Belvoir Season 2015

The collection of works that makes up Ralph Myers’ fifth and final season prioritises new Australian plays, alongside a renewed commitment to Indigenous-led theatre and inventive interpretations of the classics.

The 2015 Season includes seven new Australian plays. Much of this is attributed to the past five years of work from Myers and his team in commissioning and supporting emerging playwrights. ‘I have been enormously proud of the burst of creative energy that has accompanied my time here as Artistic Director,’ says Myers. ‘I feel a new generation of artists has really blossomed and that we’ll be seeing the fruits of that labour for many years to come on stages here and around the world.’

The three new works in the Upstairs Theatre have all been written by playwrights who have recently had productions in the Downstairs Theatre. Angela Betzien was commissioned to write Mortido following 2011’s The Dark Room. Mortido is a crime thriller that travels from Sydney’s Western suburbs, to Berlin, through Bolivia, and back to leafy Woollahra, following a trail of cocaine. It stars Colin Friels as a hard-bitten detective looking for one big scalp before his imminent retirement. It will be directed by Betzien’s long-time collaborator Leticia Cáceres (Miss Julie, The Dark Room).

Seventeen by Matthew Whittet (Old Man) is a whimsical comedy about the last night before a bunch of 17 year olds step out into post-school adulthood, but these teenagers will be played by actors well past their teens, including Peter Carroll, Maggie Dence, Judi Farr, John Gaden and Barry Otto. Resident Director Anne-Louise Sarks directs.

Nakkiah Lui (This Heaven) will play herself in Kill the Messenger, a funny and shocking play about institutionalised racism directed by Belvoir’s Associate Director – Literary Anthea Williams.

Also Upstairs, Associate Director – New Projects Eamon Flack directs Robyn Nevin in Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children, as well as Ewen Leslie in Chekov’s Ivanov (pictured right, photo by by Ellis Parrinder). Resident Director Adena Jacobs creates a modern fable based on L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz while, Anne-Louise Sarks and Jada Alberts (Brothers Wreck) co-write a dramatic reinvention of the House of Atreus in Elektra / Orestes.

And a revival of Louis Nowra’s Radiance, directed by and featuring Leah Purcell with Shari Sebbins and Miranda Tapsell, will kick off the whole season in January.

The Downstairs Theatre wil be home to four new Australian plays in 2015. Nick Coyle’s eccentric, camp space odyssey Blue Wizard is first up, presented in association with Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. Speaking of camp, queer theatre marvels Sisters Grimm will take Verdi’s La Traviata as a leaping off point for an entirely new operatic extravaganza on the smallest of scales.

Julia-Rose Lewisis a brand new playwright from Queensland. Samson is her first play. It is gritty and heartfelt and a little bit magical. Director Kristine Landon-Smith will direct a young cast including Ashleigh Cummings (Puberty Blues, Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries).

Also Downstairs, Ralph Myers will direct a new play that’s actually two plays: The Dog / The Cat. Two interlinked romantic comedies about pet ownership and serial monogamy. The Dog is by Brendan Cowell; The Cat is by Lally Katz.

Season Details

Radiance

By Louis Nowra


Director: Leah Purcell
. Set & Costume Designer: Dale Ferguson. Lighting Design: Damien Cooper.

With Leah Purcell, Shari Sebbens and Miranda Tapsell

Indigenous theatre at Belvoir supported by The Balnaves Foundation.

3 January – 8 February Upstairs Theatre

Louis Nowra’s Radiance began its life at Belvoir in 1993. In 1998 it was made into a highly acclaimed feature film.

It begins conventionally enough: Mae, Nona and Cressy gather at their old Queenslander in the tropics for their mother’s funeral. Mae, the middle sister, has stayed at home and nursed their mother through her last days as she struggled with dementia and family secrets. Cressy, the eldest, has become a successful opera singer and lives a life far, far removed from Mae’s. Nona, the youngest, is a joyful troublemaker with no sense of responsibility and a lust for things that do her no good.

These three sisters are forces of nature, and they haven’t been in the same room for years, and years. It isn’t long before that old house can’t contain the joy and pain of them all being together again and those family secrets can only be held back for so long.

Image: Miranda Tapsell by Ellis Parrinder

Kill the Messenger

By Nakkiah Lui


Director: Anthea Williams. Set Designer: Ralph Myers.

With Nakkiah Lui

Indigenous theatre at Belvoir supported by The Balnaves Foundation.

14 February – 8 March Upstairs Theatre

In 2011 Gamilaroi/Torres Strait Islander playwright/law student/performer Nakkiah Lui started writing a play. It was based on a true story about a man in her home suburb of Mount Druitt. One day, in unbearable pain due to undiagnosed stomach cancer, he went to the local hospital where he was refused care. Allegedly the emergency department had a policy of not providing painkillers to patients they suspect of using drugs, and Indigenous patients were high on this list. He went to a nearby park and hung himself. The theme of the play: institutionalised racism.

Then in 2012 Lui’s grandmother fell through the unmended floor of her public housing home and died. Homes provided by the government through Housing for Aboriginals, are not routinely maintained the way public housing is: institutionalised racism. Lui found herself at the centre of these stories. The resulting play lays it all out – her dodgy sex life, a dead man’s second chance, and a granddaughter’s sense of duty.

Blue Wizard

By Nick Coyle


Dramaturg: Adena Jacobs. Composer & Sound Designer: Steve Toulmin

With Nick Coyle

Presented in association withSydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras

19 February – 15 March Downstairs Theatre

An intergalactic gay wizard gets stranded on earth on the side of a mountain where he casts spells and dances magic dances in an attempt to return to his home comet. Something went very wrong, he was sent to earth to commune with the Ancient Egyptians but his timing was off and he’s arrived 3000 years late.

Elektra / Orestes

By Jada Alberts & Anne-Louise Sarks

Director: Anne-Louise Sarks. 
Set Designer: Ralph Myers
. Costume Designer: Mel Page. 
Composer & Sound Designer: Stefan Gregory

With Hunter Page-Lochard

14 March – 26 April Upstairs Theatre

The story of the House of Atreus is of one of the greatest cycles ever conceived by human kind – a diabolical sequence of brilliant dramatic premises. At its heart is an unstoppable chain reaction as each generation, one after the other, tries to solve the problems their parents made worse by trying to solve the problems their parents made worse.

The Wizard of Oz

After L. Frank Baum.

Director: Adena Jacobs. 
Set Designer: Ralph Myers. 
Costume Designer: Kate Davis
. Lighting Designer: Emma Valente
. Composer & Sound Designer: Max Lyandvert.

With Luisa Hastings-Edge, Emily Milledge and 
Jane Montgomery Griffiths

2 May – 31 May Upstairs Theatre

The Wizard of Oz is a parable of biblical proportions. L. Frank Baum’s original novel invented a new kind of story: in the aftermath of a natural disaster, a young girl finds herself alone in a foreign land seeking answers from an all- powerful but unseen wizard – who turns out to be a man behind a curtain. This tale of power and discovery, in a land of marvellous beauty, has become as foundational in the contemporary imagination as Shakespeare or the Greeks.

Adena Jacobs’ re-imagining is a theatrical poem about innocence, grief and the terror of growing up. Leave the kids at home for this radical feminist take on one of our most beloved myths.

Samson

By Julia-Rose Lewis


Director: Kristine Landon-Smith

With Ashleigh Cummings

A co-production withLa Boite Theatre Company

7 – 31 May Downstairs Theatre

Essie, Beth, Sid and Rabbit are growing up at the arse end of the arse end of the world. Boredom, decay and violence plague their lives. And grief for the death of a friend. Grappling with their own existence and grasping hopelessly at the future, they find themselves imagining heaven and dreaming of hell.

Image: Ashleigh Cummings by Ellis Parrinder

Mother Courage and Her Children

By Bertolt Brecht
. Translation: Michael Gow.


Director: Eamon Flack. 
Set Designer: Robert Cousins. Lighting Designer: Benjamin Cisterne. Music Composition: Stefan Gregory

With Paula Arundell and Robyn Nevin.

6 June – 26 July Upstairs Theatre

Mother Courage and Her Children is a magnificent pageant of humanity in extremis, full of celebration and bastardry in equal parts, and burning with love and disgust for the human species. Its author is the great smartarse of the dramatic canon – an entertainer, a liar, a communist and a libertine whose appetite for the exuberant variety of life is only surpassed by Shakespeare. Mother Courage is Bertolt Brecht’s masterpiece.

The Dog / The Cat

The Dog by Brendan Cowell / 
The Cat by Lally Katz.


Director & Designer: Ralph Myers. 
Composer & Sound Designer: Stefan Gregory.

With Brendan Cowell

18 June – 12 July Downstairs Theatre

Not one but two romantic comedies presented on the same night! Two interconnected tales of true love and stupidity from two of the hottest playwrights around.

Seventeen

By Matthew Whittet.

Director: Anne-Louise Sarks. Dramaturg: Anthea Williams.

With Peter Carroll, Maggie Dence, Judi Farr, John Gaden and Barry Otto.

1 August – 13 September Upstairs Theatre

Venerable actors Peter Carroll, Maggie Dence, Judi Farr, John Gaden and Barry Otto play a group of teenagers drinking, singing, dancing, gabbling, worrying and maybe even pashing their way through their last night of childhood and their first night of adulthood.

Sue is Mike’s girlfriend. Tom is Mike’s best friend, but he’s secretly in love with Sue. Edwina is Sue’s goody-two- shoes best friend and she’s about to get drunk for the first time. Judy is Mike’s annoying younger sister, and Ronny, well no-one invited Ronny and no one’s quite sure why he’s there.

Image: Peter Carroll, Maggie Dence, John Gaden and Barry Otto by Ellis Parrinder.

La Traviata

By Sisters Grimm (Declan Greene and Ash Flanders) with the cast


Director : Declan Greene. 
Set & Costume Designer: Marg Horwell. Lighting Designer: Matthew Marshall. Composer and Sound Designer: Steve Toulmin. Dramaturg: Anne-Louise Sarks.

With Ash Flanders and Betty Grumble

A co-production withSisters Grimm

27 August – 20 September Downstairs Theatre

Verdi’s famed Romantic opera La Traviata is the story of Violetta, a lovelorn courtesan who is doomed to choose either a life of disgrace with the pauper she loves, or a life of upscale servitude to a baron. This is not that opera. At least, not quite. This La Traviatais part opera, part protest, part drag show – a freewheeling satire that shadows Verdi’s plot via the sweatshops of Mumbai and the wastepaper basket of the Federal Minister for the Arts.

Ivanov

By Anton Chekhov


Director: Eamon Flack. 
Set Designer: Michael Hankin. Costume Designer: Mel Page. Composer & Sound Designer: Steve Toulmin.

With Gareth Davies, Ewen Leslie and Yalin Ozucelik.

19 September – 1 November Upstairs Theatre

Nikolai Ivanov is going mad. His life used to be full of possibility but now he’s moneyless on an old farm with his mendicant uncle and his inexplicably happy if slightly criminal cousin. He’s in debt to his neighbours, he has the hots for their daughter, and nothing much makes any sense to him anymore. Oh, and his wife is dying. Life’s all healthcare and making payments. There must be an alternative, but the only ways out are mean and petty, or rather cruel. How far is Ivanov willing to go in the pursuit of happiness?

Mortido

By Angela Betzien


Director: Leticia Cáceres. 
Lighting Designer: Geoff Cobham. Dramaturg: Anthea Williams.

With Tom Conroy and  Colin Friels

A co-production withState Theatre Company of South Australia

A co-commission withPlaywriting Australia

7 November – 23 December Upstairs Theatre

Mortido is a crime drama, revenge tragedy and morality play rolled into one.

It begins with a Mexican fable about death and ends in the Western suburbs. In between it takes in the public housing on Belvoir Street, Krispy Kreme doughnuts, quinoa, Nazi Germany, Qantas, Coca-Cola, a seventh birthday party, the Surry Hills police, the property market and a body in the harbour. The connective tissue? Cocaine.

Bookings 02 9699 3444 or belvoir.com.au