Love and Information - End of Year Production Season 2021

END OF YEAR PRODUCTION SEASON 2021 nida.edu.au/june-2021

This season is supported by the Nick Enright AM Estate

WELCOME I am excited to welcome you to NIDA’s End of Year Production Season for 2021.

These four fully-staged live NIDA productions tell stories of worlds in flux. We invite you into a magical forest, a world without electricity, a beachside camping ground and a theatrical kaleidoscope through opera, myth, comedy and invention.

Commissioned by NIDA, God’s Country is a new work by First Nations writer Nathan Maynard, a Trawlwoolway, Pakana/Palawa man from Lutrawita/Tasmania. This play has been written specifically for the NIDA acting students and has been developed in workshops with them over the course of the year.

The play is directed by Liza-Mare Syron, Co-Founder and Senior Artistic Associate of Moogahl in Performing Arts. God’s Country is supported by The Keir Foundation.

Liza-Mare Syron Director of God’s Country has been supported by UNSW. An exciting co-production with our friends at the Sydney Conservatorium brings the genre of opera to NIDA’s Parade Theatre with A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Conducted

by Stephen Mould and directed by Kate Gaul, Britten’s magical opera breathes new life into Shakespeare’s most loved comedy. Our technical production and stage management students, props, scenic construction and costume, bring the production to life with Conservatorium students as performers.

For many, Caryl Churchill is the world’s greatest living playwright. This contemporary masterpiece asks how our insatiable appetite for knowledge can be informed by our capacity for love. We are so proud to present Love and Information, a collage of story, directed by Anthea Williams.

Anne Washburn’s international hit comedy Mr Burns, a post-electric play dissolves the barriers between high art and pop culture and imagines a world where The Simpsons becomes the new bible, showing how the stories we tell make us the people we are.

Directed by NIDA alumnus Alexander Berlage, this production takes comedy to a new level.

We couldn’t present any of these high-calibre productions without support from the Australian Government, our first Nations Program Principal Patron The Balnaves Foundation and Principal Partner for Property Services ARA Group. I would also like to thank our Major Partners Technical Direction Company, our Corporate Partner YouTube, as well as UNSW and Tempus Two wines. NIDA is appreciative of the support of various trusts and foundations and the generous individuals supporting the Behind the Scenes Program, including our student scholarship supporters.

This End of Year Season is supported by the Nick Enright AM Estate.

We welcome you back to NIDA and hope you enjoy these live productions.

— Liz Hughes, CEO

We acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands on which we learn and tell stories, from the lands of the Bidjigal and Gadigal people of the Eora nation where our campus stands, to the nations across this continent where we teach.

We pay our respects to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander elders past and present who have cared for land, water and story on these lands for generations. We also recognise the work and strength of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists, workers and creatives within the NIDA Community.

Sovereignty was never ceded. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land.

Love and Information – rehearsals

Love and Information

By Caryl Churchill Directed by Anthea Williams Set and costume design by Jeremy Allen Lighting design by Saint Clair Sound design and composition by Zachary Saric Video design by McLane Catterall

NIDA Theatres, Reg Grundy Studio 2–4, 6–9 December, 8pm 4 December, 1pm

Running time 90 minutes Love and Information will be performed in one act with no interval.

Love and Information was first performed at The Royal Court Theatre, London, in 2012. In the last nine years information is even more at our fingertips than it was then. It continues to be worth questioning if our ready access to knowledge is making us any better equipped to understand one another.

Love and Information is made up of over 60 scenes, the majority less than a few minutes long, some mere fragments, and all with lines unassigned to characters. Some argue that these scenes can be played in almost any way, like the A/B scenes drama students encounter when learning subtext. But we found the opposite.

Put too much, or too little into a scene, or an incorrect struggle at its centre, and it doesn’t ring true. Caryl Churchill writes with a scalpel.

The scenes are divided into seven chapters with themes around memory, belief and what can’t be articulated in language. We see people grappling with how to communicate with each other. Added to these are 10 depression scenes. Some argue that these are the saddest scenes in the play, but I disagree. These scenes come with an offer, one person reaching out to another, even if through take away food, an exhibition, or antimatter at the centre of the universe.

It has been a delight to work with this cast, each of them brilliant actors who have offered so much of themselves, their hearts, histories and intellects to this piece. I look forward to seeing them on screens and stages across the country in the coming years. I also want to acknowledge the wonderful design and technical team who have grappled tirelessly with how to stage this giant and intricate work.

As we have encountered each scene we have focused on the struggle to be understood to one another, the humanity at the heart of Caryl Churchill’s work, the love through the information.

– Anthea Williams, Director

Presented by NIDA BFA Design for Performance, BFA Costume, BFA Properties and Objects, BFA Scenic Construction and Technologies, BFA Technical Theatre and Stage Management, final year BFA Acting, and Diploma of Live Production and Technical Services students.

Company

Ensemble

Amy Joyce Ashan Kumar Braydon May Christy Tran Flynn Barnard Gabriel Alvarado Julie Bettens Ryan Enniss

Anthea Williams* Claudia Osborne* Jeremy Allen* Zachary Saric McLane Catterall Saint Clair

Director Assistant Director Set/Costume Designer Sound Designer/Composer Video Designer Lighting Designer

Voice Coach Simon Masterton* MFA Voice Coach Eleanor Stankiewicz Movement Consultant Troy Honeysett* Production Stage Manager Sybilla Wajon Deputy Stage Manager Jessica Pizzinga Props Supervisor Costume Supervisor Set/Construction Supervisor Head Electrician

Assistant Stage Manager

Props Assistant

Costume Assistants

Design Assistants

Set/Construction Assistant

Technical Crew

Danielle Guyot Samantha Manning Zachary White Jodi Rabinowitz Grace Sackman Daniel Story Zali Kassi Laura Moschner Maeve Durkin Jessi Seymour Taylah Miller Eryn Douglas Oliver Becroft Declan Lodge** Joshua Watts**

*Guest artist **Diploma of Live Production and Technical Services student

Graduating students 2021 Bachelor of Fine Arts (Acting)

G abriel A lvarado

H annah Julii A nder s on

Fly nn B arnard

Julie B et tens

O liv ia B ourne

S haw C ameron

R yan Ennis s

A my Joyce

Libby Kay

A lfre d Kouris

A shan Kum ar

A ri Ma za Long

Charlot te L uc a s

Philip Ly nch

Wern M ak

B raydon May

Riley McNam ara

A lyona Pop ova

Harrison Q ua s t

C onnor Reilly

Mem a Munro

Chris t y Tran

Eb ony Tucker

Adolphus Wayle e

L ucy Jauris to

S am antha Manning

S iobhan Nealon

A ngelina Meany

H ayden Relf

Bachelor of Fine Arts (Costume)

Elsb eth C ameron

B ethany Hew it t

O ri His er

Bachelor of Fine Arts (Design for Performance)

S oham A pte

B lake He dley

Hannah Tayler

H annah Yardley

A my Jack s on

Pho eni x Mckay

Is ab ella S altearn

Bachelor of Fine Arts (Properties and Objects)

Hunter D epalo

Danielle G uyot

Rachel Hallet t

Is ab ell de L aurentis

Zo e M anning

Rhyanna M ar tinus s en

Z achar y Por telli

Bachelor of Fine Arts (Scenic Construction and Technologies)

Mat thew Hinton

Z achar y W hite

Bachelor of Fine Arts (Technical Theatre and Stage Management)

Elif A kgul

Is a ac B arron

K aitly n Cro cker

S ophie Jone s

Leia Lois a

Alex Makaronopoulos

Jo el M allet t

K r ys telle Q uar term ain

Jame s Rawlings

S aint Clair

Nathan Sandy

Z achar y S aric

Mellit a Ver tigan

Trillian V ieira

Sy billa Wajon

S ophia Wallace

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