MTC
scenes Summer 2014
Tom Conroy Fresh Face Sam Strong High Style Sue Smith Stage & Screen
Finding their voices Inside information Melbourne Theatre Company is one of the last theatre companies in Australia with a tailored, stand-alone Education program. This is remarkable – a genuine commitment by the Company to young people and their introduction to high-quality drama. The program, however, generally requires young people to travel to Melbourne’s Southbank and for many in regional Victoria this is often not easy or even possible to arrange. An innovative new program this year allowed MTC to break such Melbourne-centrism and venture forth. Arts Victoria, through its Extended Schools Residency program, invited schools in regional areas to select an arts organisation and an art form that inspired their students. The aim was to support creative collaborations between artists, arts organisations and school communities, and, most particularly, to bring the experts out to where they are wanted but rarely go. And Bendigo Senior Secondary College (BSSC) wanted to know about playwriting. Over two terms, playwright, actor, author and ex-teacher Ned Manning and I regularly journeyed up to Bendigo to work with just over fifty Year 11 students at BSSC, who have been under the watchful eye of educational drama expert Meg Upton. We gave them the tools – structure, action, characters, obstacles, mise-en-scene exercises – and advised them on how to sharpen, refine and deliver their stories. And the rule here was that it was their stories with their voices, not our interpretations, not our tidied, softened, sugared, parent-friendly, G-rated versions. We wanted anything to be possible and they challenged us formally, thematically and dramatically.
Cover: Tom Conroy stars in Cock Scenes is produced quarterly and is a publication of Melbourne Theatre Company. All information was correct at the time of printing. Melbourne Theatre Company reserves the right to make changes.
Ned Manning with BSSC students
Only seven per cent of Bendigo’s population was born outside of Australia, but in 2002 the City of Greater Bendigo signed a Refugee Council of Australia declaration welcoming refugees into its community. This declaration commits the city to demonstrating compassion for refugees and to supporting their cultural and religious diversity. Over the past decade more than three hundred Karen refugees have been welcomed to Greater Bendigo. The Karen people are an oppressed minority from Burma and twenty-five Karen students were active participants in our workshops. Our tireless translator Tha Wa coped brilliantly with everything from Aristotle and Laban Movement Analysis to the intricacies of drama exercises like ‘gridding’ or ‘link tag’. In two separate performances, one in Bendigo’s Old Fire Station Theatre and one here at the Lawler Studio, five new plays and two new performance works made it to the stage. There was gritty realism, horror, comedy, bitter domestic disquiet and many fine observations. There was even one about life inside a fridge!
astonishment, terror and pride when we explained, again and again, that we were simply there to hand over the tools – that what we wanted was for them to tell their stories. Some were daunted and began to second-guess what they thought we wanted to hear or they should tell. Some imitated popular movie and TV tropes. Others played bemused and above it all, as teenagers are wont to do. One or two groups knuckled down straight away. Ultimately, though, all of the participants became energised at the prospect of showing us the world, as they saw it. And new worlds there were – the familiar was made strange, and the strange familiar. There was division and despair, but also great humour and a quiet joy. Chris Mead Literary Director
Perhaps the most exciting moment of the whole thing was that look of
EDITOR Paul Galloway GRAPHIC DESIGN Lydia Baic COVER IMAGE Sean Fennessy MAIN PHOTOS Jeff Busby, Heidrun Löhr, Benjamin Healley, Chris Herzfeld, Mandy Jones Melbourne Theatre Company is a department of the University of Melbourne
MTC Headquarters 252 Sturt St, Southbank Vic 3006 TELEPHONE 03 8688 0900 FACSIMILE 03 8688 0901 E-MAIL info@mtc.com.au WEBSITE mtc.com.au Southbank Theatre 140 Southbank Blvd, Southbank Vic 3006 BOX OFFICE 03 8688 0800
Them’s the breaks Young actor Tom Conroy is building a career one role at a time The first thing actors are taught at drama school is to keep expectations under control: don’t expect instant success, don’t expect fame and don’t expect to make a living from acting as soon as you leave college. It’s a tough business, their first-year tutors will tell them, and at any one time more than nine out of ten actors are unemployed. With that message and those dispiriting statistics ringing in their ears, no actor embarks on a career without knowing that all before them lies a sea of uncertainty.
It’s about being caught up in a longterm relationship and the weight of expectation that comes with that, the roles that a couple find themselves playing.
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Tom Conroy about Cock
Three years out of the acting course at VCA, Tom Conroy feels he’s doing pretty well, all things considered. Soon he will start rehearsals for Mike Bartlett’s chamber comedy Cock at MTC, his first major leading role, playing a man whose inability to decide between his long-term boyfriend or his new-found girlfriend causes pain for everyone. The role is not such an enormous step up in Conroy’s short career, which has been building steadily in the short time he’s been a professional, with roles here and there, first in the independent sector, then with small professional outfits such as Brink in Adelaide and Arena Theatre in Melbourne. He’s worked at Belvoir and State Theatre Company of South Australia and picked up a Green Room Award for his performance in Something Natural But Very Childish at La Mama. He’s also had his fair share of what actors call ‘resting’, waiting for his agent’s phone call, but, so far, so good. ‘I’ve had the good fortune to work with a lot of actors who have been in the industry for ten, twenty, thirty years,’
he says, ‘and, talking to them about their careers, I’ve come to realise that successful actors in Australia build careers slowly over many years. And if you are lucky enough you’ll find yourself eventually being able to live off your acting.’
for a couple of years. My latest stint had me selling wine over the phone. That had a few perks. There are ups and downs. It’s a funny business. I have friends who are lawyers and doctors and they never have to think about what they are going to do when a
Tom Conroy with Jacqui Phillips in Land and Sea (Brink, 2012)
Patience is the key, he believes, not waiting around for the Big Break that will catapult him into a million dollar Hollywood career. ‘It is easy to forget how much you gain from all the experiences you have going from show to show and project to project, no matter how small. I think the best thing is to accept the opportunities that are there, work with as many different and interesting people as possible, try things out, test yourself on a variety of roles and plays and, hopefully, start to get some momentum that way.’ Now based in Sydney but willing to go anywhere for acting work, Conroy accepts the frustration of not always being able to do what he spent five years training for. He went to the now defunct Theatre Nepean at the University of Western Sydney straight out of school and, after two years, finessed the skills he learnt there into a successful audition for the course at VCA. Yet despite all this training, he knew he would have to support himself from time to time with a day job. ‘I’ve done my fair bit of waitering in cafés and worked at reception at a gym
particular case is finished. They don’t have to deal with the possibility that they might have to work in a café to make ends meet. But for an actor, when a show closes, that’s just how it is.’ Asked whether it is all worth it – the constant uncertainty, the day jobs, the slow, hard slog to build a career – Conroy remains upbeat. ‘I have always held the view that I will continue to make a living from acting for as long as I can stand it,’ he says. ‘There is no point in banging away at it if it isn’t bringing you any happiness. Luckily, when I am acting, I absolutely love it; it’s what I trained to do and what I have a passion for. I’m really happy to wait for those moments. The thing to learn is not to get caught up in the future. You can’t afford to ask, what if the next job doesn’t come? You have to trust the process and take your opportunities.’ Cock by Mike Bartlett runs at the Fairfax Studio from 7 February to 22 March.
Perfectly marvellous Prompt corner major ideas, stylistic choices and design decisions that have gone into each production and take the opportunity to ask questions from the floor. The next Production Briefings are listed below.
Alison Bell and Leon Ford in Constellations (2013)
Private Lives by Noël Coward Monday 20 January 2014, 6pm Southbank Theatre, The Sumner Cock by Mike Bartlett Monday 3 February 2014, 6pm Arts Centre Melbourne, Fairfax Studio Note: There will be no Briefing for Neighbourhood Watch.
Subscriber ticket discounts
If you have already subscribed to our 2014 Season but now are having A truly divine cast has been assembled for Noël Coward’s elegant drawing room comedy Private Lives opening at the Sumner in January. Leon Ford returns to the Company after his debut last year in Constellations and will be perfectly matched by Nadine Garner, who last appeared at MTC in Three Sisters in 1997 and is known for her many TV roles over the years from The Henderson Kids to City Homicide, and MTC debutant Lucy Durack (pictured far left), a favourite of music theatre fans from her starring roles in Wicked and Legally Blonde. Adding elegant comic touches will be John Leary (His Girl Friday and Realism) and Julie Forsyth (Return to Earth), both of whom are currently featuring in The Book of Everything. If you missed the casting announcement for The Book of Everything, you’ll be pleased to hear that most of the award-winning cast from the 2010 Belvoir production are back, including Leary and Forsyth. Joining the cast will be Genevieve Picot, last seen in Queen Lear, and Andrea Demetriades (centre left), making her MTC debut. Also in the cast are Alison Bell (Constellations), Peter Carroll (The Christian Brothers), Claire Jones (Cloudstreet) and composer Iain Grandage, who will perform his own music for each performance. Playing the hero Thomas Klopper, Matthew Whittet does double duty at MTC over the Christmas holidays, because he’s also the author of our other family show Big Bad Wolf.
Big Bad Wolf has been a big success for South Australia’s Windmill Theatre Company and we welcome director Rosemary Myers and her actors Kate Cheel, Patrick Graham and Emma J Hawkins (centre right) to the Company. The casting of Cock, British writer Mike Bartlett’s very contemporary take on the eternal triangle, will be completed very soon. New to the Company, Tom Conroy and Angus Grant (far right) are already in place, while other cast members will be announced on our website, which is always the first resort for all the latest MTC news: mtc.com.au.
Production briefings
Returning again in 2014, our popular public briefings on upcoming productions allow theatregoers to be in-the-know and up-to-speed on upcoming MTC shows. These free panel discussions, open to all, will be led by the play’s director with contributions from the creative team and actors. For weeks they have been immersed in the play, thinking deeply about it and dissecting it in rehearsal, and the briefings give our audience members privileged access to their discoveries and artistic choices. Learn about the
second thoughts about plays you left off your subscription, you can still see the shows and save money. Subscribers are entitled to discounts on additional tickets for all our mainstage shows. It is just a matter of quoting your subscription number and you’ll receive the best price available. You can also buy tickets for your friends and family for that perfect gift or treat. Tickets to our 2014 Season are released to the general public in stages. Tickets for Private Lives, Cock and Neighbourhood Watch are on sale now. The rest of the season goes on sale on Tuesday 4 March, except for the musical Once, which goes on sale on Monday 17 March. And don’t forget our holiday show Big Bad Wolf, for which all tickets are $25 and on sale now. You can book on-line at mtc.com.au or through the MTC Theatre Box Office on (03) 8688 0800.
Surface tension Director Sam Strong believes that Private Lives is more than its scintillating facade ‘The thing that interests me most about Private Lives is the tension between the play that people remember or imagine and the actual play,’ says MTC Associate Artistic Director Sam Strong. The play that people tend to remember or imagine is a glittering exercise in period theatrical style, a brittle and perfectly-formed Jazz Age bauble of elegant repartee and high-toned sangfroid. But Strong believes that there is more to Coward than dazzles the eye. ‘When people talk about Private Lives they tend to talk about the style a lot,’ he says. ‘Now, style in Coward is incredibly important: the elegance of the world, the precise formal way that people speak and behave, and the opulence of that particular milieu – that’s all vital. But sometimes, for me, where many productions have gone wrong in the past is to only play the familiar Coward style, leading to performances that seem rather stuffy and arch.’ Pamela Rabe and William McInnes in Private Lives (1997)
‘I admit I inherited those ideas about the Coward style,’ he says. ‘But as I read and re-read the play, the substance became more central and important. The play is really a very detailed and psychologically nuanced portrait of a relationship.’ ‘It is a much darker play than most people remember,’ Strong believes, and the trick in performance will be to pay due service to the stylish façade while digging down ‘to that dark and contemporary vein that is below the surface.’ ‘We want to create a version that, in a sentence, unleashes the in-your-face drama – the intense sex and violence – beneath the mannered exterior,’ Strong says. The aim is to raise the laughs while also raising the stakes. ‘We want to charm the pants off the audience before we confront them head on. We want the audience to be very attracted to these characters, the elegance of their surroundings, so that the turn toward the dark will register more strongly.’ For the modern reader or viewer who has come to Private Lives knowing only its reputation, there are more surprises beyond its interogration of romantic love. The plot, for example, doesn’t
follow the expected route. It begins as a conventional farce: on adjoining balconies of a French seaside hotel, two separate couples are shown on their honeymoons. Naturally enough, the topic of previous marriages comes up, and the man, Elyot, in one couple, and the woman, Amanda, in the other, have horror stories to tell. It spoils no secrets to reveal that each is unwittingly speaking about the other newlywed in the suite next door. The outrage of the discovery provides the robust comedy of the first act. However, for the second act, Coward dropped hectic plot complications for a situation that dawdles in a recognisably modernist way. Thrown together with a piano and a cocktail cabinet, Elyot and Amanda seem closer in spirit to the existential time-servers of Samuel Beckett than the any-one-for-tennis? crowd that generally populate drawing room comedies. ‘The second act is just two people in a living room talking about their relationship, which makes it feel much more of our time than other plays of its period,’ Strong says. ‘It comes across as much more authentic and naturalistic than Coward is often given credit for. Also, one reason for Coward’s popularity in his day was the sense that he was such a subversive writer. He depicts people who casually push beyond the bourgeois restraints of marriage. The same is true in Design for Living. I think that’s why there have been succeeding generations that have rediscovered him: he always seems to be our contemporary.’ ‘The thing that keeps coming back to me about this play is a conversation I had years ago with the American avantgarde director Richard Foreman, who said that the plays that interested him have an irrational energy at their centre. He talked about Strindberg’s Miss Julie, for example, the sort of irrational energy in that play carried by the central character. And I think Private Lives, for all its elegance, formality and wit, has at its centre an irrational energy.’ Noël Coward’s Private Lives runs at Southbank Theatre, The Sumner from 25 January to 8 March.
In-depth interview … The Big Bad Wolf – terror of the village MW: Who is your favourite poet? BBW: Wolf Whitman. I find his use of words so inspiwing. And Mr Allen Ginsberg who wrote Howl! MW: And do you have a favourite book? BBW: Moby Dick. I luf Vhales. MW: Whales? BBW: Yes, Vhales. I wrote a lufely poem about a vhale once. It went: Oh bick vhale Your eyes are so pale You look just like a shnail Or an ant on a trail Oh bick bick bick vhale Matthew Whittet: Mr Wolf, I’m very frightened to speak to you. Would you mind standing on the other side of the room, while I shout out my questions.
BBW: Yes, scarved. As in, ‘Oh my! He’s so Scarvey! I am tewwified.’
Big Bad Wolf: Oh please, Mr Maffhew, by all means. If it makes you feel more comfortabubble.
BBW: Zhat’s vhat I just said! Scarved. But zhey never take zhe time to see what I am weally like. Vhich is fwiendly, considerate, a good listener and, aboff all, a beliefer in good dental hygiene.
MW: My first question is: are you planning to eat me during this interview? BBW: Oh no, Mr Maffhew! I don’t eat peoples! Yes, zhere are some volf’s who like to scarve peoples by sayink, ‘I VILL EAT YOU!’ But I find peoples fascinatink and lufely! Besides, I am actually a vegematarian. MW: A Vegematarian? BBW: A luffer of vegematables. Gweens and potatoes, in particulaw. Alzough the bwocolli tends to give me the gassies. So I apologize now just in case … MW: Now I will definitely stay on this side of the room. But I’m confwused – I mean, confused – you seem quite friendly. Why is everyone so afraid of you then? BBW: Well, they see what big eyes I haf, and big ears I haf, and what sharp teef I haf, and, of course, my bushy tail – vhich has a life of its own I tell you – and zhey just get weally scarved. MW: You mentioned this word before. Scarved?
MW: Oh, you mean scared!
MW: But if all that is true, why are you such a ‘lone wolf’? BBW: Because it’s wery hard to make fwiends, Mr Maffhew. The volfs don’t like me, zhe peoples don’t like me … it is not easy. I twy hard to be fwiendly. MW: Maybe they think you are just a wolf in sheep’s clothing? BBW: But I am! I wear zhe Ugg boots in the vintertime to keep my clawses varm. MW: But I must ask Mr Wolf. I can’t place your accent. Where are you from? BBW: I’m fwom round here, not far fwom zhis vewy town! It’s just zhat zhese big teef, zhey weally weck my consonants. MW: So if, as you say, you don’t want to frighten people, what do you want to do instead? BBW: My favowite zhing in zhe world is writing lufely poems. Nothing bwings me more joy zhan to turn lufely thinking into lufely words.
MW: That’s is lovely and very rhymey. BBW: Why sank you. MW: You’re welcome. Now, what’s the time, Mr Wolf? BBW: Zhat’s funny, zhat’s what efferybuddy vants to know! But I don’t haf a vatch! MW: Well, I must be running along, but it’s been nice meeting you. BBW: Twuly? MW: It’s been not scarey at all and very illuminating to meet such a pleasant wolf. BBW: Oh and vhat a lufely vord zhat is: ‘illuminating’. Oh, the ideas are accumulating. So on this I’ll be ruminating. MW: And with a true gift for rhyme! The Big Bad Wolf spoke to Matthew Whittet. Big Bad Wolf runs at Southbank Theatre, The Lawler from 10 to 25 January, at 10am and 2pm. All tickets $25. The performance lasts fifty minutes. Suitable for people five years-old and up.
Stage and screen In turning from screenwriting to playwriting, Sue Smith has had to learn a new craft You would think that after her long and distinguished career in screenwriting, Sue Smith would make the transition to playwriting with hardly a hitch. But as she suspected might be the case when she wrote her first play a few years ago, screenwriting and playwriting require completely different approaches and skills. So far she has written and had
‘Because I deal with naturalism on the screen, I wanted to write something magical, beautiful and poetic,’ she says, ‘something that will move an audience to some kind of world of transcendence. That is really what the original notion of tea is about, the ceremony and reverence for the tea; its transcendent nature. It is how the Chinese and Japanese use it. And that magic was lost with its commodification in the West. So I want to achieve those things for an audience.’ It is unlikely that anyone in Australia with a television has not seen Sue Smith’s work. Her resume includes major
The stage is the medium for language ... There’s a reason why Shakespeare is the preeminent dramatist: not his stories, it’s because he has a superior way with language.
Sue Smith
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very difficult for a writer to resist it. And sometimes when you do resist it, you get sacked and replaced.’
Daniel Frederiksen in Bastard Boys (Flying Cabbage productions)
produced Thrall for Old Fitzroy and Strange Attractor for Griffin Theatre. A third play, Kryptonite, will have seasons next year at Sydney Theatre Company and State Theatre Company of South Australia, yet she admits that writing for the stage is still a stretch for her. But that’s what makes it exciting. ‘With film and telly, I feel that mostly I know what I am doing,’ she says. ‘With the stage, I find often myself going: ‘Oh, what do I do now?’ And directors and dramaturgs will often tick in my stage work that this bit or that which is too cinematic or televisual. It won’t work on stage.’ Smith’s latest play In the Kingdom of will be read as part of the Cybec Electric series of semi-staged readings in February. The symbol in the title is ‘cha’, the Mandarin character for tea, and the play tells the story of the West’s exploitation and commodification of tea over the past two hundred years, a subject she feels that the stage can handle better than the screen.
series going back more than twenty years such from the recent Mabo, and Bastard Boys (about the 1998 waterfront dispute) to the The Leaving of Liverpool and Brides of Christ. For TV she has specialised in writing dramatisations of real events or historical situations, which she claims is partly due to happenstance and partly to having originally trained as a journalist. She loves the research, particularly interviewing the participants. She also loves the challenge of turning real-life people into dramatic characters. What she doesn’t love in film and television writing is that the writer is rather low on the hierarchical ladder. ‘There’s an artificial distance in film and telly between the writer and the final product,’ she says. ‘Between you and what appears on screen are layers of opinion, production and financing. There’s layers of technology.’ Moreover, because so much money is at stake, everyone tends to take a conservative line on the script. The writer’s judgement is treated as just another opinion. ‘In film and telly, if the people further up the hierarchy require something done,’ she says, ‘it’s very,
In the theatre, however, the writer is king. Smith is grateful for the close collaborations she has already had in the theatre between herself and her directors and dramaturgs. Their free opinions on the work have been extremely helpful, but she doesn’t have to accept the advice if she disagrees. She gets the final say. She also enjoys being involved in every step in the process. The writer on a television or film set is an interloper, her job considered done; in the theatre the job has only started. ‘You get to be in the rehearsal room and your opinion is sought,’ she says. ‘You can watch the actors absorbing the character. You can watch the play coming together. That sort of opportunity is terribly rare in film and television.’ The rule in screenwriting is to show rather than say. On stage, that rule is almost reversed, a fact that Smith finds refreshing. ‘[In theatre] you can really revel in language and splash around in it’ she says. ‘You can write poetry. There’s a reason why Shakespeare is the preeminent dramatist: it’s not his stories, it’s because he has a superior way with language.’ Cybec Electric, MTC’s series of semi-staged play readings run at Southbank Theatre, the Lawler from 6 to 22 February 2014.
Choose your passion
Welcome
Patrons
Business Development
Supporter groups are one way that Leading Patrons can become more closely involved with MTC and enjoy opportunities for engaging events and stimulating experiences with our staff and artists, behind the scenes and in our workshops. You can choose to support literary development, education programs, costume and design, professional development and now our innovative Open Door initiatives.
Literary Development
Open Door
Professional Development
Since he took charge of the Company last year, Artistic Director Brett Sheehy has pulled together a range of initiatives under the banner of Open Door designed to galvanise our relationship with artists and audiences and to open up MTC to the diversity of Australian contemporary society. Open Door includes our annual Neon Festival of Independent Theatre, which caused enormous excitement with Melbourne theatregoers in 2013, and MTC Connect, our new partnership with Multicultural Arts Victoria in which theatre artists from diverse cultural backgrounds work with us to build relationships between MTC and their communities. As part of Open Door in 2014 will be two extraordinary add-on productions, one of which, Complexity of Belonging, will explore choreographic theatre for the first time in the Company’s history. There will also be new ways for artists to connect and develop with MTC, including our Lightning Talks and the Women Directors’ Program.
MTC plays an important role in providing aspiring professional directors, stage managers and lighting and sound technicians with the prospect of working closely with senior MTC professionals as their assistants on a production.
We are launching a new group Supporters of Open Door for those of you who want to support all the things which keep MTC contemporary and sustain the diversity which we need as Melbourne’s premiere home of live storytelling. You can see all the facets of Open Door projects and programs in the 2014 Season Brochure or on our website.
Perhaps new writing is your passion. It’s been an important part of the MTC tradition going back to Summer of the Seventeenth Doll and And the Big Men Fly. This year a highlight will be the Cybec Electric play readings in February. And throughout the year the inimitable Lally Katz (Return to Earth) will be our Australian Writer Foundation Playwright in Residence.
Education Recently, Supporters of Education joined Associate Director Leticia Cáceras and Education Manager Noel Jordan for lunch, a presentation on the 2014 Season and then an inspiring presentation by the Youth Scholarship participants. Thanks to champions from this group, MTC will be touring Yellow Moon to regional Victoria in 2014.
Costume and Design This group recently enjoyed morning tea in our busy Wardrobe department, seeing the incredible workmanship and being shown design bibles and the staff’s favourite pieces. So you can see that as MTC Patrons there are a range of ways you can choose to combine your philanthropy with your passion. If you would like to direct your donation and find out more about supporter groups then phone or come in for coffee and a chat. Contact Adrienne Conway on 8688 0959 or a.conway@mtc.com.au. Adrienne Conway Major Donor and Foundations Manager
Melbourne Theatre Company welcomes Tiffany Lucas to the role of Development Director. Tiffany brings a wealth of experience in both business and philanthropy to Melbourne Theatre Company. Prior to joining MTC, Tiffany was a Senior Associate at the law firm Arnold Bloch Leibler, focussing on corporate advice and mergers and acquisitions. Tiffany originally hails from Kansas City, Missouri and moved to Melbourne nearly six years ago to join her husband, Matt. She is now settled here and calls Australia home. Tiffany is involved in a variety of philanthropic organisations, including the Royal Children’s Hospital (where she sits on the Auxiliaries Executive Committee, the Children’s Bioethics Development Board and the Clinical Ethics Committee). She and her husband also have their own portfolio of social enterprises involved in impact investments focused on seeding and supporting social enterprises across the globe that enable communities to address poverty and disadvantage. Tiffany is the President of the American Women’s Association (an Auxiliary to the Royal Children’s Hospital) a role which saw her enjoying some social events with MTC this year – we’re glad she liked what she saw!
Tiffany says ‘I am thrilled to be working with the MTC. We have so much to offer our business partners and patrons in the 2014 Season. What a fabulous time to be joining the Company – there is such a buzz of excitement about what lies ahead in the upcoming year. In particular, I am looking forward to working with our corporate sponsors including our Opening Night Partner, Audi. I am also looking forward to meeting all of our Patrons. We have some really exciting Patrons’ events coming up in the 2014 Season and I can’t wait to be part of these.’
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The 2014 Launch Gala Dinner 1 Robyn Nevin from 2014’s Neighbourhood Watch and Alex Dimitriades from Glengarry Glen Ross 2 Lucy Durack soon to open the 2014 Season in Private Lives 3 MTC’s Chris Mead, Leticia Cáceres, Sam Strong and Brett Sheehy
The Beast Patrons post-show function 4 Brett Sheehy and Maureen Wheeler in conversation
7 Sandra Burdett and guests with Sheridan Harbridge and Jonathon Laycock
5 Lally Katz, Robyn Nevin and Sigrid Thornton
8 John Colman and Laurette Austin with Hamish Michael and Kate Mulvany
6 Trocadero was a wonderful setting for the Gala Dinner, an important fundraiser for the 2014 Season. Thank you to all who attended.
9 Virginia Gay with Patrons Jenny Jefferies and Graeme Lush
Good friends CentreStage In MTC’s sixtieth year, Ursula is just as captivated with the Company, describing Seasons 2013 and 2014 as ‘wonderful’ and acknowledging Brett Sheehy’s gift for programming. She’s particularly looking forward to seeing again our current family production The Book of Everything, adapted by her nephew Richard Tulloch. She took her granddaughters to see it when it first ran in Sydney and describes it as ‘charming, delightful and light.’ She’s pleased as Punch that she’ll be able to see it once more, this time on the Sumner stage.
Ursula Whiteside,
Upcoming Dress Rehearsals for CentreStage Members Private Lives by Noël Coward 2pm Saturday 25 January 2014 Southbank Theatre, The Sumner (Members Lounge will be in operation from 12.30pm)
In my first twelve months working at MTC, I’ve had the privilege and pleasure of meeting some of the trailblazers whose hard work and commitment helped forge the Company into the sixty year success it is today. CentreStage, our membership program, had its beginnings in 1980 as the MTC Society, a friends group committed to fundraising and gaining a better understanding of the Company and its audience. Under the leadership of inaugural President Ursula Whiteside and a dedicated group of VicePresidents and committee members, the MTC Society worked closely with the Company in developing audiences and supporters. Ursula has remained involved with the Company following her years as MTC Society President, serving on the MTC Board and now as a Supporting Patron and Subscriber. When I ask her about her memories of those early years of the MTC Society she remembers many wonderful times. ‘We had some really special experiences,’ she says, ‘like when Zoe Caldwell performed for the opening of the Arts Centre, or an event where John Sumner interviewed Jacki Weaver, which made me realise how very clever Jacki is, and how superbly she can ad lib on stage.’
Many MTC staff made an impression on Ursula and her committee back then, in particular Tony Watts, who was director of children’s programs and the go-between for the committee and Company, and Company Administrator Maureen Hafner, who was Ursula’s first port of call for everything. ‘We had to find a fine balance between being a nuisance and being an advantage! We loved spending time at Ferrars Street, which had a certain charm, and we used to love bringing in our chicken sandwiches and doing the suppers for Opening Nights at the Athenaeum and Russell Street. It was such fun and everyone was so lovely to us.’ Having worked closely with former Artistic Director John Sumner, who died earlier this year, and seen so many of his productions, including the original 1955 staging of Ray Lawler’s Summer of the Seventeenth Doll at the Union Theatre, Ursula recalls the respect and appreciation John had for the work of the MTC Society and the tremendous respect she and her committee had for John. ‘I remember on Opening Nights of anything he directed, John was like a taut wire, you could see him bristling with anxiety. He was such a wonderful director and his production of AB Facey’s A Fortunate Life was my favourite.’
Cock by Mike Bartlett 2pm Friday 7 February 2014 Arts Centre Melbourne, Fairfax Studio To book for Dress Rehearsals, please phone Ryan Nicolussi on 8688 0953 or email membership@mtc.com.au specifying the number of Members and guests attending. Remember, bookings are essential and Dress Rehearsals are subject to change or cancellation. Mandy Jones Fundraising and Events Manager
Derek Young takes his bow ‘I never intended to stay so long,’ says Derek Young, as he prepares to step down after nineteen years on MTC’s Board of Management, the last eight as Chair. The time has just flown by. ‘When [Executive Director] Ann Tonks announced she was leaving after whatever it was – fifteen or sixteen years – it struck me that if she’s been here for that long, I was here before that.’ Yet, he stayed on as Chairman for a couple of years more to see the new management team of Brett Sheehy and Virginia Lovett settle in. ‘Now, that time is up.’ ‘It has been a tumultuous period’ he says. When he joined the Board in January 1994, the Company was carrying an accumulated deficit of more than four million dollars and looked in trouble. As the Managing Director of management consulting firm Accenture, he was brought in to help right the ship. ‘The University was getting a bit restive,’ he recalls. ‘Their finance committee had begun wondering whether or not they should continue to support the Company. I think Ralph Ward Ambler [who was MTC Chairman between 1995 and 2000] and I were brought on to try to instil some serious financial discipline into the place. And we did, I suppose.’
priorities. ‘The constant through the years was the new theatre,’ Young says. ‘I chaired a subcommittee that looked at new venues. There were a number of false starts. So it took a long time to get the project up and a long time after that to design and build the theatre. Which is why the Gala Night [for the opening of Southbank Theatre] was probably the highlight of all my years at MTC. Just to be on the stage of our own theatre after all those years and all the effort was just fantastic.’
‘I had no idea until [Artistic Director] Simon Phillips announced he was going just how much our Subscribers have a sense of ownership in the Company. I don’t think we realise how large we loom in Melbourne’s cultural landscape. Sometimes we think we’re just a theatre company, full of talented hardworking people doing this great stuff, but out there is a sense that it is owned by everyone. So as Chair, I developed a real sense of stewardship for this institution that is MTC.’
At the end of the year, Derek Young makes way for the new MTC Chairman Terry Moran, but that won’t end his connection with the Company. He will still be a Leading Patron and plans to attend to Opening Nights for some years to come. His time at MTC has given him a stronger sense of the importance of the Company in the wider community. Highlight: Gala Night, The Sumner 2009
After a restructure of the Company in the mid-nineties, yearly surpluses began to cut into the debt, allowing the Board to concentrate on other
The Visitors by Jane Harrison 6 and 7 February at 7.30pm
The Waiting Room by Kylie Trounson 20 February at 7.30pm, 22 February at 3pm
A Counting and Cracking of Heads by S Shakthidharan 13 February at 7.30pm and 15 February at 3pm
8GB of Hardcore Pornography by Declan Green 21 and 22 February at 7.30pm
In the Kingdom of by Sue Smith 14 and 15 February at 7.30pm
Tickets All readings $10 each ($40 for 5-play pass). Unders 30s $5 ($20 for a 5-play plass). Venue Southbank Theater, The Lawler
Special offers Summer 2014 Movie Preview
Dance Offer
Cybec Electric
Philomena
16 December 2013
Opening in cinemas 26 December, Philomena stars Steve Coogan and Judi Dench in a powerhouse performance. Inspired by the true story of one mother’s search for her lost son, this remarkable tale is warm, witty and compassionate, as two very different people join forces in seeking to uncover the truth behind a heartbreaking story that remained a mystery for half a century.
Hopscotch eOne invites MTC Subscribers to an exclusive preview screening of Philomena on Monday 16 December at 6.30pm at Palace Cinema Como. To secure your complimentary Admit Two pass for admission, please rsvp to http://digi-tix.com/mtcPH. Please note tickets will be allocated on a first come, first serve basis.
Sydney Dance Company
30 April to 10 May 2014
Southbank Theatre is now Sydney Dance Company’s new Melbourne home. Their first performance at the theatre will be Interplay, a triple bill of breathtaking ambition from three renowned choreographers: Sydney Dance Company’s award-winning Artistic Director Rafael Bonachela, Italian choreographer Jacopo Godani, and former Chunky Move Director Gideon Obarzanek. Interplay runs at Southbank Theatre from 30 April to 10 May 2014.
As an MTC Subscriber, you can receive $10 off full-priced A-Reserve tickets to Interplay when you use the promo code SCENES on our website or through the MTC Box Office. Offer ends 31 December 2013.
Cybec Electric Passes
6 to 22 February 2014
Five new plays in semi-staged readings from five of Australia’s hottest writers. With stories from India, Sri Lanka and Australia, past and present, these playwrights all offer a different vision of our world. Curious, restless, thoughtful, energising and electric, each play will receive two readings, brought to life by the best actors and directors in Melbourne.
Tickets are now on sale, but for your chance to win one of five Cybec Electric passes that will get you into each of the five play readings, email your name and Subscriber details to offers@mtc.com.au with CYBEC in the subject line, or call (03) 8688 0900 from 2 December 2013. Entries close 15 December 2013.
Share your love of theatre with an MTC Gift Voucher
With eleven diverse plays to choose from in 2014, there’s something to suit everyone. Available in any domination, Gift Vouchers offer the ultimate flexibility. You can print one at home or have it sent out in a luxurious gift wallet. Order via mtc.com.au/giftideas