Previous Shows

Iron

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 08:17:49 +1000

Fay is serving a life sentence for murdering her husband with a kitchen knife. Her daughter Josie, who was 11 at the time and who has not seen her mother for 15 years, decides one day to visit.

That, her subsequent visits, and the relationship between mother and daughter that develops within the pressurised environment of a room under constant surveillance, is the subject of Rona Munro's play.

The Popular Mechanicals

Thu, 27 May 2010 10:35:57 +1000

The fortunes and misfortunes of the troupe of eccentric rude jesters from A Midsummer Night's Dream who get their shot at the big time performing at the Royal Wedding in 1595. The Popular Mechanicals bumble their way through rehearsals, mishaps and high jinks in an hysterically funny mix of verse, song, dance and mind-bending sound effects. The show will have you rolling in the aisles from curtain up to curtain down. The Popular Mechanicals is a fantastic play for all ages, a celebration of gloriously funny theatre that is guaranteed to entertain you in a most surprising way.

Blackbird

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 10:00:00 +1100

At his workplace, 55-year-old Ray is shocked to be visited by a young woman, 27-year-old Una. 15 years earlier, when Una was only 12, the two had a sexual affair, for which Ray was arrested and imprisoned. He has managed to establish a reasonably successful new life under another name, but Una recognised him in a photograph and tracked him down.
Ray takes Una to the office break room, where the two engage in a long and difficult confrontation involving Una's continuing struggles to understand and come to terms with the affair and her intensely conflicting emotions. These rocket back and forth between anger, curiosity, confusion, and even a persistent attachment to Ray, whom Una loved and believed loved her. The fearful Ray parries her demanding questions and descriptions of her feelings and experiences, all the while uncertain of her intentions.

Two and Two Together

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 07:51:40 +1100

A fast-paced and delightful comedy from the pen of the ever popular Derek Benfield. When Rachel suddenly takes up rowing as a hobby, her husband, Victor, never suspects that, in fact, she is keeping an assignation with a young man in the house of her good friend Georgina. Why should he? He has other things on his mind - In the shape of the said Georgina, whom he is meeting secretly while her husband, Henry, an actor, is safely occupied at the theatre.

Breaking Legs

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 08:04:57 +1000

We are in an Italian restaurant owned by a successful mobster and managed by his beautiful unmarried daughter. When the daughter's former college professor arrives to ask for financial backing for a play he's written about a murder, the fun begins. The three main Mafiosi are intrigued with the idea of producing a play. The daughter becomes enamoured of the playwright, who is delighted to have the family's support. His bubble is burst when he discovers, through the "accidental" death by train of a lesser thug, that his backers are gangsters. In this madcap situation, murder and menace are served up with plenty of pasta and laughter.

Visiting Mr Green

Thu, 28 May 2009 08:08:41 +1000

Mr. Green, an elderly widower, is almost hit by a car driven by young corporate executive, Ross Gardiner.
Found guilty of reckless driving, Ross is ordered to spend the next six months making weekly visits to Mr. Green. What starts off as a comedy about two people who resent being in the same room together develops into a gripping and poignant drama as family secrets are revealed.

The Goldberg Variations

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 08:12:46 +1100

This wise and witty play observes how honesty, objectivity and affection can survive the most tangled of relationships.
Sol, a blind piano player, is asked by the Goldberg family to write a speech. Quick to observe the nuances of emotion that run through this family of combatants, what follows is a journey of laughter and love, spotted with the occasional furtive tears.

Absent Friends

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 08:17:42 +1100

Colin must be comforted in his grief over the death of his fiancée. His friends, who never met the girl, arrange a tea party for him. They are on edge wondering what to say to him, but there is more to their unease than that.

Diana and her husband Paul, John and Evelyn, and Marge - whose husband is perpetually out of circulation with trivial illnesses - are all kept together by a mixture of business and cross-marital ties. By the time Colin arrives for tea, the tenseness contrasts dramatically with his air of cheerfulness and relaxation.

He is the only happy one among them, and his happiness and insensitive analysis of their trouble causes each in their own way to break down.

The Talented Mr Ripley

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 08:21:00 +1000

Tom Ripley is a man in search of an identity – not necessarily his own. A fantasist and a dissembler, he is a man of many talents but few scruples. When we first meet him he has been masquerading under an assumed name, tricking people into paying to him spurious tax bills.

Tom’s own parents are long dead and his Aunt Dottie is no longer able to support him. Fortuitously, Tom is contacted by the Greenleafs, a wealthy shipyard owner and his wife, who send him on a mission to Italy to bring back their prodigal son, Richard. But when Tom gets to Italy, he forms his own plans for Richard. When those plans go awry, he is forced to use his talents to improvise in the most violent and shocking way.

Disposing of the Body

Thu, 29 May 2008 08:23:47 +1000

When life starts to fade into a summery drowsy twilight, you should be taking things a little easier ... But for Henry Preece, embarking on early retirement with his attractive wife, things start to go seriously wrong. ‘All my life,’ he says, ‘I’ve either been looking back at happy times that have gone or looking forward to the happiness to come.’
In Hugh Whitemore’s elegant and tantalising play, the mystery and excitement of an unexpected passion is given full rein, until Henry realises that the door he’s just flung open should have remained tightly shut.

Crossing Delancey

Sun, 10 Feb 2008 08:31:39 +1100

Can an independent, contemporary woman find happiness with a guy who sells pickles? Isabelle is an attractive, intelligent Jewish woman in her early 30s. She has a good job and a nice apartment on the Upper West Side, and she values her independence. She often visits her grandmother Bubbie, who lives on the Lower East Side and wants Isabelle to meet a nice Jewish man and settle down.

The Dining Room

Sat, 10 Nov 2007 08:34:56 +1100

The play is set in a dining room - but always a different dining room. The time is the recent past - and sometimes longer ago.

Eight actors, fifty-eight roles. The very young to the very old and all ages in between.

Rattle of a Simple Man

Thu, 30 Aug 2007 08:38:20 +1000

Percy Winthram, a middle-aged bachelor from Manchester, is up in Town for ‘t’match’.
That night he and the rest of the lads go to the West End to celebrate – or drown their sorrows. When the others go back to their digs, Percy goes home with Cyrenne, a woman he has met in a bar. You may think you know the rest of the story – but you don’t!

Death and the Maiden

Thu, 8 Mar 2007 08:43:12 +1100

Ariel Dorfman's explosively provocative, award-winning drama is set in a country that has only recently returned to democracy. Gerardo Escobar has just been chosen to head the commission that will investigate the crimes of the old regime when his car breaks down and he is picked up by the humane doctor Roberto Miranda. But in the voice of this good Samaritan, Gerardo's wife, Paulina Salas, thinks she recognises another man - the one who raped and tortured her as she lay blindfolded in a military detention centre years before.

"I found the characters trying to figure out the sort of questions that so many Chileans were asking themselves privately, but that hardly anyone seemed interested in posing in public. How can those who tortured and those who were tortured coexist in the same land? . . . And how do you reach the truth if lying has become a habit?" -Ariel Dorfman

Move Over Mrs Markham

Thu, 16 Nov 2006 08:46:47 +1100

Wild comedy and farce reign again this summer as British farce-master Ray Cooney is featured for our fourth production! Move Over Mrs. Markham mixes three separate couples all seeking illicit liaisons unknowingly at the same time and place. Add a straight-laced children's author, a gay designer and a sexy au pair girl stir in misplaced love notes, ringing phones and a full liquor cabinet and the game is on. Your biggest challenge will be to stop laughing long enough to hear the lines!

The Odd Couple

Thu, 31 Aug 2006 08:49:55 +1000

Made famous by the hit film starring Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon, The Odd Couple, Oscar and Felix, are now Olive and Florence in Neil Simon's own rewrite of his greatest success. Florence Unger who is obsessively neat, while Olive Madison who is a loveable slob. When Olive agrees for Florence to move in, it proves friends are not always the best roommates for a match made anywhere but heaven. Don't miss this hilarious revised production of The Odd Couple!

Break a Leg

Thu, 1 Jun 2006 08:52:29 +1000

Long ago and far away, Austrian theatrical producer Dietrich Merkenschrift faces financial ruin. His last five shows have failed, thanks to a vicious theatre critic and his caustic (but witty) reviews. Deitrich and his theatrical team hatch an intricate plot to get rid of this monster! What follows can only be described as hilarious - quirky characters galore - a theatrical gem.

Crown Matrimonial

Thu, 2 Mar 2006 08:56:21 +1100

The future King falls in love with a divorcee and incurs the Queen's displeasure - sounds familiar, doesn't it, but this is the 1936 version with Edward VIII and Queen Mary. The story of the abdication is well known, but Royce Ryton's play gives a different view of it, with Queen Mary at the centre of events, and Wallis Simpson not appearing. This intriguing play covers a few months in late 1936, with a postscript in 1945, and demands very strong performances from the two main characters, Queen Mary and her son David.

Lord Savile’s Crime

Thu, 17 Nov 2005 09:01:23 +1100

Lord Arthur Saville’s quiet life in Grosvenor Square in 1920s London is overturned when his prospective mother-in law has his palm read by an unscrupulous fortune-teller, who reveals to Lord Arthur that he will have a long and happy marriage, but will also kill someone!
Lord Arthur decides to murder someone before marrying so as not to embarrass his wife if it is found out. After several bungled attempts to kill sundry relatives and acquaintances, Lord Arthur finally succeeds in his mission…..or does he?
With its eccentric characters and absurd situations, the play provides a delightful and hilarious theatrical treat for our audiences.

Silly Cow

Thu, 18 Aug 2005 09:04:24 +1000

This Brassy Comedy is a riddled with classic Ben Elton dialogue and revolves around the outrageously rude and gregarious TV tabloid journalist Doris Wallis on the very day she goes to court accused of defamation by an actress she attacked in one of her classic caustic tomes.
There’s no doubt that Doris’ pen is pure poison, she’s toxic, tough and ruthlessly destructive when dealing with other people’s lives. It’s survival of the bitchiest when you’re clawing your way to the top of the TV gutter press and enemies come with the territory. But this time Doris may have met her match. The Talons are out and revenge is so sweet.

I Do! I Do!

Thu, 2 Jun 2005 09:06:48 +1000

A marriage is at the centre of this intimate and nostalgic musical. We begin with Micheal and Agnes on their wedding day and we trace their life together over a period of 50 years, until the day they leave their house to the pair of newlyweds.
 In that time we watch them go through wedding night jitters, raise a family, negotiate mid-life crises, quarrel, separate, reconcile and grow old together, all lovingly to the strains of a tuneful, charming score which includes the standard "My Cup Runneth Over"

The Judas Kiss

Thu, 3 Mar 2005 09:11:02 +1100

Oscar Wilde's relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas has inspired contemporary writers for decades. In his heart-breaking account of love tested to destruction, David Hare presents his powerful interpretation of what may have happened behind closed doors between Wilde and Douglas.

The last in David Hare's trilogy of plays about love and betrayal, the play lays bare the drama of two critical moments in Wiled's last years; the day he decides to stay in England and face imprisonment and the night after his release, two years later, when the lover for whom he risked and lost everything betrays him.

Warning: This play contains nudity.

Over the River and Through the Woods

Thu, 18 Nov 2004 09:13:27 +1100

Nick is a single Italian-American Guy from New Jersey. His parents retired and moved to Florida. That doesn't mean his family isn't still in Jersey. In fact he sees both sets of his grandparents every Sunday for dinner. This is routine until he has to tell them he has to tell them he's been offered a dream job. The job he's been waiting for - marketing executive - would take him away from his beloved but annoying grandparents.

He tells them. The news doesn't sit so well. Thus begins a series of schemes to keep Nick around. How could he betray his family's love and move to Seattle for a job, wonder his grandparents? Well, Frank, Aida, Nunzio and Emma do their level best, and that includes bringing to dinner the lovely - and single - Caitlin O'Hare as bait...

Proof

Thu, 2 Sep 2004 09:17:01 +1000

Catherine has spent years caring for her brilliant but unstable father, a famous mathematician. Now following his death, she must deal with her own volatile emotions, the arrival of her estranged sister Claire, and the attentions of Hal, a former student of her father's who hopes to find valuable work in the notebooks that her father left behind.  Over the long weekend that follows, a burgeoning romance and the discovery of a mysterious notebook draw Catherine into the most difficult problem of all. How much of her father's madness, or genius, will she inherit?

Life After George

Thu, 10 Jun 2004 09:19:11 +1000

Peter George, charismatic academic, idealist and lover of life is dead. His wife, two ex-wives and daughter gather for his funeral. As the true nature of the man and his life unfolds, so these women discover much about themselves and the lives they have lived both within and outside his shadow.

Written with passion and dangerous wit, Life After George is a compelling drama that broke box office records during its Melbourne premiere season.

The Laramie Project

Thu, 11 Mar 2004 09:21:16 +1100

In 1998, a twenty-one year old student was kidnapped and left to die, tied to a fence on the outskirts of Laramie, Wyoming. His name was Matthew Shepard.

A New York theatre company travelled to Laramie to chronicle the life of the town in the year after the murder. The result is a breathtaking theatrical collage that explores the depths to which humanity can sink and the compassionate heights to which we can climb. A powerful stage event that will touch and change those who witness this theatrical masterpiece.

Forget Me Knot

Thu, 20 Nov 2003 09:23:27 +1100

Forget-Me-Knot is a comedy with more twists and turns than a corkscrew.
Take an apparent mischievous amnesiac, a woman who is possibly, (but not certainly) his avaricious wife, a doltish policeman verging on paranoia and a sex obsessed doctor. Put them in a stew, stir violently and allow to simmer.

Proving again that life is closer to madness than sanity., Forget-Me-Knot is guaranteed to divert and entertain. You may never look at the world in the same well balanced way again.

Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me

Thu, 4 Sep 2003 09:34:29 +1000

An Englishman, an Irishman and an American are locked up together in a cell in the Middle East. As victims of political action, powerless to initiate change, what can they do? How do they live and survive?

Frank McGuiness explores the daily crisis endured by hostages whose strength comes from humour, wit and faith.

Based on a true story chronicled in the book "An Evil Cradling" by Irish hostage survivor Brian Keenan.

Quartet

Thu, 12 Jun 2003 09:37:06 +1000

We are in a retirement home for singers and muscians.

Three former opera singers (Wilfred, Cissy and Reggie), who have often worked together in the past, are about to be joined by a newcome. It turns out to be Jean, a major star in he day, and more to the point, the woman whom Reggie was once unhappily married.

Sparks fly, harmony is disrupted, and Jean, still acting like a Diva, refuses to take a part in the traditional end of year concert.

A warm, funny and at times very touching play, it premiered at the Albany Theatre, London in September 1999.

The Cocktail Hour

Thu, 13 Mar 2003 09:39:33 +1100

In The Cocktail Hour American playwright A.R. Gurney takes a humorous and touching look at shifting relationships and fading familial tradition. A contemporary playwright returns to his parents' home, seeking permission to mount a vaguely fictionalised play about his parents and their most sared ritual; the cocktail hour.
Family customs and generational differences encapsulated by their cocktail hour are gently dissected as the playwright seeks understanding with his father, who still reigns supreme within this lost bastion of disappearing civiilized lifestyle.
Hilarious and deeply moving by turns, this is a play as refreshing and intoxicating as a well-mixed beverage.

Jake’s Women

Fri, 22 Nov 2002 09:43:00 +1100

Jake is a writer and we are introduced to the women in his life - his wife, his daughter, his sister, his psychiatrist, his girlfriends - as he conjures them up in his imagination and tries to make sense of his life.
A very funny, different kind of play from the writer of Come Blow Your Horn, California Suite, The Odd Couple and Brighton Beach Memoirs.

Frankie and Johnnie in the Clair De Lune

Fri, 6 Sep 2002 09:48:08 +1000

Frankie is a waitress and Johnny a short-order cook working in the same restaurant. Johnny is convinced that he loves Frankie, a notion she considers ridiculous. She has had more dissappointments than delights in her life, and he is the veteran of one broken marriage already, and neither is in the first bloom of youth!
Yet out of their sometimes touching, sometimes hilarious interplay the promise of a relationship does begin to emerge.
Warning: This play contains nudity.

Wolf Lullaby

Fri, 14 Jun 2002 09:50:15 +1000

Inspired by news stories both here and abroad, Bell has written from the point of view of Angela and Warren Gael, whose nine-year-old daughter, Lizzie, has been accused of murder.

Set in a small peaceful town in Tasmania, the parents are faced with a nightmare; What should they do? Say nothing and give their daughter a chance to live her life? Or turn her over to the authorities and let the courts decide?

Meanwhile, as the mystery deepens and the police close in, Lizzie is holding the real truth of the murder... and she's not telling.

Same Time Next Year

Fri, 8 Mar 2002 09:56:16 +1100

Renowned director, Gaye Gay, is directing her second play for us, her first being 'Murder at the Vicarage' in 1996.   The romatic comedy, Same Time, Next Year, by Bernard Slade is a delightful American two-hander telling the story of Doris (played by Helen Ellis) and George (Ron Kofler), who, after a chance meeting, get together for one night every year over a period of 25 years.   Both are happily married parents and loyal to their families, except during their once a year encounters. We watch them mature and change as they go through various periods of their lives with changing manners, morals and attitudes. A warm and funny look at Americans in particular and people in general.  You may remember the very successful movie version starring Alan Alda and Ellen Burstyn..

The Cemetery Club

Fri, 23 Nov 2001 10:30:08 +1100

Ida, Lucille and Doris, New York widows and old friends, have been visiting their husbands' graves every month for years. One day into the cemetery, and their lives, comes Sam, a 'butcher who delivers'.

Sam's budding relationship with Ida causes ripples in the comfortable lives of the three ladies, but when they are all invited to Selma's wedding, Sam takes Mildred! This is a funny and poignat look at friendship and what it means.

The Beauty Queen of Leenane

Fri, 7 Sep 2001 10:32:39 +1000

Set in the mountains of Connemara, County Galaway, Ireland, "The Beauty Queen of Leenane" tells the story of Maureen Folan, a homebound spinster in her early forties, and of her manipulative, ageing mother, Mag Folan, who seems determined to sabotage Maureen's attempts to find happiness. The relationship between the two women forms the focus of an uncomfortable, but often hilarious examination of interdependence.

Into the tragi-comedy chain of events - set in motion by Mag's interference - are drawn the brothers, Ray and Pato Dooley, who become unwitting agents of destuction as the play moves towards its excruciating denoument.

This wonderful play was presented by the Melbourne Theatre Company in 1998 and we believe this to be the Australian Amateur Premiere. The Beauty Queen of Leenane was our entry in this year's Victorian Drama League Awards.

Nobody’s Perfect

Fri, 15 Jun 2001 10:37:12 +1000

Leonard has been writing breathless romance novels under the nom-de-plume of Myrtle Banbury. Harriet Copeland, the publisher, wants to meet Miss Banbury to discuss a lucrative publishing deal. What is Leonard to do?

Somehow Myrtle does make an appearance but matters are certainly not helped by the interference of Leonard's teenage daughter, Dee Dee, and his incorrigible father, Gus.
We are sure you will enjoy this boisterous evening of mayhem and misunderstanding.

Mass Appeal

Thu, 15 Mar 2001 10:41:02 +1100

Father Tim Farley, a lover of the good things in life, is comfortably ensconced as a priest of a prosperous congregation. Almost without realising it, he has resorted to flattering his parishioners and entertaining them with sermons that skirt any disturbing issues.

His well-ordered world is disrupted by the arrival of an intense and idealistic young seminarian whom he reluctantly agrees to take under his wing. There is immediate conflict. In the final essence their confrontation is a touching yet very funny examination of the nature of friendship, courage and the infinite variety of love.

Moon Over Buffalo

Fri, 24 Nov 2000 10:44:06 +1100

Moon Over Buffalo is set in the Erlanger Theatre, Buffalo, upstate New York. We meet George and Charlotte Hay, once well-known on stage, now struggling in second-rate repertory. Throw in their daughter Rosalind, Charlotte's mother Ethel, Rosalind's new boyfriend, and Eileen, who has had an affair with George, and what follows is an hilarious mix-up of events in a day in their lives.

George's indiscretion catches up with him, there are mistaken identities and a rehearsal and performance of ... which play, we wonder?

Murder on Arrival

Fri, 8 Sep 2000 10:47:34 +1100

Murder on Arrival is an English ‘whodunit’ as you can imagine. The beautiful widow, her former lover, a handsome young American, the flirty neighbour and her composer husband, a sexy housemaid, 2 bodies, mix well together and what have you got? The action passes in the sitting-room of Brook Hollow, a cottage in Cornwall.

Speaking in Tongues

Thu, 8 Jun 2000 10:51:43 +1000

Pete is married to Jane. Leon is married to Sonja. Pete meets Sonja and they go to a cheap hotel. Leon meets Jane and they go to a cheap hotel. A double infidelity.

Pete goes home and tells Jane about a neighbour who throws a woman’s shoe into a vacant block. Sonja goes home and tells Leon about a man who wears brown brogues. How the character’s lives intertwine is gradually revealed as four actors play nine roles in this taut Australian drama.