Strange Interlude
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Media Release April 2012 Belvoir presents Strange Interlude Written by SIMON STONE after EUGENE O’NEILL Director SIMON STONE Set Designer ROBERT COUSINS Costume Designer MEL PAGE Lighting Designer DAMIEN COOPER Composer & Sound Designer STEFAN GREGORY With AKOS ARMONT NICHOLAS BAKOPOULIS-COOKE EMILY BARCLAY MITCHELL BUTEL CALLUM McMANIS KRIS McQUADE ELOISE MIGNON ANTHONY PHELAN TOBY SCHMITZ TOBY TRUSLOVE BELVOIR ST THEATRE | UPSTAIRS 5 MAY – 17 JUNE An experimental play from the 1920s may not be the most obvious choice for inclusion in Belvoir’s strikingly contemporary season, but in the hands of Simon Stone theatre-goers will know to expect a radical interpretation of Eugene O’Neill’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play. In the vein of Stone’s The Wild Duck, a sell-out at both Belvoir and Melbourne’s Malthouse Theatre, Strange Interlude will be completely rewritten. Strange Interlude is one of the few modern plays to use soliloquy interwoven with the dialogue, revealing the characters’ inner thoughts; this technique will be maintained in the rewrite. Twenty-year-old Nina Leeds (Emily Barclay) has lost the love of her life in the war. Overcome with grief, she quits university, falls out with her father and moves away from home. What follows is an epic and compelling narrative that spans 25 years in Nina’s life, but the story is compressed into a series of heightened, life altering moments. The significance of each of these moments is revealed as the page-turning story unravels. The cast assembled for this production is truly stellar, with the luminous Emily Barclay as Nina and Mitchell Butel, Toby Schmitz and Toby Truslove as three men in her life, each vying for her attention and affection in his own way. Schmitz is joined by Wild Duck co-stars Eloise Mignon and Anthony Phelan. Fresh from her touching portrayal of Milova in Neighbourhood Watch, Kris McQuade rounds out this stunningly talented cast. Strange Interlude offers a touching insight into the minutiae of our daily worries, joys and hopes, set against the vast backdrop of life’s irreversible decisions and the fickle hand of fate. For media information contact publicist Elly Michelle Clough [email protected] | + 61 (0)2 8396 6242 | 0407 163 921 Media Release April 2012 NOTES FOR EDITORS SEASON INFORMATION Dates 5 May – 17 June 2012 Previews Saturday 5 & Sunday 6 May 2012 Opening night Wednesday 9 May 2012 Times Tuesday 6.30pm | Wednesday to Friday 8pm | Saturday 2pm & 8pm | Sunday 5pm Tickets Full $62 | Seniors (excluding Fri/Sat evenings) $52 | Concession $42 Venue Belvoir St Theatre | 25 Belvoir St, Surry Hills Bookings 02 9699 3444 or www.belvoir.com.au BELVOIR INFORMATION The name of our company is Belvoir, not the Belvoir, Belvoir Theatre or Belvoir Theatre Company. Belvoir St Theatre is our venue. BIOGRAPHIES SIMON STONE Writer & Director Simon is a graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts. In 2007 he founded the independent ensemble The Hayloft Project. For Hayloft he co-wrote and directed Thyestes, which was commissioned by and originally produced at Malthouse Theatre (winner of 2010 Green Room Awards for Best Production, Best Adaptation and Best Ensemble), co- wrote and directed The Only Child (with B Sharp, winner of Sydney Theatre Award for Best Independent Production), adapted and directed The Suicide, Spring Awakening (both with B Sharp) and Platonov, was one third of the multi- director project 3xSisters, and directed Rita Kalnejais’ B.C. In 2009 Simon directed The Promise for Belvoir and in 2011 he became the company’s Resident Director. In his first year in the role, Simon wrote and directed The Wild Duck after Ibsen (winner of three 2011 Helpmann Awards, including Best Play; winner of four 2011 Sydney Theatre Awards, including Best Production and Best Direction) and directed Neighbourhood Watch (four 2011 Sydney Theatre Award nominations, including Best Production). For Sydney Theatre Company and Malthouse Theatre, Simon co-translated and directed Baal (winner of two 2011 Sydney Theatre Awards). This year, Simon has again directed Thyestes for Belvoir. As an actor, Simon performed in Belvoir’s 2007 production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and appeared in the films Jindabyne, Kokoda, Balibo, Blame and Eye of the Storm. Simon was the 2008 recipient of the biennial George Fairfax Memorial Award. Later in 2012, Simon will be directing Death of a Salesman for Belvoir, as well as co-writing and directing a stage version of Ingmar Bergman’s film Face to Face for Sydney Theatre Company. AKOS ARMONT Gordon Akos has appeared in As You Like It for Belvoir. His other theatre credits include The LoveBirds (Adelaide Fringe Festival); A Midsummers Night’s Dream, Tooth of Crime (Arts Radar); Spring Awakening (Sydney Theatre Company); The Web (Black Swan State Theatre Company); The Kid (Griffin Theatre Company). His television credits include Spirited, Rescue Special Ops, Panic at Rock Island, Home and Away, The Strip and The Pacific. His film credits include Andy X. Akos received a Sydney Theatre Award nomination for Best Newcomer for his role in The Kid. EMILY BARCLAY Nina Leeds Emily has appeared in The Seagull, That Face and Gethsemane for Belvoir; The Importance of Being Ernest (Melbourne Theatre Company); and This is Our Youth (Sydney Opera House/David Binder/Eric Schnall/Jayne Baron Sherman). Her film credits include Love Birds, Lou, Legends of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole, Prime Mover, Suburban Mayhem and In My Father’s Den. Her television credits include Lowdown, Piece of My Heart and The Silence. Emily received a British Independent Film Award for Most Promising Newcomer and a New Zealand Screen Award for Best Actor for In My Father’s Den, an Australian Film Institute Award and Inside Film Best Actress Award for Suburban Mayhem, and Logie and AFI Award nominations for her role in The Silence. CONTINUED >> Media Release April 2012 MITCHELL BUTEL Charles Marsden Mitchell has appeared in The Adventures of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, The Laramie Project, A View from the Bridge and Dead Heart for Belvoir. His other theatre credits include Meow Meow's Little Match Girl (Malthouse/Sydney Festival); A Life in Three Acts (Sydney Festival); Summer Rain, Harbour, The Republic of Myopia, Mourning Becomes Electra, Tartuffe, Two Weeks with the Queen, Dead White Males, The Café Latte Kid, Summer of the Aliens, Six Degrees of Separation (Sydney Theatre Company); The Grenade, The Madwoman of Chaillot, Tomfoolery, Urinetown, Piaf (Melbourne Theatre Company); Stones in his Pockets, The Venetian Twins (Queensland Theatre Company); Othello (Bell Shakespeare); Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love (State Theatre Company of South Australia); Laughter on the 23rd Floor (Ensemble Theatre); Mad, Bad and Spooky (Theatre of Image); Blue Remembered Hills (O’Punsky’s); Boeing Boeing (Dainty/New Theatricals); and Woyzeck (Malthouse). Music theatre credits include Avenue Q (Arts Asia Pacific); The Mikado (Opera Australia); Assassins (Silo Theatre, NZ); Kismet, Sugar, Little Me, Oklahoma, Hair (The Production Company); Dusty (Dusty Productions); Man of La Mancha (Gordon Frost/SEL); Grease, Saturday Night Fever, Little Shop of Horrors (David Atkins Enterprises); Elegies (The NIDA Company); Follies and Bernadette Peters in Concert (Sydney Opera House). Mitchell has appeared in three solo cabaret shows: Mitchell Butel’s Excellent Adventure, And Now for the Weather and Killing Time. Feature film credits include Gettin’ Square, The Bank, Strange Fits of Passion, Dark City, Virtual Nightmare and Two Hands. TV credits include Rake, Stephen King’s Nightmares and Dreamscapes, MDA, Grass Roots, Wildside, Murder Call, All Saints, Twisted Tales, Close Ups, Bordertown and GP. Mitchell received Helpmann Awards for The Venetian Twins and Avenue Q, Helpmann nominations for Little Me, Summer Rain and The Republic of Myopia, Green Room Awards for Hair and Piaf, Green Room nominations for The Mikado, Avenue Q, Little Me and Oklahoma and AFI nominations for Gettin’ Square and Strange Fits of Passion. Mitchell is Vice President of Actors Equity and has been a proud member since 1988. DAMIEN COOPER Lighting Designer Damien works internationally across theatre, opera and dance. His designs for Belvoir include Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, Neighbourhood Watch, The Seagull, Gethsemane, Keating!, Toy Symphony, Peribanez, Stuff Happens, The Chairs, The Spook, In Our Name, The Underpants, The Ham Funeral and Exit the King (including the Broadway production with Geoffrey Rush and Susan Sarandon). His other theatre credits include Pygmalion, Bloodland, Edward Gant’s Amazing Feats of Loneliness, Zebra!, Blood Wedding, The Women of Troy, The Great, Riflemind, The Art of War, Ying Tong, The Lost Echo, Fat Pig, A Hard God, The Cherry Orchard, Summer Rain, Metamorphosis, Boy Gets Girl, Julius Caesar, Far Away, Bed, Thyestes, Morph, The Shape of Things, These People, King Lear (Sydney Theatre Company); Doctor Zhivago (GFO); and Shane Warne the Musical (Token Productions). For opera, Damien’s designs include Cosi, Peter Grimes, Alcina, The Magic Flute, Death in Venice (Opera Australia); Aida (Opera Australia/West Australian Opera); A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Chorus! (Houston Grand Opera). His designs for dance include The Narrative of Nothing, Romeo and Juliet, Swan Lake, Firebird, The Silver Rose (Australian Ballet); The Director’s Cut, Grand, Some Rooms, Shades of Gray, Ellipse, Air and Other Invisible Forces, Body of Work, Mythologia (Sydney Dance Company); Tivoli (Australian Ballet/Sydney Dance Company); Mortal Engine (Chunky Move), Of Earth and Sky and Mathinna (Bangarra Dance Theatre); Be Your Self and Birdbrain (Australian Dance Theatre). For lighting design, Damien has won three Sydney Theatre Awards and a Green Room Award. ROBERT COUSINS Set Designer For Belvoir, Robert has designed sets for Babyteeth, Cloudstreet, Page 8, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Aliwa, Waiting for Godot, The Threepenny Opera, Gulpilil, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?.