Category: Louis Nowra

Redline Productions in association with the Sydney Festival 2020, present, BETTY BLOKK-BUSTER REIMAGINED, text by Reg Livermore, Mary Rachel Brown and Louis Nowra in the Spiegeltent, Hyde Park, Sydney. January 7-26th January. With the announcement that there was to be a re-imagining of the BETTY BLOCK-BUSTER show/phenomenon that had made its debut in 1975 at the Bijou Theatre in Balmain, confirming Reg Livermore a star – for he had made his mark of ascendancy to the ‘stars’ in our theatrical heaven as part of the ‘Tribe” in the 1969 production of the American musical HAIR, and spectacularly in the first…

Lewis (Sean Keenan) is a character creation of Louis Nowra that appears in three of his plays, SUMMER OF THE ALIENS (1992), COSI (1992) and THIS MUCH IS TRUE (2017). In COSI, Lewis takes on a job directing some patients of a local mental hospital in a ‘therapy’ production of Mozart’s COSI FAN TUTTI. This is not Lewis’ choice but one foisted on him by the thespian leader of the hospital patients, Roy (Robert Menzies), and his enthusiasm will not be brooked. The play charts the development of the rehearsals and first performance, hilarious in its ups-and-downs, as it negotiates the…

  Red Line Productions present THIS MUCH IS TRUE, by Louis Nowra, at the Old Fitz Theatre, Cathedral St, Woolloomooloo, 12 July – 12 August. THIS MUCH IS TRUE is the first major commission from Red Line Productions. The Old Fitz Theatre is a 60 seat theatre in the basement of the Old Fitz Hotel, in Woolloomooloo, and one of the regular denizens, one of the locals of the neighbourhood, that uses the pub as a regular drinking location and ‘community centre’ is Australian writer Louis Nowra. Since 2014, Andrew Henry, one of the Directors of Red Line Productions, has…

Photo by Ross Waldron Don’t Look Away in association with Red Line Productions present INNER VOICES, by Louis Nowra, at the Old Fitz Theatre, Cathedral, Wooloomooloo, 15 June – 9 July, 2016. INNER VOICES is one of Louis Nowra’s early plays (1977). It is a ‘speculation’ around the  determination of the Guards in organising the succession to the Russian throne. In 1764, Ivan, (Ivan VI),  a rival to Catherine the Great, has been locked as a child in a prison cell, and is, in this play, propelled to a position of Rule through the ambitions of some greedy power brokers,…

Photo by Lisa Tomasetti Sydney Theatre Company presents THE GOLDEN AGE, by Louis Nowra, at the Wharf 1 Thearte, Hickson Rd, Walsh Bay.  19 Jan – 20 Feb. THE GOLDEN AGE, by Louis Nowra was published in 1985. The first production was given at the Playbox Theatre in Melbourne, Directed by Rex Cramphorn. I first saw the play in a NIDA production by Neil Armfield with Richard Roxburgh, as Francis – it was a truly memorable production. I have had, always, a ‘romance’ about the early work of Louis Nowra. In the late 1970’s a group of artists, including myself, had…

  Photo by by Brett Boardman Belvoir presents, RADIANCE, by Louis Nowra, in the Upstairs Theatre, Belvoir Street Theatre, Surry Hills, 7 January – 8 February. From the writers notes the $13 Program and Currency Press text publication of RADIANCE, by Louis Nowra: RADIANCE is an exuberant black sabbath for three great Indigenous dames. Cressy, Nona and Mae are half sisters with little in common except the ghosts of their childhood. They gather, in the tropical Queensland landscape, for Mum’s funeral. These three sisters are forces of nature, and they haven’t been in the same room for many, many years. It…