Showing from 27 May – 8 June at the Loft Theatre in Melbourne, Lulu McClatchy’s Supergirly: Return of the Pop Princess is a balance of crude potty mouth, raw Aussie humour and some pretty spot on observations about the popular music industry. Supergirly tells the tale of Lulu McClatchy’s alter ego, Supergirly; an…
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Audiences around Australia are being treated to a touching and humorous piece of theatre, It’s Dark Outside. Following the story of an old man who wanders into the wilderness at sunset pursued by a dark, shadowy figure, It’s Dark Outside tackles the little discussed and often sensitive theme of Dementia. With 332,000 Australians currently…
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Harking from Adelaide, Gravity and Other Myths is a multi-award winning ensemble of acrobats who are currently partnering with Darebin Art’s Speakeasy to present their performance piece, A Simple Space, at Northcote Town Hall, Melbourne. Gravity and Other Myths are neither big top clowns nor death defying stuntmen, but a wonderfully unified and organic group…
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Cut Snake is an award-winning, Australian theatre production presented in Canberra by Ainslie and Gorman Arts Centres, Canberra Youth Theatre and You Are Here; and produced by independent theatre company, ARTHUR. Combining cabaret, slapstick, acrobatics and sock puppetry, Cut Snake is a funny, poignant and wonderfully physical story about growing old, dying young and being extraordinary:…
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Presented by Darebin Arts’ Speakeasy, More Female Parts is a suite of three monologues written by Sara Hardy specifically to be performed and directed by Evelyn Krape and Lois Ellis, respectively. Inspired by the original Female Parts, a series of monologues written in 1977 by Italian duo Dario Fo and Franca Rame, Hardy’s new work…
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‘NSFW’ (Not Safe For Work) is Melbourne’s Red Stitch Actors Theatre’s final production for 2013. Written by UK playwright Lucy Kirkwood and directed by Tanya Dickson, NSFW is an exposé of the media world that doesn’t quite manage to deliver on its edgy name, but is touching and incisive in parts. The play takes place over…
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In a phone interview last week with writer, director and performer Michelle Higgs about her new play ‘And Then There Were 3’, I was filled in on the in-and-outs and up-and-downs of playwriting and parenting. Debuting at the Street Theatre, Canberra from December 4-8, ‘And Then There Were 3’ is a play centred on…
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John Doyle is probably best known to many as Roy of Roy and HG fame. That’s certainly how I knew him, although I won’t pretend to be that familiar with the world of sports comedy. Nonetheless, I was looking forward to seeing a play written by someone known to be so astutely funny. Vere (Faith)…
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For those out of the loop on what constitutes a revue, The Wharf Revue is a good place to start. Our politics, current affairs and culture are annually hung out to dry in a series of burning satirical skits and hilarious musical renditions. Add to this a talented acting troupe and the knockout production values…
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The events that transpired over the last days of poet Sylvia Plath’s life is a delicate subject, and has been the subject of much speculation for the last 50 years. Australian playwright Barry Dickins has attempted to tackle this difficult topic in his one-woman show, A Kind of Fabulous Hatred. The performance is set on…
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We have all heard the saying ‘a picture is worth 1000 words’. For Canberra-based theatre veteran Chrissie Shaw, this rang true a few years ago during a visit to a Melbourne art gallery. There Shaw was struck by a black-and-white photograph, Madame Bijou in the Bar de la Lune, Paris (1932). This image set her…
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I had trepidation about seeing a theatre show that was so ostentatious as to be named Art. That’s one big call right there. But it turns out French playwright Yasmina Reza’s work, which showed at Melbourne’s Gasworks Theatre from 1 to 3 August, lives up to the title, pulling big philosophical punches one after the…
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Maureen O’Hara Spends a Quiet Night At Home began as a concept wonderful in its simplicity. Dramatising the photo series by Peter Stackpole of the same name, which in 1946 captured film star Maureen O’Hara during a “normal evening in”, the fifty minute performance piece gives the audience an intimate glimpse into the imagined private…
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Last week, Australia said goodbye to one of its theatrical matriarchs. Betty Burstall, the enigmatic founder of Melbourne’s La Mama Experimental Theatre Club, died peacefully aged 87. Her legacy includes the theatre she founded in the 1970s and the countless playwrights, actors, directors and other creatives she nurtured over her long career. When Burstall founded…
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