Category: Toby Schmitz

Belvoir presents HAMLET by William Shakespeare in the Upstairs Theatre, Belvoir St, Surry Hiills. HAMLET by William Shakespeare, is, perhaps the challenge, the equivalent measuring stick for a theatre company and its artistic endeavours as, say, Tchaikovsky’s SWAN LAKE may be for the Ballet Companies of the World, or, Wagner’s DE RING DES NIBELUNGEN may be for an Opera Company, or, Beethoven’s NINTH SYMPHONY for a Concert Orchestra. This production of HAMLET at the Belvoir Theatre is an adaptation by Simon Stone of William Shakespeare’s play, for 8 actors and 2 musicians. The original text has been severely edited and…

Rock Surfers Theatre Company presents EMPIRE: TERROR ON THE HIGH SEAS. A Spectacle by Toby Schmitz at the Bondi Pavilion Theatre, Bondi Beach. At the curtain call at the end of the performance, of EMPIRE: TERROR ON THE HIGH SEAS – A Spectacle by Toby Schmitz, spread across the entire width of that notoriously difficult Bondi Pavilion stage (a Cinerama width of a stage), and spilling off into the auditorium, even – over 20 actors took many bows – it was an opening night. The sheer scale of that vision of human effort and commitment, elicited from me, a deep,…

ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD is one of those famous plays by a now famous writer, Tom Stoppard, that every young, university actor wants to be in, or do a scene from. In the early nineteen sixties, having the idea that the King of England to whom Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, in Shakespeare’s HAMLET, were dispatched, was probably King Lear, Tom Stoppard wrote, whilst working in West Berlin, with several other writers on a Ford Foundation Award (as “cultural window dressing” for the allies!) a one-act comedy in verse called tentatively, ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN MEET KING LEAR. A seed had been…

Photo by by Heidrun Lohr BELVOIR presents PRIVATE LIVES by Noel Coward, in the Upstairs Theatre at Belvoir St Theatre, Surry Hills. What a surprise (pleasant for some, or, otherwise, for others) to find at the Belvoir St Theatre that PRIVATE LIVES by Noel Coward was scheduled into their programming. It speaks volumes as to the essential old fashioned values and conservatism of the Company of Artists that ordain an important part of the opportunities we have when we attend the performing arts culture in Sydney. I appreciate their tendency, if not always the product. More cannily, it might be a hint at…

  Tamarama Rock Surfers Theatre Company present I WANT TO SLEEP WITH TOM STOPPARD – a new play by Toby Schmitz at the Bondi pavilion, at Bondi Beach. I WANT TO SLEEP WITH TOM STOPPARD is the latest play by Toby Schmitz – yes, that actor we read about in both the two major papers two weekends ago, who is about to impersonate Elyot Chase in Noel Coward’s super erudite comic masterpiece PRIVATE LIVES for our delectation and, I hope, delicious appreciation. Mr Schmitz has also being writing for many, many years now, and he is pretty good at it.…

  Belvoir presents STRANGE INTERLUDE by Simon Stone after Eugene O’Neill at the Upstairs Belvoir St Theatre. This STRANGE INTERLUDE is a new Australian play by Simon Stone after the Eugene O’Neill original, written in 1927, presented on Broadway in 1928 by the Theatre Guild at the John Golden Theatre. This play was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1928. In preparing for the performance of this new play I read the original by Eugene O’Neill. I had read it was once before, many years ago, but barely remembered it, except for the impression that the leading role, that…