Theatre Works 2015 Program by Theatre Works

We support visionary artists, nurture the development of ideas and provide space for bold artistic adventures.

We connect to diverse communities through live performances and participatory experiences that disturb, please, provoke and entertain.

Staff Creative Producer & CEO Daniel Clarke Venue Manager Angela Cole Box Office Manager &Administration Paula Philip Development Manager Anne Stonier Supervising Bookkeeper Christine Ritter Board of Management Chair Suzanne Chaundy

Acting Chair Maryanne Lynch Deputy Chair Liam Nankervis Treasurer Andrew Hooper Margaret Bourke Suzanne Heywood Meg Upton Ros Willet

Casual Staff

Katelyn B Gordon Boyd Carli Barron Aaron Cananzi Crisanne Fox Hayley Fox Adam Gardner Scott Gooding James Lipari Shannon Loughnane Ruth Maloney Mick Roe Beth Paterson Chris Payne Suze Smith Anna Sutton Yossi Torbiner Gareth Trew Joel West Canada White

Theatre Works respectfully acknowledges the Yalukit Willam Clan of the Boon Wurrung who are the traditional custodians of this land. We pay our respect to their Elders, both past and present. We acknowledge and uphold their continuing relationship to this land and extend that respect to other Indigenous Australians who join us at Theatre Works.

In 2015 Theatre Works celebrates 35 years. This is a significant achievement and a testament to its importance in our cultural landscape. I’ve been here for less than 4 years and in this time I’ve witnessed dangerous, inspiring, hilarious, joyous, delicate and political art. I’ve seen work that was blissfully entertaining and work that has left me in despair; work that has made me cringe and work that has completely shifted my perspective. I’ve watched hundreds of artists give it their all – push themselves to their limit in order to make the art they wanted to make and connect with as many of you as possible. I’m proud that here at Theatre Works we support artists to make the work they want to make, in the way they want to make it. That, I guess, is what it is to be independent. We nurture the artists of today so that they will remain the artists of tomorrow. I’ve been walking around with a skip in my step and a smile from ear to ear of late. It’s been because I’m elated to be working with so many amazing artists this year and present you with a stunning season of performances. Recently an artist from overseas asked me, ‘Who are the artists in Australia that inspire you?’ I said, ‘Look at my programs. They’re the ones that inspire me’. It’s true. Please, I urge you to book tickets. Book plenty of tickets. Don’t miss out on what I’m sure will be a year to remember at Theatre Works. Here’s to another 35 years. Daniel Clarke Creative Producer/CEO

Se as on Re tu rn Li m ite d

February 23 - February 27

Kiki, Bob and Jumper are best friends with Tickets $30 / $26 big dreams â&#x20AC;&#x201C; theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re gonna master time travel, romance a talking snake and dance the Written by Dan Giovannoni, tango on Mt Kilimanjaro, even if it kills them. Amelia Evans and Following sell-out seasons at the Melbourne Paige Rattray and Sydney Fringe Festivals, Theatre Works, Director Brisbane Festival and a regional tour of Paige Pattray Victoria, Cut Snake returns to St Kilda for Composer Tom Hogan a strictly limited season. Lighting Designer Promising high adventure, sock-puppets, Ross Graham slapstick and cameos from Jesus and John Lennon, Cut Snake is a rollercoaster comedy With Julia Billington, about growing up, dying young, and being Catherine Davies and extraordinary no matter what. Kevin Kiernan-Molloy

March 18 – April 5

Bryony Kimmings and Tim Grayburn

Commissioned by Southbank Centre London and Theatre Works Bryony Kimmings returns to Melbourne with her new show about clinical depression and men from two people who know ALL about it. Expect homemade music, stupid dancing, onstage arguments, reallife stories, tears and truths. This is a wickedly heart-warming and funny show about the wonders and pitfalls of the human brain, being in love and what it takes to be a ‘real man’. Writers Bryony Kimmings and Tim Grayburn Director Bryony Kimmings Dramaturg Nina Steiger Sound Designer Tom Parkinson Music Matt Lewis Lighting Designer Nao Nagai Art Direction David Curtis Ring Set Designer Amelia Hankin Production Manager Hattie Prust

World Premiere Tour Tickets $35 / $25

May 20 – May 30 Selected Works

by Alma De Groen Don’t Look Away

Tickets $30 / $25 Anna Samson stars as Katherine Mansfield in Alma De Groen’s astonishing feminist Writer investigation into sexual oppression and identity. Alma De Groen Director In the 1920’s, New Zealand born Phil Rouse writer Katherine Mansfield travelled to Lighting Designer Sian James-Holland Fontainebleau, seeking a cure for her Designer tuberculosis from the notorious mystic Anna Gardiner and healer Georgei Gurdjieff. Against this, Martelle Hunt De Groen sets an alternative contemporary Composition & Sound Tom Pitts Melbourne, in which women have seized Cast includes power over men using the ‘Medusa Look’ Anna May Samson, – an evolutionary leap that over takes men’s Oliver Coleman, James physical dominance. Cook and Pete Paltos

June 18 - June 28

by Caleb Lewis

Presented by Daniel Clarke in association with Theatre Works Three men, three stories; a potent and arresting exploration of masculinity. An injured boxer fights on to atone for past sins. A young killer whale trainer comes face to face with death. A dog fighter discovers fatherhood in the most unexpected of places. Adapted from the book by Craig Davidson, playwright Caleb Lewis offers up a brutal world of broken gods and sinuous monsters in this taut and gripping work. The Victorian premiere will be brought to the stage by Theatre Works’ Creative Producer, Daniel Clarke.

Tickets $35 / $25 Director Daniel Clarke Designer Jacob Battista Lighting Designer Richard Vabre Cast includes Kevin Kiernan-Molloy

July 01 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; July 12 Selected Works

Jamie Lewis Presented in association with Metro Arts

World Premiere Saltwater invites you into an evening of storytelling, conversations, and food. Tickets $30 / $25 In a quick turnaround, Jamie finds herself married and migrated. To make things Lead Artist Jamie Lewis work, she channels the women in her life to find the answers. Design Collaborator Kerensa Diball Participate in the preparation of a meal, and travel through memories of Singapore, Managing Producer Hsia-Ling Woo childhood and lessons learnt as Jamie remembers her mother, revealing the inner world of a woman searching for home as a wife 6060km away.

July 01 – July 12

Renegade Productions Tickets $30 / $25 Letters Home is an autobiographical work from Renegade Production’s Joe Lui. Taking to the stage for the first time in his professional career, Letters Home looks at the period in Joe’s life where he chose not to return to his native Singapore to take up military service, making him a criminal in the eyes of his parents and the Singaporean state.

Writer, Director, Performer Joe Lui Producer Lisa McCready Set and Costume Designer Cherish Marrington Video Designer Mia Holton Lighting Designer Chris Donnelly Stage manager Meabh Walton

In Development

a series of intimate experiments The Misery Children

This creative development has been co-commissioned by Adelaide Festival’s inSPACE program and Theatre Works as part of a national program of collaborations by the Festival of Live Art consortium. It’s not about viewing people at a distance. It’s about cultivating trust. Getting as close as possible to someone, into those vulnerable spaces. Uncomfortably close. Beautifully close. And so we propose a study in intimacy and connection. One that uncovers our need for attachment, for belonging. An experiment held within a manufactured world that exists between strangers. A journey into closeness. Director/Devisor Daisy Brown Devisors/Performers Mario Späte, Sarah Brokensha, Ellen Steele, Paulo Castro, Jo Stone Producer Jennifer Greer Holmes

A new initiative in 2015

Presented by Theatre Works in partnership with the VCA This exciting new program provides a platform for performances of new Australian works that have been developed by writers who have completed the VCA Masters in Writing for Performance course led by acclaimed playwright and dramaturg, Raimondo Cortese of Ranters Theatre. The 5 plays written by Fleur Kilpatrick, Bridget Mackey, Patrick McCarthy, Morgan Rose and Chi Vu will be showcased over one month at Theatre Works and Footscray Community Arts Centre. Theatre Works is thrilled to be piloting this initiative and throwing our support behind the newest voices for the Australian stage.

July 30 – August 9

by Bridget Mackey “You’re a Galápagos tortoise, a beautiful creature that you wouldn’t want to see locked up.” In a dead-end office job apathy may be essential to survival. Three office workers befriend Evelyn, a woman in her late eighties. Unfulfilled by their jobs, the workers’ boredom manifests in paranoia and violent escapism. Bridget Mackey’s play is a meditation on the pressures of modern life and the intricacies of relationships between strangers.

World Premiere Tickets $30 / $20 Writer Bridget Mackey Directors Kate Shearman and Alice Darling Cast includes Maggie Brown

July 30 - August 09

by Fleur Kilpatrick Quiet Little Fox

Tickets $30 / $20 From Fleur Kilpatrick (Best Writer, 2014 Melbourne Fringe for The City They Burned) comes a theatrical â&#x20AC;&#x153;tour de forceâ&#x20AC;? (Adelaide Advertiser). A photographer and his model, both played by a single actor, come together to create one perfect image, but behind the pixels lies a world of obsession, exploitation and emptiness. A new Australian work thick with grit, glamour and beautiful people fucking each other up.

Playwright Fleur Kilpatrick Director Sarah Walker and Robert Reid Set Designer Sarah Walker Performer Roderick Cairns Sound Designer Tom Pitts Dramaturg y Raimondo Cortese

August 14 – August 23

by Morgan Rose Motherboard Productions A sitcom-reject in cyberspace about how it takes 20-years to realise your mother was lying when she said you could be anything you wanted to be. Sam meets two virgins online. He wants to be the one to…. you know. The one. But Lane is confusing and Steph doesn’t really like him. Then everything goes to hell when the internet and the past and the future and the stage smash together and everything falls apart.

World Premiere Tickets $30 / $20 Writer Morgan Rose Director Dave Sleswick Choreographer Dale Thorburn Ensemble Katrina Cornwell, James Deeth, Penelope Harpham, George Lingard

August 14 – August 23

by Patrick McCarthy Fabricated Rooms

“Have you ever caught your reflection in a window and thought it was one of us?” Unfolding across a single scene, Grief and the Lullaby is a drama of lightness and sensitivity, examining the quiet moments of connection that occur between a group of semi-strangers in a garden at night. This new work explores what it means to grow apart from those you grew up with, and the difficulty of bridging that space when you’re drawn together again.

World Premiere Tickets $30 / $20 Director Patrick McCarthy Dramaturg (text) Raimondo Cortese Creative Producer and Dramaturg (performance) Mark Rogers Cast includes David Harrison

August 13 – August 22

by Chi Vu Presented by Footscray Community Arts Centre Steve is a young man with a bright future. When Steve meets Lola, he develops the ability to contact his long dead twin. His parents had a pact not to talk about Steve’s twin, who died during war. But each of them dreams of encountering him. The Dead Twin re-imagines the horror genre as an immersive, cyclical, sitespecific performance. The past comes back and wants you to re-enter the horror.... This performance will take place in and around Footscray Community Arts Centre

Tickets $30 / $20 Director Deborah Leiser-Moore Writer and Producer Chi Vu

October 8 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; October 25

St Martins and Fraught Outfit

Commissioned by St Martins, Theatre Works and Melbourne Festival A city teeters on the edge of crisis. A god arrives in the guise of a mortal. A monster defies the audience. Boundaries collapse; old, young, boy, girl, human, beast, mortal, divine, good, bad, light and dark. Created with a collaborating ensemble of young female actors and musicians, this Bacchae is an epic, urgent and sublime theatrical offering. St Martins and Fraught Outfit bring you this unnerving, unmissable Melbourne Festival event. Conceived by Adena Jacobs and Aaron Orzech Director Adena Jacobs Music Kelly Ryall Dramaturg Aaron Orzech Set Designer Dayna Morrissey Costume Designer Chloe Greaves Lighting Designer Danny Pettingill Associate Artist Alex Walker Performed by members of the St Martins teen ensemble

World Premiere Tickets $50 / $35

October 29 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; November 14 Selected Works

Little Ones Theatre A high camp homage to silent cinema and the World Premiere ultimate queer hero, The Prince of Darkness. Tickets $35 / $25 From acclaimed company, Little Ones Theatre, comes a new theatrical event that will recreate the Silent Film experiences of the early 20th Century live on stage. Live musical accompaniment. Shadow play. Title cards. Excessive eye-liner. Physical comedy. Popcorn machines. Fangs. This is Dracula like you have never seen it before. A high camp extravaganza inspired by the cinematic evolution of one of literatureâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most intriguing queer figureheads. Created by Little Ones Theatre after Bram Stoker Director Stephen Nicolazzo Set Design Eugyeene Teh Costume Design Eugyeene Teh and Tessa Leigh Wolffenbuttel Pitt Lighting Design Katie Sfetkidis Sound Design & Composition Russell Goldsmith and Daniel Nixon With Joanne Sutton, Janine Watson, Alexandra Aldrich, Zoe Boesen,

Brigid Gallacher, Amanda McGregor, Anna McCarthy, and Catherine Davies

November 24 - December 12 Selected Works

Present Tense World Premiere On a clear night,Â passengers fly into darkness aboard a 737. Where they are Tickets $35 / $25 going remains unclear... Bold, hypnotic and transcendent; Ricercar is Created by Nate Gilkes, an operatic event after the music genius of Bryce Ives, JS Bach.Â Immersive theatre virtuosi, Present Xani Kolac and Tense (Chants des Catacombes; FOMO) Mark Leahy partner with electric, independent music duo The Twoks (Triple J Unearthed; Dark MOFO) to present a rendering of the cosmic world of music played through its primary instrument: the human species.

Theatre Works in the community

community connect Program

The generous support of Gandel Philanthropy enabled Theatre Works to establish the Community Connect program in July 2014. The program has removed financial and social barriers for community members who live with an experience of marginalisation to attend Theatre Worksâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; productions. We have engaged with hundreds of community members who have been able to see our shows at no cost. Supported through the City of Port Phillip we have worked with wide ranging organisations to offer tickets to current holders of a Health Care Card, Veteran Affairs or Pensioner Cards. Community Connect participants and their companions have been exposed to a diversity of live performance genres and stories and the feedback from participants has been really encouraging. Vedran Drakulic, Chief Executive Officer of Gandel Philanthropy, says â&#x20AC;&#x153;We are keen to support direct, grassroots programs that provide opportunities for people from all walks of life to witness and appreciate art. Trustees also appreciated the push by Theatre Works to connect strongly with the local community and local organisationsâ&#x20AC;? For further information on the program and how to participate please contact our Development Manager on development@theatreworks.org.au

New to Melbourne in 2015

Developed by Theatre Works in partnership with Melbourne Festival Inspire. Challenge. Connect. Nurture. The inaugural Australian Directors Lab will take place during the Melbourne Festival in 2015. Inspired by the Lincoln Centerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Directors Lab, Theatre Works will facilitate a unique program of events for professional directors from around Australia and the world here in Melbourne. This intensive laboratory will provide opportunities for directors to participate in masterclasses, dynamic conversations, investigations and creative explorations. It will enable directors to share their skills, methodologies, creative learnings and techniques with a community of peers. More information about the Directors Lab, including the application process, will be announced in May 2015. To register your interest please email directorslab@theatreworks.org.au

September 2015

abundance A party to raise funds for independent artists Each year we work collaboratively Cabaret Gala with the companies that are Tickets $50 / $35 presenting work here to help raise money for their productions. Abundance, now an annual event on the Theatre Works calendar, brings together the community in a night of performance, food, wine, raffles and a silent auction. Theatre Works is transformed for the evening into a playful cabaret space where you can mingle with the stars of our stages and show your support for the amazing visions of our independent artists. If you would like to support this event through donating auction items, catering or volunteering, please contact: development@theatreworks.org.au Our website will be updated throughout the year with more information about this unmissable event.

Saltwater / Letters Home Double Bill Purchase a ticket to both Saltwater by Jamie Lewis and Letters Home by Joe Lui for only $50 full price or $40 concession. Please refer to website for performance schedule

Flight Pack Our ticket offerings for 2015

Packages & Subscriptions Book online at theatreworks.org.au or (03) 9534 3388

The Flight Pack enables you to buy a ticket to each of these shows for $80 full price and $60 concession: - Kindness - Yours the Face - Grief and the Lullaby - Virgins and Cowboys

Selected Works Whilst all of the works in this program have been carefully curated and selected to be part of the program, The Rivers of China, Saltwater, Dracula and Ricercar were selected as part of Theatre Worksâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; signature artist support program, Selected Works. A record number of applications were received from throughout Australia and these four works were selected following a rigorous process. In 2015 you can see all four shows for $100 full price or $80 concession. Subscriptions need to be booked by May 20.

Help support Theatre Works

bridge donor program

Theatre Works is more than a venue; we are a not for profit organisation passionately committed to enabling artists to achieve their creative dreams. We are asking you to come on the journey with us Building The Bridge as we work towards not only sustaining the level of support we give artists, but increasing it over the following years. Become part of the Bridge Donor Program and enjoy benefits such as acknowledgment in the annual programme, invitations to Bridge donor program events including meeting the artists, Q&A sessions and guest speakers. (1) Supporter: $100+ (2) Advocate: $500+ (3) Guardian: $1000+ (4) Champion: $2,500+ (5) Ambassador: $5,000+ (6) Visionary: $10,000+ We welcome donations of all amounts â&#x20AC;&#x201C; no amount is too small! All donations above $2 are tax deductible and donations of $100 or more are recognised through membership of the Bridge Donor Program. To donate online, please visit: givenow.com.au/theatreworksbridgedonorprogram or contact the Development Manager for more information development@theatreworks.org.au or (03) 9534 4879 Thank you for donating to help us Build The Bridge!

Thank you to our Bridge Donors

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Ongoing support of Theatre Works is vital to foster the development of Australian theatre and to provide a forum for all that is creative and dynamic in St Kilda and Melbourneâ&#x20AC;? Hannie Rayson, founding member of Theatre Works and acclaimed author of Hotel Sorrento and Life after George

Andrew Hooper

Guardians

Supporters

Tom Buchan

Simon Abrahams

Wendy Lasica

Virginia Lovett

Andrew Bleby

Katie McLeish

Judy Buchan

Jillian Murray

Christopher Chaundy

Liam Nankervis

Daniel Clarke

Jerry Remkes

Philip Evans

Meg Upton

Ruth Krawat Ros Willett

Advocates Alison Richards Anonymous

Meredith Rogers

Nicole Beyer

Maryanne Lynch

Margaret Bourke

Chris Mier

Peter Burch

Martina Murray

Suzanne Chaundy

Jo Porter

Rhyll Dorrington

Anne Stonier

Madeleine Fogarty

Anouk van Dijk

Suzanne Heywood

Funding Bodies

Philanthropic Partners

The Bridge Donor Program supporters