La Boite 2012 Season

La Boite Artistic Director David Berthold has announced La Boite’s 2012 Season, “a year that will pull at the heart, stir the blood and tickle the funny bone”.

The 2012 line-up of 10 productions includes five Mainstage productions and five La Boite Indie productions for the Brisbane company.

“We’ve rhymed some Shakespearean joy with summery Scottish charm, layered a mischievous hoax with a spellbinding puppet, and crowned it with melting verses of tender napalm,” David said.

“I love what this theatre can do,” David said. “This is a theatre that allows for the most direct and fundamentally sensual conversation between actor and audience I have ever encountered. Our shows – and they are shows, not just plays – very often break down barriers in ways that spice the space with a frisky playfulness.”

The season opens in February with David directing a contemporary reinvention of Shakespeare’s comedy, As You Like It. Helen Howard and Thomas Larkin lead a 10-strong cast that includes Helen Cassidy, Kathryn Marquet, Bryan Probets, Hayden Spencer and Trevor Stuart.

“Our theatre is perfect for Shakespeare,” David said. “It’s open and alive and allows actors and audiences to come together to share the joy. I know Helen will delight as Rosalind, Shakespeare’s greatest female creation, and I could think of no better Orlando than Thom – what a gorgeous pairing. This production will be our biggest in years; outrageous fun and full of theatrical surprises.”

In April, La Boite presents the Traverse Theatre’s musical rom-com Midsummer (a play with songs), direct from Edinburgh and the Sydney Opera House.

“This is another show just brilliant for our space – it thrives on the pleasure of actors telling and singing stories,” David said.

“It’s wonderful to be able to welcome Scotland’s leading theatre for new writing to the La Boite stage with a pitch-perfect production of enormous charm and depth - a show about the great lost weekend we all dream about. And how fantastic to have original cast members Cora Bissett and Matthew Pidgeon.”

In May, La Boite teams up with Sydney’s Griffin Theatre Company for the world premiere of Rick Viede’s Griffin Award winning new play A Hoax. Directed by Lee Lewis, A Hoax will rehearse and premiere at La Boite ahead of a Sydney transfer in July.

“Rick is one of the bravest and most entertaining new voices in Australian theatre,” David said. “This is his terrific second play, inspired by the recent spate of fabricated ‘misery memoirs’. Think of the controversies surrounding James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces and Wanda Koolmatrie’s My Own Sweet Time. It’s bravura writing.”

“And what a treat to be partnering with the good folk at Griffin for the first time – our third interstate collaboration in as many years.”

In August, the Dead Puppet Society’s 2011 La Boite Indie smash The Harbinger moves to La Boite’s Mainstage in a refreshed and fuller version. Written and directed by David Morton) and Matthew Ryan, The Harbinger combines 3D animation and more than a dozen puppets – the star of which is three metres tall.

“The Dead Puppet Society is a team of incredible dreamers,” David said. “I think The Harbinger is their best, most ambitious work yet. I adored it. They have seized this opportunity and returned to the rehearsal room to sharpen the story for a bigger space and a new audience. I know this production will be even more magical than the last.”

In September, David directs Philip Ridley’s Tender Napalm, a presentation with Brisbane Festival 2012.

“Philip is undoubtedly one of the world’s most sensational playwrights,” David said. “I’ve directed two of his plays and see in this, his latest, the most beautiful and acute distillation of his incredible art. It’s a theatrical firecracker about love, desire and the whole damn thing. It’s danced as much as acted, taking us into the secret places of a relationship, and I know it will explode in our theatre.”

An additional five productions will feature as part of La Boite Indie: The Truth About Kookaburras (Pentimento Productions), I Only Came to Use the Phone (Netta Yashchin), Home (nest4change), A Tribute of Sorts (Monsters Appear), and Children of War (The Danger Ensemble).

Now in its third year, La Boite Indie aims to nurture a more sustainable independent theatre culture in Brisbane, to cultivate new audiences, to enable closer ties between independent theatre and La Boite, and to help create outstanding contemporary works made with passion and rigour.

“It gives us great joy to be able to contribute to the development of independent work in this way and to help grow audiences for theatre right across the city,” David said.

“Our collected works of 2012 are drawn from creative colleagues here and around the world. They have been chosen to provide full theatrical experiences: good nights out that we hope will surprise, stimulate and sweeten,” he said. “The stories range across human living, but touch often on matters of the heart and dreams of the fantastical.”

“We love what we do, and trust that what touches our audiences in our space, the very round room we call a world and a stage, inspires them to feel creative and alive and a genuine part of the thing that is theatre.”

La Boite Mainstage

As You Like It by William Shakespeare – February 18 to March 24

Midsummer by David Greig and Gordon McIntyre – April 10 – 28.

A Hoax by Rick Veide – May 5 – 26.

Harbinger by David Morton & Matthew Ryan – August 11 to September 1.

Tender Napalm by Philip Ridley – September 21 to October 13.

La Boite Indie

The Truth About Kookaburras by Sven Swenson – June 6 – 23.

I Only Came to Use the Phone by Gabriel Garcia Márquez – June 27 – July 14.

Home by Margi Brown Ash – July 18 – 28.

A Tribute of Sorts. Inspired by Edward Gorey’s The Gashlycrumb Tinies - October 24 to November 10.

Children of War by Chris Beckey – November 14 – December 1.

www.laboite.com.au

Images.

David Berthold in rehearsals. Photographer: Al Caeiro

As You Like It. Photographer: Justine Walpole.

To keep up with the latest news and reviews at Stage Whispers, click here to like us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter.