Site-Responsive DARKNESS Comes to the Library in Newtown
Performances run 10 January – Sunday 19 February 2023.
Inspired by an extraordinary gathering in 1816 - the year without a summer - Darkness is a rich, seductive, gothic work set to transport audiences to overlapping worlds of mystery, transformation, fantasy, and wonder.
A site-responsive theatrical experience, Darkness will inhabit the Library in Newtown and is created by artists Andrew Bovell (Lantana, Head On, When the Rain Stops Falling), Zoey Dawson (Australian Realness, The Unspoken Word is Joe, Calamity), Dan Giovannoni (Loaded, Merciless Gods, Jurassica) and Megan Wilding (GAME. SET. MATCH, A Little Piece of Ash), together with director Dino Dimitriadis (Cleansed, Angels in America Parts I & II, Overflow).
Director Dino Dimitriadis says: "Darkness dares to ask bold questions of our times, what it means to be human, and how we hunger for pleasure and connection. Some of the boldest artists in the country have come together to create an experience that transports audiences in worlds of story and transformation.
"This building takeover allows us to respond to a unique site, a space where the past, present and future can collide in limitless possibility."
The Library will inhabit the historic Newtown School of Arts building in Eliza Street, recently announced as the site of a revitalisation project to expand and extend the legacy of the School of Arts movement of the 19th Century. Following Darkness, the upgrade will transform the building into a modern, multi-genre arts hub whilst retaining its remarkable and intact heritage fabric.
Producer Rodney Rigby says "Newtown School of Arts was a pioneering, original social enterprise that has had a continuous history since 1917. We are excited to transform the building into "our Library" for one of the boldest and most exciting theatrical experiences we have ever produced in Darkness, created by some of the country's most admired artists."
For Darkness, the site will be transformed into an eerie mansion of lost and extinct things by designer Isabel Hudson (The Mousetrap, American Psycho, Cry-Baby), in collaboration with lighting designer Trent Suidgeest (Muriel's Wedding the Musical, Prima Facie) and music and sound designers James Brown (Home I'm Darling, Lord of the Flies) and Daniel Herten (The Picture of Dorian Gray, Rules For Living).
Amid thunder and lightning, five deeply-curious and combative friends defy orders to take refuge in an abandoned house. At its centre is the infamous poet Byron who, confronted by nature's wrath, turmoil and plague, is caught in a tug of war of life and death.
Both intimate and epic, the adventurous production explores themes of savage nature, hunger for connection, life, death and the desire to be reborn and renewed.
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