Category: New Theatre

  NEW THEATRE present MILKMILKLEMONADE by Joshua Conkel at the New Theatre, Newtown. MILKMILKLEMONADE a play by Joshua Conkel concerns, in essence, the coming-of-age of two young boys, Emory (Mark Dessaix) and Elliot (Kieran Foster) living in the boon-docks of somewhere in America, who are gay and are not sure what that is. The play is set on a chicken farm. It is run by Nanna (Peter Nettell) – impersonated here as a lady with all the visual ‘drag’ qualities of kitchy butch: flamboyantly grotesque trappings of wig, make up and costume, who has a certain pragmatic charm and direct…

New Theatre present QUIET COMPANIONS and the BRYCE is RIGHT at the New Theatre, Newtown. QUIET COMPANIONS is a partly improvised playlet set in, supposedly, the Victorian Era.  This is “a show that begins with a delightfully wicked twosome playing private games (that) slowly descends into an exploration of the dark, psychological country that lies beneath.”  According to Marko Mustac the creator, director and one of the performers of this exercise in the theatre, the other being Lyn Pierce, he hopes that “unlike most improvised shows this is a serious piece: it is not meant to be funny … It…

  New Theatre present ENTERTAINING MR SLOANE by Joe Orton at the New Theatre, Newtown. ENTERTAINING MR SLOANE (1964), LOOT (1965) and WHAT THE BUTLER SAW (1967) are the three major plays of Joe Orton. All, now classics, timeless in their observations. The form of Mr Orton’s inventions became progressively more and more sophisticated until finally in WHAT THE BUTLER SAW, we have a masterpiece of wit, at a Restoration play level of complication and satire, and a combined dangerous physical farce of the top notch vaudeville stage exemplars. Both ingredients insisting on actors of amazing skills to pull it…

  New Theatre presents LORD OF THE FLIES, adapted by Nigel Williams from the novel by William Golding. LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding, a Nobel prize Winner for Literature, was written in 1954, and has become one of the most studied and popular novels ever written. It is still part of the school syllabus. The work has been made into film, notably by Peter Brook in 1963 and by Harry Hook in 1990. This play adaptation was completed under commission from the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1995 by Nigel Williams, he himself a novelist and playwright. This version…

  New Theatre presents THE TEMPERAMENTALS by Jon Marans at the New Theatre, Newtown. I have been, of late, busy creating. Hence, the slow list of Diary entries. One of these activities has been my direction of THE TEMPERAMENTALS by Jon Marans for the New Theatre as part of the Mardi Gras theatre program. The other has been work on Gao Xingjjian’s wonderful play, THE OTHER SHORE, for the School of Art and Media at the University of New South Wales. I am genuinely pleased about the experience of THE TEMPERAMENTALS and particularly proud of the work of the actors…

This is not to be a normal post, but rather an update of the circumstances in which I will continue to write. I graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Arts in the Acting Course (NIDA) in 1971 – yikes 41 years ago. Since then, I have worked as an actor, director and teacher of acting, both in Australia and Internationally – Principally, the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco. I worked as a teacher at NIDA, part time and full time for 28 years. I have just finished a ten year stint as a full-time staff member, working with…