New Theatre: Season 2015 Launch

Tuesday 25th November 2014, 7pm, New Theatre, Newtown NSW

From attending the New Theatre 2015 season launch, it is clear from Artistic Director Louise Fischer's introduction that New Theatre is a "family" with a passion for what they create. The 2015 line up continues the company's legacy of staging productions that will challenge ideas and discuss issues, and even the plays that were written in other eras remain relevant to the current society.

Since New Theatre was established in 1932 as the Sydney Workers Art Club, the "Non Professional" theatre company has staged approximately 550 productions and has evolved to be closer to an "Independent" company in the standard it delivers. From its start, with the slogan "Art is a Weapon", it has addressed and challenged ideas and issues facing society through the years from Nazism, censorship, anti-apartheid, black deaths in custody, and since 1994 has held productions as part of the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.

Whilst the company relies on volunteers and audience support, not receiving any ongoing grants or subsidies, it has played a significant role in the industry by providing a start for new performers, directors, artists, technicians and playwrights.

MEDIA RELEASE:

On Tuesday 25 November, in front of a packed house, Artistic Director Louise Fischer announced New Theatre's exciting season for 2015.

Next year New Theatre will give Sydney audiences a program which is diverse, entertaining and adventurous. And the overarching theme for 2015 is Think New, Think Big!

Because that's what the New does best: present those big-cast plays for which we've become recognised and in the process give both emerging and established artists - actors, directors, designers and technical crew - the chance to strut their stuff and be seen and appreciated for their skill and talent. If even one actor or director or designer scores a professional gig from working at the New, then we feel we've achieved one of our purposes.

But of course, we're also about entertainment, and enriching the theatrical experience for Sydney audiences. We're looking forward to seeing our loyal regulars and welcoming new faces to enjoy the program next year. So, what's in store at the New in 2015? Ranging across drama, comedy and musical theatre, we're revisiting two hits from our past (Mother Clap's Molly House and The Diary of Anne Frank), reviving contemporary classics from Australia (When the Rain Stops Falling) and the UK (The Real Thing), taking a new slant on two classic 'comedies of manners' in The School for Scandal and The Women and rounding out the year with the hilarious home-grown musical treat that is Dinkum Assorted.

The directorial team for 2015 includes established New Theatre directors including Artistic Director Louise Fisher (Harvest, Enron), Alice Livingstone (Privates on Parade, Top Girls) and Frank McNamara (The Real Inspector Hound). Two directors from the New's 2014 Sydney Fringe season - Sam Thomas (The Matilda Waltz) and Sahn Millington (Amanda) are taking on the mainstage, and we welcome New Theatre debutants Rachel Chant (Associate Director, Rock Surfers Theatre Co) and NIDA 2014 Directors' Course graduate David Burrowes.

Here's the line-up of shows. Bookings now open at NEWTHEATRE.ORG.AU

Presented as part of the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras Festival

MOTHER CLAP'S MOLLY HOUSE

A PLAY WITH SONGS BY MARK RAVENHILL, MUSIC BY MATTHEW SCOTT

10 FEBRUARY - 7 MARCH

Director: Louise Fischer

"Shit on those who call this sodomy / We call it fabulous!"

It's London, 1726 and Mrs Tull is struggling to save her frock-hire business. She hits on a plan to open a molly house - a brothel where the 'girls' are boys in frocks and the beer flows - and soon business is booming!

Meanwhile, in a trendy 21st century Bloomsbury loft, a gay relationship is disintegrating amidst the drugs and toys of a sex party.

Shifting deftly between time periods, Mark Ravenhill (Shopping and f-ing) creates a subversive and astringent satire that celebrates the diversity of human sexuality and explores our emotional need to form families whilst simultaneously slamming the commodification of sex.

After presenting the Australian premiere a decade ago, New Theatre revives this riotous musical play, bursting with outrageous characters, graphic sexuality, bawdy songs and handsome men!

"Wonderfully exuberant ... celebrates Sodom like there's no Gomorah" The Guardian

WHEN THE RAIN STOPS FALLING

BY ANDREW BOVELL

17 MARCH - 18 APRIL

Director: Rachel Chant

"You can be standing on solid ground then without even noticing, it turns to water beneath you. And if you don't move, you'll drown"

The story takes place between two worlds, between a prediction in 1959 and its outcome eighty years later, through the interconnected stories of two families over four generations.

Gabriel Law leaves London for the wild coast of South Australia, determined to retrace his father Henry's footsteps in an attempt to unravel the mystery of his disappearance when he was only a boy.

He meets a vulnerable young woman named Gabrielle, and together they journey into the vastness of the Australian desert, sharing their stories and falling in love. Through their interweaving narratives we are led back to the future, to a time of unceasing rain and a day when fish fall from the sky.

Acclaimed Australian writer Andrew Bovell (Lantana) has created an epic investigation of humanity and family, of shared experience and inherited legacies, which asks the question: do we have the capacity to address the damage of the past in the future?

"Sad, exquisite, a beautiful play" The West Australian

THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL

BY RICHARD BRISLEY SHERIDAN

28 APRIL - 30 MAY

Director: David Burrowes

"People will talk-there's no preventing it."

A hedonistic society consumed by gossip, ambition and greed forms the backdrop for this delicious, witty comedy of manners.

Two brothers, one an amiable rake, the other a sanctimonious cad, are tested by their wealthy uncle to determine which is the more trustworthy; and crusty old fool-in-love tries to tame his feisty, much- younger wife.

Amidst the hilarity, the plots and subplots and many tangled webs lurks a cast of characters whose names say it all: Lady Teazle, Lady Sneerwell, Mrs Candour, Surface, Backbite, Snake ... There is much deception, double-dealing and backstabbing but virtue wins out over vice in the end.

This production will bring a contemporary vision to an 18th century classic. Human nature doesn't change: the foibles and desires on display in this world of hypocritical scandal-mongering are all too recognizable and make Sheridan's satirical morality play a timeless joy.

"A comic masterpiece ... provocative and intelligent" The Independent

THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK

BY FRANCES GOODRICH AND ALBERT HACKETT

9 JUNE - 11 JULY

Director: Sam Thomas

"Then the war came ... and things got very bad for the Jews"

Anne Frank dreamt of immortality as a writer; yet it was her teenage diary, never meant for other eyes, which would make her one of the most powerful voices in literature.

In German-occupied Amsterdam during World War II, the Frank family has gone into hiding with another Jewish family in the attic of Otto Frank's warehouse in order to escape persecution and imprisonment.

For two years, eight people live in one room, in fear of their lives, and 13-year old Anne documents their existence in forensic detail. Through her precocious eyes are revealed the petty disputes, the personality clashes, the shared little pleasures: until, betrayed, they are discovered and sent to concentration camps.

Anne, her sister and mother all perished, but her father survived and published his daughter's diary as a testament to the resilience of the human spirit.

Last produced by New Theatre in 2001, we are proud to be revisiting this extraordinary drama, winner of both the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize for Best Play.

"Inspirational and uplifting" The Guardian

THE WOMEN

BY CLARE BOOTHE LUCE

11 AUGUST - 12 SEPTEMBER

Director: Frank McNamara

"There's only one tragedy for a woman. Losing her man"

Written in 1936, this satirical comedy of manners is set in the world of Manhattan socialites and social climbers: trophy wives, single girls, ambitious hustlers, career women, shop girls, chorus girls, mothers and daughters.

Clare Boothe Luce's caustic pen exposes these women's pampered lives, power struggles, friendships and rivalries, and the gossip that both feeds and damages their relationships. While the men in their lives are an ever-present driver for the events of the play, they are never seen. It is the 'ladies who lunch' who form the nucleus of this world.

Marriage as a means of social advancement for women, the role of children in relationships, and controversial topics for the times such as bisexuality, adultery and divorce are all explored with sharp wit and remorseless honesty. Underneath the camp wise-cracking, the catfights and the melodrama lies an insightful study of human nature at its best and worst.

"A glorious cat-clawing rampage" The New York Times

THE REAL THING

BY TOM STOPPARD

6 OCTOBER - 7 NOVEMBER

Director: Alice Livingstone

"It's no trick loving someone at their best. Love is loving them at their worst"

Henry, a successful playwright, has fallen deeply in love with Annie, a vivacious actress, and they have left their respective spouses to embark upon a life together.

But Henry is riven by doubts - is what he feels 'the real thing' or merely an illusion? While Annie, taking up the political cause of a soldier arrested for an anti-war protest and pursued by a young co-star, is starting to feel the pressures of fidelity.

Having blithely written a hit play about adultery, Henry gradually comes to an awareness of the torment that love and betrayal can bring in their wake.

In this brilliant exploration of commitment - to spouses, lovers, children, causes, ideas - Stoppard brings together head and heart, life and art in exhilarating style.

"A play that glows with love's warmth and burns with love's pain" The Telegraph (UK)

DINKUM ASSORTED

BOOK, LYRICS AND MUSIC BY LINDA ARONSON

17 NOVEMBER - 19 DECEMBER

Director: Sahn Millington

"Some kid in Canberra isn't telling me he's gotta wreck a whole factory to get a bit of steel"

During the winter of 1942, with the world at war and the nation facing invasion from the Japanese, in the remote North Queensland town of Warrabadanga the fifteen female workers at the Dinkum Biscuit Factory are battling to keep the biscuits baking.

For these ordinary Aussie women in a town devoid of men, life is challenging. Not only are they fighting to save the factory from being sold for scrap, they're running a 'Mum's Army' Civil Defence Unit, putting on a show for the 'War Effort' - and coping with the sudden arrival of two thousand American airmen who've been stationed just outside town.

This poignant, funny and entertaining musical comedy about a group of women striving for personal and professional freedom against the backdrop of a changing world serves up a slice of Australian social history with laughter, tears, songs, tap dancing - and Rita, the regimental goat!

"You will love every minute of it" The Australian

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