MEDIA RELEASE August 2016 EMBARGOED TO 7PM 3 SEPT. Belvoir’s Artistic Director Eamon Flack has unveiled an optimistic and wildly entertaining season of plays for the company’s 2017 Season. There are inventive new plays from Australia and around the world, there are return seasons and tours of popular plays and two of our favourite stage actors in two great classics. Toby Schmitz returns to the Belvoir stage, after a three year absence, in The Rover by Aphra Behn. Schmitz takes the swashbuckling titular role in this raucous and outrageous battle of the sexes from the woman widely considered the first professional female playwright. Flack has reunited his award-winning team from his 2014 sell out hit The Glass Menagerie to find the same freshness and beauty in Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts. Pamela Rabe stars as the fierce mother Helene Alving. ‘Our 2016 Season has been very much about reflecting on our past, both for Belvoir and in a wider cultural sense,’ says Flack. ‘With the 2017 Season we are taking an imaginative leap into the future. In this season, characters dream big in the midst of disaster and confusion. They fight passionately for a brighter future. This is a season of plays that unleashes the possibility that maybe the 21st century won’t be an unmitigated disaster.’ Two of the most inventive and exciting plays out of New York’s Playwrights Horizons in recent years are Hir by Taylor Mac and Anne Washburn’s Mr Burns, a Post-Electric Play, and they are both in our 2017 Season. Anthea Williams directs Helen Thomson and Greg Stone in Hir, a play that turns the notion of the American family drama entirely on its head. Mr Burns examines how societies create myths in way that is thoroughly inventive way that is wildly entertaining. We are thrilled to present brand new works from Lally Katz (Atlantis), Tommy Murphy (Mark Colvin’s Kidney) and Alana Valentine with Ursula Yovich (Barbara and the Camp Dogs). All three bold plays with intriguing and compelling women as their lead characters. Audiences will delight in the opportunity to see two of our biggest recent hits back on stage: Jasper Jones and The Dog / The Cat in short Upstairs seasons. And we’re bringing the hit of Brisbane Festival 2015, La Boite Theatre Company’s Prize Fighter to Sydney audiences for the first time. Latenight comedy returns to Belvoir with Tom Ballard’s takedown of Australia’s asylum seeker policies, Boundless Plains to Share. Downstairs we have two shows from New Zealand, Indian Ink Theatre Company’s virtuosic show Guru of Chai, and Trick of the Light’s enchanting family show The Bookbinder. Also Downstairs is ILBIJERRI Theatre Company’s production of Katie Beckett’s playwriting debut Which Way Home. Elly Baxter Photo by Daniel Boud Publicity and Public Affairs Manager [email protected] | 02 8396 6242 | 0407 163 921 MEDIA RELEASE August 2016 EMBARGOED TO 7PM 3 SEPT. Writer Future D. Fidel When Prize Fighter opened in Brisbane in 2015, The Australian said ‘Umm, did that just Director Todd MacDonald happen? Could it be that Brisbane has just witnessed the world premiere of the most Dramaturg Chris Kohn perfectly structured, brilliantly produced and best-acted new play seen in this town in, well, Designer Bill Haycock living memory probably?’ and Belvoir and Sydney Festival are thrilled to bring this powerful Lighting Designer David Walters new Australian story to Sydney. Composer & Sound Designer Felix Cross Video Designer optikal bloc Future D. Fidel’s Prize Fighter tells a story similar to his own, of Isa, a Congolese boy Movement & Fight Director Nigel Poulton who comes to Australia as a refugee escaping a brutal civil war and unspeakable horrors. Settling in Brisbane, he finds a passion and discipline in boxing. With Thuso Lekwape, Gideon Mzembe & In this inventive and physical production the theatre becomes a boxing ring. As Isa fights Pacharo Mzembe for the title, he is besieged by traumatic memories and must battle his past as much as his opponent. 6 - 22 January 2017 Upstairs Theatre Pacharo Mzembe (Gwen in Purgatory) returns to Belvoir as Isa, in this production which was nominated for Best Play and Best New Australian Work at the 2016 Helpmann Awards. Preview 6 January Opening 7 January Unwaged 19 January Subscriptions on sale from 7pm Saturday 3 September belvoir.com.au/subscribe Box Office 02 9699 3444 A La Boite Theatre Company & Brisbane Festival production presented in association with Sydney Festival Elly Baxter Image: Gideon Mzembe Publicity and Public Affairs Manager & Pacharo Mzembe [email protected] | 02 8396 6242 | 0407 163 921 Photo by Dylan Evans MEDIA RELEASE August 2016 EMBARGOED TO 7PM 3 SEPT. Writer Katie Beckett Katie Beckett is a talented actor (Kill the Messenger, Coranderrk) and a compelling new Director Rachael Maza voice in Australian playwriting. Which Way Home is her first play to be produced, directed Set & Costume Designer by Rachael Maza for ILBIJERRI Theatre Company, Belvoir and Sydney Festival. Beckett is Emily Barrie also the 2015 winner of The Balnaves Foundation Playwright’s Award. Sound Designer Mark Coles Smith Lighting Designer Niklas Pajanti Tash is on a road trip, going back to country with her dad. He is getting older and the time is Dramaturg Jane Bodie right for the trip, and maybe there are a few things she is getting away from too. With Tash and her dad are really close. After her mother died, Tash was raised by her dad, away Katie Beckett & Tony Briggs from country and in a mostly white suburb, where they forged a tight bond. Which Way Home is a work of fiction, but Beckett was also raised by her much-loved father after the 11 - 29 January 2017 death of her mother. Downstairs Theatre Beckett is joined on stage by acclaimed actor and theatremaker Tony Briggs (Cleverman, Previews 11 & 12 January ABC1) Opening 13 January At a time when Indigenous fatherhood is firmly on the national agenda, Which Way Home Subscriptions on sale from offers an affirming perspective on a father-daughter relationship in an Indigenous family. 7pm Saturday 3 September belvoir.com.au/subscribe Box Office 02 9699 3444 Indigenous theatre at Belvoir supported by The Balnaves Foundation An ILBIJERRI Theatre Company production in association with Belvoir & Sydney Festival Elly Baxter Image: Katie Beckett Publicity and Public Affairs Manager Photo by Brett Boardman [email protected] | 02 8396 6242 | 0407 163 921 MEDIA RELEASE August 2016 EMBARGOED TO 7PM 3 SEPT. By Tom Ballard In 2015 comedian and broadcaster Tom Ballard set out to examine Australia’s asylum Director Scott Edgar seeker and immigration policies. He interviewed refugees, explored the history of the White Australia Policy and met with controversial former Immigration Minister Peter Reith. And With somehow he’s managed make a show that’s furious and genuinely funny about an issue Tom Ballard that continues to divide Australian and the world. 13-15 January 2017 Ballard won the 2016 Helpmann Award for Best Comedy Performer and is one of Australia’s Latenight Upstairs favourite comedians. Subscriptions on sale from Boundless Plains to Share is a comedy lecture about the history, cost and future of ‘border 7pm Saturday 3 September protection’ and just what the national anthem is on about with those ‘boundless plains to belvoir.com.au/subscribe share’. Box Office 9699 3444 Presented by the Brian McCarthy Moosehead Awards Elly Baxter Image: Tom Ballard Publicity and Public Affairs Manager Photo by Richard Hodger [email protected] | 02 8396 6242 | 0407 163 921 MEDIA RELEASE August 2016 EMBARGOED TO 7PM 3 SEPT. Based on the novel by Craig Silvey Adapted by Kate Mulvany Director Anne-Louise Sarks Time Out Set Designer Michael Hankin Costume Designer Mel Page [A] big fat, satisfying, thought-provoking, laugh-making, Lighting Designer Matt Scott Composer & Sound Designer tear-jerking smash hit. Steve Toulmin StageNoise Fight Choreographer Scott Witt Choreographer Sara Black Belvoir opened its 2016 Season with the sold-out smash-hit Jasper Jones. The show Indigenous Advisor Jada Alberts hit a nerve and touched a lot of hearts so this summer we’re bringing back the joy and heartbreak for those who missed out and those who want to relive the magic all over again. With Tom Conroy, Matilda Ridgway, Guy Charlie’s 13 and smart. Perhaps too smart. But when blamed-for-everything Jasper Jones Simon & Hoa Xuande appears at his window one night, Charlie’s out of his depth. Jasper has stumbled upon a terrible crime in the scrub nearby, and he knows he’s the first suspect – that goes with the 25 January - 19 February 2017 colour of his skin. He needs every ounce of Charlie’s bookish brain if the truth is to emerge Upstairs Theatre before the town turns on Jasper. Preview 25 January As the boys negotiate the secrets of a small town, the winds of change blow… But how do Opening 26 January teenage Australians solve the riddles of a changing world? You gotta get brave. Unwaged 2 February Tom Conroy, Matilda Ridgway and Guy Simon return in Anne-Louise Sarks’ gorgeous Subscriptions on sale from production. 7pm Saturday 3 September belvoir.com.au/subscribe Box Office 9699 3444 Elly Baxter Image: Matilda Ridgway Publicity and Public Affairs Manager & Tom Conroy [email protected] | 02 8396 6242 | 0407 163 921 Photo by Lisa Tomasetti MEDIA RELEASE August 2016 EMBARGOED TO 7PM 3 SEPT. The Dog by Brendan Cowell The Cat by Lally Katz Director & Set Designer Ralph Myers Daily Review Costume Designer Mel Page Composer & Sound Designer Light but far from slight, this double bill of romantic comedy Stefan Gregory Associate Composer & Sound Designer is hands-down the sharpest and most entertaining show Riley McCullagh we’ve seen at Belvoir [in 2015].