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Cosi by Louis NowraTantrum + Civic theatre Lewis has dreams of being a director and when he is offered a job putting on his first production he jumps at the opportunity. There’s one hitch, his cast is a group of mental patients who have their own ideas about what they want to do. Think opera, think pyromaniacs, think the bringing together of outcasts to create the show that will change their lives, forever. |
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We Came in Chains by TANTRUM TheatreTantrum + The Hunter Singers + Newcastle Region Maritime Museum We Came in Chains rakes through the bones of Newcastle’s past to raise our forgotten ghosts and recreate our convict history. It tells the story of young convict children forced to leave their homes for an uncertain life in a hellish penal colony. No ship, no gaol, no lumber yard story will remain unearthed to tell this tale of woe, injustice, triumph and freedom. It is beautifully woven together with traditional folk songs and a haunting sound scape created live by The Hunter Singers. The Hunter Singers have performed with leading international artists, including Daniel Johns and Paul Mac of the Disassociatives. |
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Riot! by Nantsou, Bates, Brown, GavaIn late 2005, a race riot erupted on Sydney’s Cronulla beach. Combining story telling, hip hop music and contemporary writing, TANTRUM Theatre invites three of Australia’s finest playwrights to collaborate with Newcastle’s leading young performers and MC’s. Together they explore the insidious forces behind these violent events and contemplate their impact on our community and our nation. |
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Hoods by Angela BetzienCommissioned by Sydney Opera House and Regional Arts Victoria. Supported by the RE Trust KYLE: Wish I was an Xbox wish I was. From the creators of Children of the Black Skirt comes a contemporary tale of Hansel and Gretel as told by two Hoods. Two Hoods ride the train each night to a wrecking yard on the outskirts of the city. Here, in this cemetery of stories, they are storytellers with the power to fast forward, pause and rewind. Tonight, they tell the story of three kids left in a car. |
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Powerforce Live by TANTRUM TheatrePerforming Arts Newcastle, Newcastle, 2006 Australia 2040. A draught of biblical proportions cripples Australia, which has officially run out of drinking water. In Australia one man, Mr Green, controls the complete supply of water to the public. Families receive their ration of one bucket a week. But is this really the only water available to Australians or is Mr Green secretly draining the world dry for his own profit? It’s a conspiracy story to end all conspiracy stories. |
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Savage Naked Love by TANTRUM TheatreHoneysuckle Workshops, Newcastle, 2006 Savage Naked Love is a dark comedy about two teenage girls, Jasmine and Sophie, and their struggle for popularity. Jasmine is publicly humiliated after spiteful rumours spread that she has a sexually transmitted disease (STD). Embarrassed and humiliated, she is forced to leave school. Sophie, a naïve young woman from a protective family, finds herself caught in the middle of this battle as her own awakening to the world of attraction and boys begins. |
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The Memory of Water by Shelagh StephensonQPAT Playhouse, Queensland Theatre Company, Brisbane 2005 Three sisters are reunited on the eve of their mother’s funeral. They quickly slip into their old patterns of pretty bickering and blistering put-downs. As the memories of their past are conjured up, adult insecurities, regrets and fears resurface. Winner of London’s prized Oliver Award (Best Comedy, 2000), Shelagh Stephenson’s The Memory of Water is one of those gems that remind us that theatre is, above all else, a place of the heart. |
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The Taming of the Shrew by William ShakespeareQueens Park, USQ Shakespeare Festival in the Park, Toowoomba, 2005 A rich Paduan merchant has two daughters - the gentle, lovable Bianca, and the razor-tongued Katharina. And though Bianca has several suitors, she may not marry until the elder Kate has found a husband. When the boorish Petruchio announces his willingness to marry any woman with a large enough dowry, Bianca's dilemma seems to be solved. But is it possible Petruchio has met his match in the wild Kate? |
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Far Away by Caryl ChurchillBillie Brown Studio , Queensland Theatre Company, Brisbane 2004 Churchill’s short, sharp masterpiece shows us the world as it is discovered by Joan. As she grows from child, to young woman, to wife, we are introduced to a strange world filled with fear, where the difference between right and wrong has become clouded, and no one knows who or even what can be trusted any more. |
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Constance Drinkwater and the Final Days of Somerset by Stephen Carlton (reading)The Works, Billie Brown Studio , Queensland Theatre Company, Brisbane 2004 1899, in the remote Cape York outpost of Somerset, Lady Constance Drinkwater faces the terrible consequences of her late husband's actions in a truly bizarre twist that heightens this one woman's increasingly desperate circumstances. |
Jodie Le Vesconte and Janinie Matthews. |
Children of the Black SkirtAuspiced by Queensland Theatre Company. Queensland Arts Council tours, Come Out Festival Adelaide, Sydney Opera House, RAV Regional Tour 2003-2005. Three lost children stumble across an abandoned orphanage in the bush. They become trapped in a timeless world, haunted by spirits from the past. They are tormented, too, by the Black Skirt, a cruel governess who floats up and down the orphanage corridors wielding enormous scissors. But as the stories of these forgotten children are told— from pick pocketing incidents in the eighteenth century to the tragedies of the Stolen Generations in the twentieth— their spirits are released, one by one. |
Kellie Lazarus, Fiona Doyle and Mark Connaghan Photo by Stephen Henry |
The Orphanage ProjectBillie Brown Studio, Queensland Theatre Company, Brisbane 2003 The Orphanage Project is an epic gothic fairytale, told in a mythical, timeless Australian orphanage. |
Laurel Collins and Marc Richards |
Kingswood KidsLa Boite Theatre Energex Brisbane Festival, Brisbane 2002 It’s Friday, KFC night and the last days of school before Christmas. Kyle, Jessie and baby brother Troy are waiting in the car for their mum. Kyle broods in the front seat with visions of Sony Play Station dancing in his head while Jessie begs him for a game of eye spy and a trip to the toilet to pee. As night closes in, the shopping centre shuts down, their mum still hasn’t come and the baby just won’t stop crying. |
Jodie Le Vesconte |
Princess of SuburbiaMagdalena Australia, Visy Theatre, Powerhouse, Brisbane 2003 A woman is alone in deep suburbia. In her state of depression she finds companionship in talk back TV. The woman is burdened by a recurring memory of the day her daughter did something appalling at a child beauty competition. |
Marc Richards, Marcel Dorney and Laurel Collins. Photo Christopher Totten |
The SuitcaseStage x Youth Festival, QPAC, Brisbane 2001 Maude is a pensioner who lives alone in her home with only the company of her memories which play round and round in her head like an old record. When the woman dies alone, her body decomposes and is partly eaten by her own cat. When a young addict breaks into Maudes house looking for shelter, a brief connection is made between the world of the living and the dead. |
Dags, QUT. |
Dags by Debra OswaldWoodward Theatre, QUT, Brisbane 2001 Dags looks at the trials of adolescence: pimples, heart ache and self discovery. |
