Black Swan State Theatre Company have announced their 25th anniversary season, revealing the hidden places and secret spaces of where they make their work, celebrate their past and look to the future.
The 2016 Season will deliver three world premieres, five new Australian plays, three WA premieres, two co-productions, a French classic, a modern German classic, a glittering multi-award winning American play and three Malcolm Robertson award-winning plays.
Welcoming back former Associate Director Matthew Lutton, who makes his debut in the Heath Ledger Theatre in a daring retelling of the multi-award winning iconic film Picnic at Hanging Rock. Lutton will bring his unique brand of storytelling to this much loved Australian story in a co-production with Malthouse.
Directed by Kate Cherry, one of her favourite plays the Pulitizer and Tony award winning Angels in America PART One: Millennium Approaches, will receive its first professional premiere in WA. This play is clever, witty and transformative.
Three years in the making, Black Swan’s first international collaboration with the celebrated National Theatre of China, in Bertolt Brecht’s The Caucasian Chalk Circle. Renowned director Dr Wang Xiaoying, will combine forces with Chinese and Australian designers to lead an all Australian cast in delivering this epic tale – exploring the synergies of both indigenous Chinese and Australian culture combined with Noongar storytelling and song.
In an Australian premiere, the delightfully shameless Clinton the Musical by Australian brothers Paul and Michael Hodge and directed by Adam Mitchell. This delightfully wicked musical about President Clinton and Hilary wowed Edinburgh Fringe Festival and Off – Broadway,
Tartuffe is the final main-stage production. Justin Fleming has set Molière’s classic in today’s Australia. Skewering hypocrisy in this uproarious comedy, Darren Gilshenan leads a stellar cast in this co-production with Queensland Theatre Company, directed by Kate Cherry.
The Black Swan Lab in the Studio Underground will present three new Western Australian plays all written by members of Black Swan’s Emerging Writers Group. First up is Loaded – a double bill featuring Girl Shut Your Mouth by Gita Bezard, directed by associate director Jeffrey Jay Fowler and Tonsils + Tweezers by Will O’Mahony – who also makes his directorial debut for the company.
Black Swan will launch the new initiative, The Bridging Company – a company of actors who graduated from the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts in 2015, and are making their Black Swan debut in the Lab. Be treated to the heart-wrenching world premiere of the tragic, true tale of Julia Pastrana in A Perfect Specimen, from rising star Perth playwright and 2013 Emerging Writers Group prize winner Nathaniel Moncrieff, directed by associate director Stuart Halusz.
For more information and full season details, visit: www.bsstc.com.au
Image: Picnic at Hanging Rock – photo by Robert Frith