SHIT program

Photo: Sebastian Bourges

SHIT

DEE & CORNELIUS | AUSTRALIA

SHIT

DEE & CORNELIUS | AUSTRALIA

Performers

Peta Brady, Sarah Ward & Nicci Wilks Director

Susie Dee Set & Costume Designer

Marg Horwell

ABOUT THE WORK

WHO’S AFRAID OF PATRICIA CORNELIUS?

When a girl spits, or swears, or screams, or shouts, or pulls down her pants to moon someone from a car, or she laughs too loudly, or she’s too shrill, or she pulls up her t-shirt and flashes her tits, or she fights, really fights, head butts and with her fists, or she fucks too much or cuts her hair too short, and wears too much lipstick or none at all, or tells everyone she’s got a dick and she’s not a girl at all, all we want to do with this girl is lock her up and throw away the key. Out of control girls – angry, nasty girls – are a sight to behold. They’re terrifying, electrifying, they’re everything girls shouldn’t be, and we hate them.

Patricia Cornelius in conversation with Sydney Festival Director Wesley Enoch

Lighting Designer

This is a work about these girls.

Rachel Burke

Their names are Billy, Bobby and Sam.

Sound Designer

There’s not a single moment when these three young women transcend their ugliness. There’s no indication of a better or in fact any inner life. They don’t believe in anything. They’re mean, down mouthed, down trodden, hard bit, utterly damaged women. They’re neither salt of the earth nor sexy. They love no one and no one loves them.

They believe the world is shit, that their lives are shit, that they are shit.

Anna Liebzeit Producer

Laura Milke Garner Production/Stage Manager

Bec Moore SUSIE DEE AND PATRICIA CORNELIUS

Susie and Patricia have made work together for about 30 years. Susie has directed Patricia’s plays: Max, Taxi, The Berry Man and Savages. They first worked together as actors in Cornelius’ Lilly and May which toured nationally and overseas. They both come from a visceral and physical approach to theatre which is equally rigorous and vital in the language it uses and in what it has to say about the world. Dee and Cornelius’ most recent work Savages has won multiple awards including the 2014 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Drama (Cornelius) and four 2013 Melbourne Green Room Awards including Best Direction and Best Writing for Independent Theatre.

SHIT originally appeared as part of NEON Festival of Independent Theatre in 2015. NEON is a Melbourne Theatre Company initiative.

Ten vital female theatre makers with vast work histories have come together to bring a cast of three into a daring and powerful theatrical experiment with female characters whom we rarely see. These are women who defy gender demarcations, who transgress the boundaries and restraints of social order and expectation. Their language is brutal and uses a grungy poetic style to offer moments of beauty and relief.

REGINALD THEATRE SEYMOUR CENTRE 21 JANUARY 6PM 60 MINS PATRICIA CORNELIUS PLAY READINGS: LOVE

A reading of a rarely performed Patricia Cornelius play REGINALD THEATRE SEYMOUR CENTRE 20 JANUARY 5PM 60 MINS

Patricia Cornelius’ plays LOVE, SLUT and SHIT share a language which is rough and vulgar most of the time yet beautiful at others. It’s a language of the street made bearable by a gritty poeticism. The plays are about women who have been cheated of a good life, who have been abused, who are almost forsaken. They’re tough.

They’re in your face. They’re hilarious sometimes. And they’re powerful.

Susie Dee directs a staged reading of both LOVE and SLUT to accompany the season of SHIT. Seen together, these works express the talent of Patricia Cornelius, a powerful voice in Australian theatre.

PATRICIA CORNELIUS PLAY READINGS: SLUT

A reading of another rarely performed Patricia Cornelius play REGINALD THEATRE SEYMOUR CENTRE 22 JANUARY 5PM 60 MINS

Playwright Patricia Cornelius and director Susie Dee are passionate about making work which offers formidable roles to females actors, which calls for them to take the space and own it. They make work which is physical, sensual, heightened and blends in a text just as muscular and vigorous. It’s not easy work, the worlds they create are tough, at times brutal.

Photo: Sebastian Bourges

REGINALD THEATRE SEYMOUR CENTRE 17–21 JANUARY

MAGIC MIRRORS SPIEGELTENT MERITON FESTIVAL VILLAGE 24–29 JANUARY

RETRO ' FUTURISMUS AUSTRALIA

Photo: Jo Duck

“WITH CRAZY COSTUMES, PUMPING MUSIC AND A HOST OF CLEVER IDEAS, RETRO FUTURISMUS IS GLAMOROUS AND BIZARRE ENTERTAINMENT, FULL OF LEFT-FIELD SURPRISES” THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

TOMBOY SURVIVAL GUIDE

MAGIC MIRRORS SPIEGELTENT MERITON FESTIVAL VILLAGE 25–29 JANUARY

IVAN COYOTE | CANADA

Photo: Robin Toma

AN ALL-TOMBOY BAND BLEND STORY, MUSIC AND MEMORY IN A FEARLESS, WRY-HUMOURED AND TENDER INSIGHT INTO GENDER ISSUES, DEFYING THE NORM AND FINDING YOUR IDENTITY.