MTC to Open 2014 Season with PRIVATE LIVES

Associate Artistic Director Sam Strong opens MTC's 2014 mainstage season with Noël Coward's delightful comedy of manners, Private Lives. This sparkling tale about love, lust and marriage stars recent Helpmann Award winner Lucy Durack (Wicked, Legally Blonde) alongside Leon Ford, John Leary and Julie Forsyth.

Sam Strong also directs two hotly anticipated world premieres in MTC's 2014 Season - The Speechmaker and The Sublime.

In their long-awaited playwrighting debut, the Working Dog team of Santo Cilauro, Tom Gleisner and Rob Sitch bring to the stage their razor sharp wit in The Speechmaker, a political satire about global power and the fumbling hands that hold it. Actor/writer Brendan Cowell's brilliantly perceptive The Sublime puts footy, mateship, social media and sex under the microscope just in time for AFL grand final season.

MTC Associate Director Leticia Cáceres directs two Australian premieres next year from some of the most exciting British playwrights on UK stages. c*ckby Mike Bartlett examines sexuality and indecision in an intimate and provocative play that will feature original music by Missy Higgins.

Later next year Leticia Cáceres directs Sigrid Thornton in her awaited return to the stage in the Australian premiere of Lucy Prebble's The Effect. Tackling our notion of happiness in a chemically-controlled reality The Effect explores the limits of medicine and the inevitability of physical attraction that had critics raving on its UK debut.

As well last week Simon Stone, director of MTC's The Cherry Orchard, opened his radical and brilliant production of Hamlet in Sydney. Stone returns to MTC next year to direct Neighbourhood Watch, starring Robyn Nevin.

Subscriptions to Melbourne Theatre Company's Season 2014 are available now via Southbank Theatre Box Office on mtc.com.au or 03 8688 0800.

Single Tickets for Private Lives, c*ckand Neighbourhood Watch go on-sale to the general public on Tuesday 3 December 2013. Bookings via Southbank Theatre Box Office on mtc.com.au or 03 8688 0800