2012
Welcome to Season 2012 With international smash hits, classic masterpieces and riveting new Australian works, our 2012 Season will be full of exhilarating moments for you to enjoy with family and friends.
At a Glance 28 June – 10 August
The Seed
By Kate Mulvany
Arts Centre, Fairfax Studio
25 May – 5 July
Red
By John Logan
MTC Theatre, Sumner
21 May – 27 July
The Heretic
By Richard Bean
Arts Centre, Fairfax Studio
5 June – 10 August
Queen Lear
By William Shakespeare
MTC Theatre, Sumner
1 July – 9 September
His Girl Friday
By John Guare
MTC Theatre, Sumner
6 June – 21 July
National Interest
By Aidan Fennessy
Arts Centre, Fairfax Studio
Days and Times Monday & Tuesday Wednesday Thursday & Friday Saturday
Pricing 6pm 1pm & 8pm 8pm 4pm & 8pm
Full
$61 – $71
Senior/Group
$57 – $68
Pensioner/Full Time Student
$47 – $66
Under 30
$29
The Seed By Kate Mulvany 28 June – 10 August
Arts Centre, Fairfax Studio
Surviving Is Just Half the Battle For Rose, a writer, it has come time to pen her own story. Armed with a dictaphone, she and her father Danny make their way to Nottingham, where she will meet her formidable Irish grandfather for the first time at their collective birthday, and record the reunion. But as their day together unfolds, it becomes clear that for all the tension between them, they remain bound by history.
Cast Max Gillies, Sara Gleeson, Tony Martin Director Anne-Louise Sarks
2007 Sydney Theatre Awards Best Production 'Sarks conjures up a world before our eyes'
The Australian 'Gillies ... steal[s] many scenes with his impeccable comic delivery and timing'
Herald Sun
By John Logan 25 May – 5 July
MTC Theatre, Sumner
The Madness of Art In 1958, abstract expressionist Mark Rothko began painting his vast canvasses for the exclusive Four Seasons restaurant. It will be the culmination of his art: a series of sublime expanses of red—landscapes to be lost in, seas to be submerged in. These works will form the biggest commission of the modern art world, but will they be his undoing? Following a sell-out London season and a Broadway run that saw Red win six Tony Awards, Colin Friels will take on the role of Rothko in this searing portrait of the tormented artist.
Cast Colin Friels, Andre de Vanny 2010 Tony Award for Best Play 2010 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play 'Friels gives an outstanding performance'
The Age 'The performances are the great strength of Alkinos Tsilimidos's production'
Herald Sun
Director Alkinos Tsilimidos
By Richard Bean
By William Shakespeare
21 May – 27 July
5 June – 10 August
The Arts Centre, Fairfax Studio
MTC Theatre, Sumner
The heat is on
Who is it that can tell me who I am?
Although far from a being a climate change sceptic, Dr Diane Cassell is nevertheless a serious scientist who likes the facts to speak for themselves. When her data contradict a key doctrine of global warming theory, her university puts pressure on her to conform. Yet she can do no other except speak her truth, even after her heresies hit the front pages and her world really heats up.
Abdicating her power, Lear holds a contest for her daughters with a portion of her empire as a prize. When one child refuses to play the game, the tragedy that ensues will lead Lear from power to powerlessness, from reason to madness and, ultimately, from blindness to insight.
Cast Includes Shaun Goss, Noni Hazlehurst
Director Rachel McDonald
Director Matt Scholten
'[the] most gutting and emotionally extreme of the tragedies'
2011 Oliver Award Nomination for Best New Play 'a riotous comedy'
The Independent 'an absolute corker, funny, provocative and touching'
The Telegraph
Cast Includes Robyn Nevin, Robert Menzies
The Independent 'Nevin [is] one of the grande dames of Australian theatre'
The Age
By John Guare 1 July – 9 September
By Aidan Fennessy MTC Theatre, Sumner
6 June – 21 July
The Arts Centre, Fairfax Studio
Hold the front page!
The healing truth
Ace reporter Hildy Johnson has had enough of the sleaze of the Chicago newspaper game. At midnight, she's catching the train east where she'll marry her fiance, a handsome schlub with piles of dough. And if her ex-husband Walter Burns thinks she's going to change her mind, he's got another thing coming. But that's before the fattest, juiciest scoop of the year lands splat in her lap.
For Mrs Stewart, a Coronial Inquiry seems too little, too late. In 1975, her son Tony Stewart was a young sound recordist for an Australian news crew in Balibo, East Timor. His murder, with those of his colleagues, at the hands of the Indonesian military had been officially covered up, but everyone knows the truth. The truth is already out there. What's the point of an inquiry when memories are fading?
Cast Includes Philip Quast, Pamela Rabe
Cast Includes James Bell, Julia Blake
Director Aidan Fennessy
Director Aidan Fennessy
'a sharp homage to a Hollywood classic'
'Balibo is a word and an issue that just won't go away
Variety
The Sydney Morning Herald
'[a] gorgeous comic feast'
'[Blake is] an actor of rare grace and authority'
London Evening Standard
Herald Sun
MELBOURNE THEATRE COMPANY
mtc.com.au