STC 09 Season

Sydney Theatre Company Artistic Directors Andrew Upton and Cate Blanchett have announced their first Main Stage Season for Sydney Theatre Company, comprising 12 productions throughout 2009.

They commented: “True to its name, we want the Sydney Theatre Company to have a place at the heart of our city. We hope plenty of variety, depth and humour can be found in the 2009 Main Stage Season and with our Open Day on 25 October, we welcome everyone in to discover ways to connect with and enjoy the Company.”

The 2009 Main Stage Season includes five productions in Wharf 1 at the company’s home base at The Wharf on Sydney Harbour:

§ The hilarious but chilling Australian classic The Removalists by David Williamson directed by Wayne Blair and featuring Steve Bisley in this groundbreaking depiction of Australian society that still resonates almost 40 years on.

§ Marion Potts directs Scottish playwright Anthony Neilson’s The Wonderful World of Dissocia, a colourful, exuberant trip deep inside the mind of a young woman. Lisa (Justine Clarke) embarks on a kaleidoscopic journey to a topsy-turvy world to recover an hour she has lost in transit.

§ The heart-warming Elling, based on the very funny Norwegian novel of the same name and adapted by Britain’s Simon Bent, is about people living on society’s fringe attempting to come to terms with the real world. Directed by Pamela Rabe, it is presented in association with Ambassador Theatre Group, operators of Trafalgar Studios, where Sydney Theatre Company is an associate company.

§ Having been nurtured through the Company’s Wharf 2LOUD program in 2008, Saturn’s Return, by Australian rising star Tommy Murphy, will emerge fully formed for the Main Stage in 2009, again directed by David Berthold and featuring Leeanna Walsman as the complicated heroine.

§ Still under wraps as a major highlight of the Main Stage Season is a ‘secret’ production, directed by Oscar winner Steven Soderbergh. whose films include the Ocean’s Eleven series, Traffic, Erin Brockovich and Sex, Lies, and Videotape.

At the state-of-the-art Sydney Theatre at Walsh Bay, managed year-round by Sydney Theatre Company, two Main Stage productions will be particular highlights:

§ Poor Boy, by Australian playwright Matt Cameron, inspired by and featuring new and existing songs by Tim Finn, is co-produced with Melbourne Theatre Company and directed by Simon Phillips. At once darkly atmospheric and incandescently comic and uplifting, the play focuses on two fractured families thrown together by a gripping, unfathomable mystery.

§ A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams, is directed by the legendary Liv Ullmann and features Cate Blanchett as Blanche, Joel Edgerton as Stanley and Robin McLeavy as Stella. Following the Sydney season, this American masterpiece will also tour to New York and Washington.

The Sydney Theatre Company is also resident drama company at the Sydney Opera House Drama Theatre, where it will present three outstanding plays from leading playwrights from the UK, Australia and France in 2009:

§ Tom Stoppard’s comic masterpiece, Travesties, directed by Richard Cotterill, is set in Zurich in 1917 when James Joyce, Tristan Tzara and Lenin were all resident. Stoppard imagines their interactions, to hilarious effect, from the perspective of a wholly unremarkable consular official, Henry Carr, played by the irrepressible Jonathan Biggins in a cast also featuring Leah Purcell and William Zappa.

§ The theatrical hit of the 2008 Adelaide Festival, When The Rain Stops Falling, by Andrew Bovell, is a deeply moving and thought-provoking new Australian drama spanning four generations of one family. Boasting design by visual artist Hossein Valamanesh, the show from Adelaide’s Brink Productions is directed by Chris Drummond.

§ Gale Edwards makes a welcome return to the Company directing the Australian premiere of the brutally funny satire, God of Carnage, by France’s Yasmina Reza (Art, Life x 3). Jeremy Sims is already confirmed as one of four terribly civilised parents who meet to discuss a playground fracas between their children that rapidly reveals they’re no more evolved than their offspring.

§ In the intimacy of Wharf 2, Benedict Andrews directs the exhilarating and mystery-filled play The City by Britain’s Martin Crimp. With characteristic dark humour the play, featuring Belinda McClory, explores the angst looming ominously over the contemporary urban milieu.

§ The Mysteries: Genesis is a promenade performance at CarriageWorks, with direction by Andrew Upton, Tom Wright and Matt Lutton. Stories from the big dawn: the Creation, the Fall, the Expulsion from Eden, Cain and Abel and Noah’s Ark will be performed by the new incarnation of the STC Actors Company, to be known in 2009 as The Residents, in their first Main Stage outing.

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