Thom Pain

Kicking off the July-to-December season at Belvoir Street Downstairs Theatre, B Sharp and Arts Radar will present a bold, new version of the Pulitzer-prize-nominated Thom Pain (based on nothing), which will run from 30 July to 16 August, with official opening night on 31 July.

Company B’s Literary Manager and award-winning director Sam Strong will be at the helm in his Sydney debut, with the extraordinary Luke Mullins (War of the Roses, The Duel, The Eisteddfod) taking the solo role of Thom.

Meet Thom Pain, one man unearthing his private pain in the most public of environments ... a theatre.

Part-stand up, part-existential meditation and part-elegy, Thom Pain (based on nothing) is a unique theatrical treat. A reinvention of the one-man show that took London, Edinburgh and New York by storm, it is not so much a monologue as a boutique theatre experience — a deeply moving encounter between Thom and his audience.

With wry humour, electric wit and moments of startling absurdity, Thom Pain presents one man’s experience through a series of autobiographical musings on lost love, lost animals and a bee sting.

The incomparable Luke Mullins joins a hub of some of the country’s most remarkable and unassuming new talent, in a dynamic new version of Will Eno’s smart, poignant and menacingly funny work.

Director Sam Strong, with designers Danny Pettingill and Kelly Ryall, has been creating an abundance of work in Melbourne over the past few years, culminating most recently in the team being nominated in seven categories in the 2009 Green Room Awards earlier this year, including Best Production, Best Direction, Best Ensemble, Best Set, Best Lighting and Best New Writing (Red Sky Morning). Another Melbournite, Claude Marcos, who designed the widely admired set for Sydney Theatre Company’s The Duel, joins the creative team.

“I couldn’t be more excited by the combination of this text, this performer, this team and this space,” said Sam Strong.

“When I first read Thom Pain I immediately thought of Luke Mullins because the work requires an actor who can not only manage the kaleidoscopic demands of the title role, but also someone who can inject it with as much razor-sharp humour as heart.

“The Belvoir Street Downstairs Theatre is the ideal space for this show but, more than that, it is the ideal space for the entire experience we want to create. Without giving too much away, we can promise that audiences will see the intimate stage used in a way they have never seen it used before.”

Described by the New York Times as a “small masterpiece”, Thom Pain (based on nothing) received rave reviews and a return season at London’s SoHo Theatre, took out the coveted Fringe First and Herald Angel awards at the 2004 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and was also a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

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