Year: 2014

Photo by Blueprint Studios Reginald Season 2014, Seymour Centre and The Theatre Division present RUTHLESS, THE MUSICAL. Book and Lyrics by Joel Paley. Music by Marvin Laird. In the Reginald Theatre, Seymour Centre, City Road, Chippendale, June 19-July 5. RUTHLESS, The Musical: Book and Lyrics by Joel Paley; Music by Marvin Laird, written in 1992, is one of those off-Broadway (that is New York, as opposed to being off the Sydney Broadway, just down the street to the Seymour Centre) musicals that can become, in a city where musicals are such a BIG part of their theatre diet (financial raison…

Sydney Theatre Company (STC) presents MOJO by Jez Butterworth in the Wharf 1 Theatre, Hickson Rd, Walsh Bay, 28th May-5th July. MOJO by Jez Butterworth, first presented at the Royal Court Theatre, in 1995, has had a recent revival at the Harold Pinter Theatre, in London’s West End. When first presented, the play was received as a high octane cocktail of testosterone – of equal combinations of sex, drugs and rock-and-roll. It won some theatre prizes. Set in a seedy, struggling nightclub in the Soho sleaze of the late nineteen fifties, the overture to the ‘swinging London’ fame of yore,…

Siren Theatre Co and Griffin Independent, in association with InPlay Arts, present THE VIOLENT OUTBURST THAT DREW ME TO YOU by Finegan Kruckemeyer, at the SBW Stables Theatre, Kings Cross. THE VIOLENT OUTBURST THAT DREW ME TO YOU by Finegan Kruckemeyer. Mr Kruckemeyer is a writer domiciled in Tasmania and has written some “70 commercial plays performed on five continents. … In 2014, eighteen works are, or will be, presented in seven countries…”, and this is the first play of his that I have seen! Most of his plays are written with children and young adults in mind – this…

The National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) present KANDAHAR GATE, by Stephen Sewell, in The Parade Theatre, Kensington. 17th-21thJune, 23rd-24th June. KANDAHAR GATE is a new Australian play by Stephen Sewell. Mr Sewell, at present is the Head of Writing at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA), and this play and production is part of the training productions for the third year courses of 2014. I don’t usually comment on productions in Acting Schools, but not to mention the advent of this play, especially for historical record, would be a cultural remiss. Stephen Sewell was (is) one of the…

M.ROCK is a new play by Lachlan Philpott. Commissioned by the Australian Theatre for Young People (ATYP) and co-presented by the Sydney Theatre Company. Mr Philpott is, in my experience, the most interesting of the ‘new’ contemporary Australian writers. For those of us who have closely followed Mr Philpott’s work, M.ROCK, is a very surprising and pleasing change of content and tone, from his other recent major works: COLDER (2007), SILENT DISCO (2009) and TRUCK STOP (2012). COLDER is a fierce experience of grief for an unaccounted loss of a son, and the ruins endured by family and friends as his memory,…

Photo by Brett Boardman Belvoir presents BROTHERS WRECK by Jada Alberts at the Upstairs Belvoir Theatre, Belvoir St, Surry Hills. 28th May – 22nd June. BROTHERS WRECK by Jada Alberts is a new Australian play. A new work from a new writer. This is Ms Alberts’ first play. It is an accomplished work, even despite, its well honed formulaic, some might say, old fashioned, structure and style. More kudos to it, I reckon. The concentrated attention and appreciation that the audience I sat with, demonstrated the power of a comprehensible, well told story, that has a perceptible beginning, middle and…