Category: Toby Schmitz

Photo by Lisa Tomasetti Belvoir presents, THE DANCE OF DEATH, by August Strindberg, from a literal translation by May-Brit Akerholt, in the Upstairs Theatre, Belvoir St. Surry Hills. November 10 – December 23. Judy Davis, as Director, has devised with her company of actors: Giorgia Avery, Colin Friels, Pamela Rabe and Toby Schmitz, a production of August Strindberg’s THE DANCE OF DEATH, using a literal translation by May-Brit Akerholt. August Strindberg is a famous Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter. Most of the English speaking world is familiar with his playwriting, but in Sweden he is equally renowned for the…

Photo by John Marmaras Red Line Productions and Old Fitz present, DEGENERATE ART, by Toby Schmitz, at the Old Fitz Theatre, Cathedral St. Woolloomooloo. 18th October – 4th November. DEGENERATE ART, is a new Australian play, by Toby Schmitz. DEGENERATE ART, is a 100 minute play without interval. An interlocutor, played by Megan O’Connell, introduces us to a group of men, dressed in variations of contemporary schmick black, who have been brooding about the stage as we entered, occupying a Set Design, by Maya Keys, of a wall smear of, mostly, green and black paints (one part of it hung…

Photo by Anna Kucera Belvoir presents, THE ROVER, by Aphra Behn, in the Upstairs Theatre, Belvoir St, Surry Hills. July 5 – 6 August. THE ROVER, is a play by Aphra Behn, written in 1677. It is part of the playwriting literature emanating from the Restoration of Charles II to the throne and power, after the Puritanical leadership of Oliver Cromwell as the Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland. The play, in verse, is a swash-buckling exuberance of Carnival time in the city of Naples, invaded by some English sea-dog exiles, roving the Mediterranean, some 20 years…

  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…

THE PRESENT, is an adaptation by Andrew Upton of the, Russian, Anton Chekhov play, PLATONOV. PLATONOV was a play found “among papers ‘accessioned to the Central State Literary Archive in 1920.’ from items found in a Moscow bank depositors safe. This box was that of M.P. Chekhov – Maria Pavlovna Chekhov’s safe deposit box. She, the fiercely devoted sister of Anton. In 1923, the Soviet literary scholar, Nikolai Belchikov, introduced and annotated the previously unpublished play by Anton Chekhov. There is no certainty about when the play was written, but it seems there is some plausibility given to the idea…

Photo by Kathy Luu Red Line Productions in association with Strange Duck Productions and Sydney Independent Theatre Company (SITCO) present, HOWIE THE ROOKIE, by Mark O’Rowe at the Old Fitzroy Theatre, Woolloomoooloo. 30 September- 25 October. Some of you may remember the tour of the Abbey Theatre at the Drama Theatre, for the Sydney Theatre Company (STC), in 2011, when they presented a play by Mark O’Rowe called, TERMINUS. It consisted of three monologues interwoven, in a performance that was mostly just a spot lit, static stand or sit. People, audiences were in a kind of rapture. HOWIE THE ROOKIE, an…