Bartholomew Fair, The Old Selection, Hedda Gabler, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Brief Lives, Phaedra, Speed-the-Plow, The Christian Brothers, The Popular Mechanicals; QPAC: The Waking Hour, Dancing on the Walls of Paris, The Soldier’s Tale, The Ring; Opera Queensland: Don Giovanni, Cinderella, Agrippina, Love Burns; Handspan Visual Theatre Company: Raised by Wolves; The Australian Ballet: Mirror Mirror; Nimrod Theatre Company: Inside the Island, Traitors; The Hong Kong Ballet: Turandot, Madama Butterfly, Nightlight, Theme and Variations, Rubies; The Hong Kong Arts Festival: The Shape of Things. Training: NIDA Graduate 1979. Positions: Head of Design, Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts 2005-2011; Resident Designer, Queensland Ballet 1983-1987. Awards: Matilda AwardsHall of Fame (2011); Loudon Sainthill Scholarship 1986.
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David Walters LIGHTING DESIGNER
Andrew McNaughton COMPOSER/ SOUND DESIGNER/ MUSICIAN
Queensland Theatre Company: Macbeth, Australia Day, Venus in Fur, End of the Rainbow, Romeo & Juliet, Pygmalion, Grimm Tales, The August Moon, Rabbit Hole, The Glass Menagerie, The Memory of Water, A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, Molly Sweeney, Chilling and Killing My Annabel Lee, The Skin of Our Teeth, Vertigo and the Virginia, Long Day’s Journey into Night, Amy’s View, Master Class, After the Ball, Summer Rain, Arcadia, The Hope of the World, Money and Friends, Gilgamesh, The Man from Mukinupin, A Different Drummer, Fuente Ovejuna, Salonika, The Venetian Twins. Other Credits: Melbourne Theatre Company, Sydney Theatre Company, State Theatre Company of South Australia, Bell Shakespeare Company, QUT, QPAC, Jute, Handspan, Playbox, La Boite Theatre Company, Rock‘n’Roll Circus, Nimrod, Company B, Expressions, Queensland Ballet, Australian Ballet, Opera Queensland and Zen Zen Zo. In Iceland he has lit for the National Theatre, the National Opera and the Reykjavik City Theatre. Positions: Adjunct Associate Professor in Drama at QUT. Awards: Matilda Awards/Commendations in 1988, 1990, 1992, 1993, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2007, 2008 and 2012. Queensland Theatre Company: As Musical Director: End of the Rainbow. Other Credits: As Performer: For Artists: Claudio Roditi, Dusko Goykovich, Katie Noonan, Jenny Morris, Shirley Bassey, The Four Tops, Al Procino Big Band, Australian Ballet, Sydney Theatre Company, Queensland Philharmonic Orchestra. Played at: World Expo (Hanover), International Trumpet Guild (New York), Goethe Institute (Kazakhstan), Edinburgh Royal Military Tattoo. For Stage: Dirty Dancing, High Society, Singin‘ in the Rain, Chicago, The Boy from Oz, Annie, A Chorus Line, South Pacific, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, 42nd Street, Frankie and Johnnie, Big River. For Companies: Queensland Performing Arts Centre, Australian Ballet, Victorian State Theatre, Sydney Dance Company, Orchester des Münchner Musical Theaters. As Composer: Compositions performed at: International Trumpet Guild (New York), Australasian Clarinet and Saxophone Conference. Recorded by: Good Bait Quartet, Unterbiberger Hofmusik, Mark Ham’s Vocool, Royal Australian Air Force Jazz Sextet. For Film: Claudia’s Shadow. For Stage: Melbourne Theatre Company: The Daylight Atheist, Hinterland; Playbox Theatre Company: Ruby Moon.
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Queensland Theatre Company: Resident Dramaturg. Other Credits: Louise Gough is an Australian script editor, dramatic advisor and dramaturg working in film, television and theatre in Australia, America, New Zealand and throughout Europe. Louise has recently returned to Australia after six years in New York, and has taken on three appointments including Queensland Performing Arts Centre: Curatorial Advisor and Madman Production Company: Development.
Louise Gough DRAMATURG
Christen O'Leary GLORIA
Queensland Theatre Company: End of the Rainbow, Bombshells, The Marriage of Figaro, The Game of Love and Chance, The Crucible, Seven Little Australians, The Cherry Orchard, A Month in the Country, Gilgamesh, The Woman Before, The Sunshine Club, Threepenny Opera, The Beaux Stratagem, Fuente Ovejuna. Other Credits: Melbourne Theatre Company: Assassins, The Rover, Cosi, Wednesday to Come, Gift of Gorgon, Ruby Moon, Don Juan in Soho, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, The World’s Wife, Urinetown, Hinterland, Laughter on the 23rd Floor, Man the Balloon, Company, The Comedy of Errors, A Little Night Music; The Production Company: The Boy From Oz, High Society, Hello Dolly; Malthouse Theatre: Tear From a Glass Eye, The Goldberg Variations, Porn Cake, Goodbye Vaudeville Charlie Mudd; Sydney Theatre Company: The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Urinetown, Threepenny Opera. Film: Pinch Me. Television: Wentworth, Rush, Neighbours, Blue Heelers, MDA, Worst Best Friends, Crashburn, Seachange, State Coroner, Raw FM. Awards: Gold Matilda Award – End of the Rainbow; Matilda Award Nomination – Best Female Actor in a Featured Role Bombshells. Helpmann Award – Best Female Actor in a Supporting Role in a Musical The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Helpmann Award Nominations – Best Female Actor in a Leading Role End of the Rainbow, Best Female Actor in a Supporting Role in a Play Goodbye Vaudeville Charlie Mudd, Best Female Actor in a Supporting Role in a Musical Urinetown. Green Room Award – Best Female Actor in a Featured Role Company, A Little Night Music. Green Room Award Nominations – Best Female Actor in a Supporting Role in a Musical Boy from Oz. Best Female Actor in a Supporting Goodbye Vaudeville Charlie Mudd, Best Female Actor in a Featured Role The Eskimo, Best Actress Ruby Moon, Best Supporting Actress in a Musical Assassins. Training: Diploma of Arts (Creative), USQ
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Naomi Price MAGGIE/ROSE
Steven Rooke NED
Queensland Theatre Company: Debut. Other Credits: the little red company: Wrecking Ball, Rumour Has It: Sixty Minutes Inside Adele; RedChair: Women In Voice 20; La Boite Theatre Company/Matrix Theatre: The Wishing Well; Harbour Agency/QLive: The Class of 69; shake & stir theatre company: Macbeth, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Bard to the Bone, Chop Logic, Tragic Magic, Vacant, Say It To My Facebook; Harvest Rain Theatre Company: Jesus Christ Superstar, Still Hurting, Songs For a New World, Divas: One Night Only, Harvest Rain 25, Scott Alan: Live in Melbourne, The Awfully Big Adventures of Peter Pan, Divas: Seeya Later Sydney Street, Divas, Alice, The Best of Broadway and Beyond, Children of Eden, Into the Woods, Little Shop of Horrors, Big Black Box; Queensland Pops Orchestra: Chartbusters 2; Echelon Productions: Jungle Bungle; Alstar Productions: Elvis To the Max; Oscar Theatre Company: The Last Five Years; Schonell Productions: Rent, Tell Me On a Sunday; Brisbane Powerhouse/QUT: Tashi Stories. Television: Creative Generation, Carols in the City, NRA Fashion Awards. Awards: Matilda Awards – Best Musical or Cabaret Rumour Has It: Sixty Minutes Inside Adele. Training: Bachelor of Creative Industries (Drama), Queensland University of Technology. Queensland Theatre Company: Macbeth, 1001 Nights, Kelly, No Man’s Land, The Removalists, An Oak Tree, Fat Pig, The Exception and the Rule, Anatomy Titus Fall of Rome. Other Credits: La Boite Theatre: Julius Caesar, 48 Shades of Brown. QPAC Out of the Box: Boat. 23rd Productions: The Pillowman. Film: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Blurred, Footy Legends. Short Film: Quiet, You’ll Wake Up The War. Television: Always Greener, Home and Away, Beastmaster, All Saints, Comedy Inc. Awards: Matilda Awards: Outstanding Body of Performance Work The Removalists, Julius Caesar, No Man’s Land; Best Supporting Actor -No Man’s Land; Best Actor- The Pillowman; Matilda Nominations – Best Actor Kelly, Best Supporting Actor Fat Pig; QNFA - Best Actor - Quiet, You’ll Wake Up The War. Training: Bachelor of Fine Arts (Acting) QUT 2000.
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Kevin Spink JOHN/WALTER
Queensland Theatre Company: Macbeth. Other Credits: Queensland Symphony Orchestra/4MBS: A Midsummer Night’s Dream; The Good Room: Rabbit; 23rd Productions: The Ugly One, My Night with Harold; La Boite Theatre Company: Colder; DeBase Theatre: Ithaca Road; Out of the Box Festival: Sneak Peek; Harvest Rain Theatre Company: The Awfully Big Adventures of Peter Pan; Imaginary Theatre: Tashi; The Forward Movement: Magda’s Fascination with Wax Cats; Three Sister Productions: Bronte; The Restaged Histories Project: The Last Days of the New Theatricals; and moor Theatre: Beautiful; Springboard Theatre: The Laramie Project; Zen Zen Zo Physical Theatre: Dracula, Romeo & Juliet. Film: Backpackers, Die Violin, A New You, Cigarettes, Photo Booth. Television: Mako Mermaids, Parer’s War, Heartbeat. Positions: MEAA member.
Elijah Wellsmore
Queensland Theatre Company: Debut. Training: Andrea Moor - Acting in Scene Workshop, The Arts Centre Gold Coast (Backbone Collective), Goat Track Theatre Company (Fast Track).
JUSTIN
Pip Loth STAGE MANAGER
Queensland Theatre Company: Debut. Other Credits: As Stage Manager & Resident Director: Barbie LIVE! The Musical (East Pacific tour). As Assistant Stage Manager: Global Creatures & Dreamworks: How to Train your Dragon – Live Spectacular (World Tour), Driving Ms Daisy (Australia tour - Melbourne). As Design Assistant: QPAC: Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. Site Manager & Assistant Production Manager: 2011 Midsumma Festival. Electrics Rigger: Nim’s Island, Stephen Spielberg: Terra Nova. Training: Bachelor of Fine Arts (Technical Production), QUT, Diploma of Live Production & Certificate I in Furniture Making & Finishing.
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Acknowledgements Jason King: Safety Advisor Melissa Agnew: Voice Consultant Rehearsal Photography: Stephen Henry Voiceovers: Bryan Probets Norwest Productions AT Professional Peter Jones, Royal Brisbane Hospital, Nurse Unit Manager Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Art Brisbane Powerhouse
To ensure that patrons enjoy the performance, management asks you to note: • Cameras, tape recorders and paging devices should not be used inside the auditorium. • Switch off alarms and mobile phones prior to the performance. • A single cough measures approximately 65 decibels of sound. The use of a handkerchief helps greatly to soften the sound. The management reserves the right to refuse admission, also to make any alterations to the cast which may be rendered necessary by illness or other unavoidable causes. Patrons are advised that the Bille Brown Studio has EMERGENCY EVACUATION PROCEDURES, a FIRE ALARM system and EXIT passageways. In case of an alert, patrons should remain calm, look for the closest EXIT sign in GREEN, listen to and comply with directions given by the in-house trained attendants and move in an orderly fashion to outside the Studio.
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Queensland Theatre Company at The GreenHouse
July, August and September
See
Talk
Queensland Theatre Company and The Good Room, in association with Brisbane Festival present
Night with the Artists
Created by The Good Room with Lauren Clelland, Caroline Dunphy and Kieran Swann.
Stay after the show for a conversation with the actors and creative artists behind the production over a glass of wine from the bar.
4–13 September Bille Brown Studio
Thursday 7 August: Gloria
I Want to Know What Love Is
Friday 12 September: I Want to Know What Love Is
Queensland Theatre Company in association with Brisbane Festival present
Friday 26 September: The Button Event
The Button Event Devised and performed by Todd MacDonald Co-devised with Bagryana Popov
Industry Update: An Introduction to Season 2015
18-27 September Bille Brown Studio
Friday 3 October
QTC Youth Ensemble Junior and Intermediate Showcase Performances
The GreenHouse Bar
Friday 26 September, 6pm Saturday 27 September, 1pm and 4.30pm Bille Brown Studio
Every Friday Night, May to September The GreenHouse bar will be open from 6pm
QTC New Work and Development at The GreenHouse As well as a season of performance at The GreenHouse, our development and new work program continues behind the scenes. New plays are being commissioned, projects are being seeded and developed in collaboration with local independent artists and companies, and ideas for new work are being tossed around.
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PARTNER TO THE ARTS
Present your QTC Season 14 TheatreSave card and receive 10% off the best available rate when staying at Quay West Suites Brisbane and 10% off your total bill when dining in McMahons Restaurant. For more information visit ^^^ HJJVYHZPHWHJPÄJWHY[ULYZ JVT XSK[OLH[YLJVTWHU` ^^^ X\H`^LZ[IYPZIHUL JVT 132 Alice Street, Brisbane, Q 4000 | P: +61 (07) 3853 6020 24
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QUAY WEST SUITES BRISBANE IS PROUD TO SPONSOR QUEENSLAND THEATRE COMPANY
It takes many people to create great theatre... ...the playwright, the director, the actors and designers... and most importantly our donors. With your help we are aiming higher and taking our place as one of Australia’s leading theatre companies. You give us the conďŹ dence to take on bigger productions, secure international artists and commission the new works which will become the classics of tomorrow. Thank you for your part in making our theatre company great. For more information about donating to Queensland Theatre Company please contact our Philanthropy Manager on Tel: 3010 7621.
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From the blank pages of history:
A tribute to William Allen (Irwin) A century ago, about 1,000 Indigenous Australians took up arms to fight in World War I. For them, battle on a Gallipoli beach was an escape from the shackles of racism at home. Black Diggers draws from interviews with the families of men who heard the call – men who now step from the blank pages of history to share their stories. One inspiring story was that of William Allen (Irwin), a Kamilaroi man from Coonabarabran, who came from a family of itinerant workers. He was 37 when he enlisted, and due to his stature, was clearly a powerful man. There was no available address for him or his family. His war experience included a vicious episode of close fighting in the Mont St. Quentin battle in the last months of the war. On two occasions, Irwin charged through heavy fire and singlehandedly captured three German machine gun nests and 15 enemy soldiers, saving the lives of a number of his colleagues. It was an aweinspiring act of bravery and earned him the Distinguished Conduct Medal, but he was finally cut down by fire while trying to storm a fourth machine gun nest.
Photography: Branco Gaica
After the war, perhaps the most remarkable aspect of his story is the paper trail of officialdom trying to locate his next of kin, or at least find a place for his medals to be sent – the ‘invisibility’ of Indigenous Australians at the time meant this took some time. In Queensland Theatre Company’s Black Diggers there’s a monologue by a ghost of a black soldier, likening his dash from nest to nest to his peripatetic life before the war.
BLACK DIGGERS 24 September – 12 October 2014 PLAYHOUSE, QPAC Call 136 246 or visit queenslandtheatre.com.au
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PATRON Her Excellency The Governor of Queensland Ms Penelope Wensley, AC MEMBERS OF THE BOARD Richard Fotheringham (Chair) Julieanne Alroe (Deputy Chair) Kirstin Ferguson Erin Feros Simon Gallaher Peter Hudson Elizabeth Jameson Nathan Jarro Liz Mellish Karl Morris ARTISTIC DIRECTOR Wesley Enoch EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Sue Donnelly Executive Assistant: Tammy Sleeth Artistic Associate: Todd MacDonald Resident Dramaturg: Louise Gough Resident Directors: Jason Klarwein & Andrea Moor Programming Manager/Senior Producer: Katherine Hoepper Producer (New Work & Development): Shari Irwin Artistic Coordinator: Samantha French Touring & Regional Program Coordinator: Christine Johnstone Producer (Education and Youth Programs): Heidi Irvine Casual Programming Coordinator: Helen Stephens Chief Financial Officer Michael Cullinan Systems Accountant: Roxane Eden Finance Officer: Robin Koski Front of House & Events Supervisor: Deirdree Wallace Venue & Operations Supervisor: Julian Messer
Marketing Manager: Yvonne Whittington Marketing Coordinator: Amanda Solomons Database Trainer & Supervisor: Dale Ric-Hansen Publicist: Kath Rose & Associates Marketing Assistant: Yuverina Shewpersad Digital Marketing Officer: David D’Arcy Ticketing Coordinators: Maggie Holmes & Brad Routledge Receptionist & Ticketing Officer: Donna Fields-Brown Administration Trainee Kalisha Soe Philanthropy Manager: Amanda Jolly Corporate Partnerships Manager: Nikki Porter Development Coordinator: Dee Morris Researcher & Grant Writer: Danielle Bentley Production Manager: Toni Glynn Technical Coordinator: Daniel Maddison Interim Production Coordinator: Scott Klupfel Head of Workshop: Peter Sands Company Carpenter/Head Mechanist: John Pierce Carpenter: Jamie Bowman Head of Wardrobe: Vicki Martin Apprentice Costume Maker: Savannah Mojidi Affiliate Artists: Tony Brumpton Ben Hughes David Walters
Associate Artists: Rod Ainsworth Candy Bowers Carol Burns Katherine Lyall-Watson David Morton Gayle MacGregor Paula Nazarski Ngoc Phan Lucas Stibbard
Gloria Production Staff Carpenters: Jaydn Bowe Scenic Artist: Leo Herreygers Wardrobe Maintenance: Liezel Buckenham Hair Stylist: Ruby McDowell Hair Artist/Stylist: Janelle Page Production Electrician/Lighting Operator: Matt Golder Sound Consultant: Tony Brumpton Sound Operator: Matt Erskine Technical Assistant: Sam Maher
Front of House Staff Anita Hughes Jermaine Beezley Jake Shavikin Leisha Du Bois Prue Green-Hansen Marilyn Green-Hansen Kathleen O’Sullivan Ashley Morris Belinda Locke
FOUNDING DIRECTOR Alan Edwards, AM, MBE (1925 – 2003) Queensland Theatre Company is a member of Live Performance Australia.
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It’s A Wine Matched Season! Clovely Estate has teamed up with Queensland Theatre Company in 2014 to match each of their productions with a Clovely Estate wine.
Gloria takes you on a reminiscent journey through time, and just like Clovely’s Sparkling Shiraz, will evoke you with vibrancy and nostalgia . Sit back, relax and let your palate go on a journey with Gloria.
Clovely Estate is proud to sponsor Queensland Theatre Company
Functions Wines Tastings 31
Ä?Â ĂƒÂš xÊè aĂŠ HĂ¨Ă˜ Ă¨Ă˜Ă˜Â—ĂƒĂŁ ĂŠĂƒĂŠĂ˜Ăœ We thank all our generous donors for their contribution to our work. Your assistance makes it possible for us to enrich the cultural life of our community.
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Thanks To Our Sponsors Government Partners
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Promotional Partner: Coev Haircutters
Gloria. By Elaine Acworth
(Queensland Theatre Company) 2014
Support Greening QTC and recycle this program after the performance in the recycling bins provided in the foyer. Read the program before the show at queenslandtheatre.com.au or by scanning the below QR code.