MTC Artistic Director Brett Sheehy AO has announced a season of theatrical storytelling – a year of life in living colour – at Melbourne Theatre Company in 2015.
Featuring 11 mainstage plays, a family show, an education production, an independent theatre festival, a series of play readings, and productions touring regionally, interstate and internationally, 2015 is another energetic year at MTC.
“Season 2015 spans a tremendous range of themes and performance styles, from the austere poetry of the Beckett masterpiece Endgame to the thrilling escapism of North by Northwest – and all points in between,” says Sheehy.
“I am especially proud of the new Australian works gracing our stages providing mainstage opportunities for four terrific Australian writers and two composers, and of the inaugural MTC Women Directors Program bearing such immediate results with five of the 11 mainstage productions being directed by women.”
“As well as our mainstage season, in 2015 we consolidate all our initiatives of the past two seasons which have been so successful in reaching out to new audiences in Melbourne and beyond. MTC is out and about like never before.”
“In these myriad ways, MTC is putting the transformative power of live theatre and storytelling within reach of the six million citizens of Victoria, as well as a national and international audience. I invite you to be enthralled, delighted, provoked and challenged with MTC in 2015.”
There are four world premieres at MTC next year. A stage adaption of the classic Hitchcock film North by Northwest, directed by Simon Phillips, will bring this supreme suspense caper to life. A larrikin take on the ANZAC centenary, Steve Vizard and Paul Grabowsky’s The Last Man Standing is a work promising to be unlike any other in this year of commemorations.
A new play from Kylie Trounson, The Waiting Room, draws on her own childhood to tell the story of her father, IVF pioneer Emeritus Professor Alan Trounson, while a boutique gem of a musical by Tim Rogers and Aidan Fennessy transforms an iconic album into a very Australian love story in What Rhymes with Cars and Girls.
These world premieres take their place alongside the best and most interesting plays from overseas – some startlingly new, and others exciting revivals. Comedy queen Jane Turner revisits motherhood in Jumpy – a hilarious West End hit directed by Pamela Rabe. From British playwright Simon Stephens comes Birdland, a story about an imploding rock star played by Mark Leonard Winter.
Buyer and Cellar is an adoring fan letter to Barbra Streisand, a one-man extravaganza starring Ash Flanders. A charming family treat by Tasmanian writer Finegan Kruckemeyer, The Boy at the Edge of Everything takes audiences on an extra-terrestrial adventure for ages eight and up, and the acclaimed Swedish play, I Call My Brothers, recreating 24 hours in the mind of a young Arab man after a terrorist attack, is MTC ’s Education Production for senior school students. These five productions are all Australian premieres.
Season 2015 also contains four modern classics. Samuel Beckett’s great modernist masterpiece, Endgame directed by MTC Associate Artistic Director Sam Strong sees master craftsman Colin Friels return to MTC and brings classic absurdist theatre back to the mainstage. Ariel Dorfman’s stunning world-wide hit Death and the Maiden stars Susie Porter and is directed by Argentinian-born MTC Associate Director Leticia Cáceres.
Nadine Garner shines amid locals swapping ghost stories in the multi-award-winning Irish play The Weir, and acclaimed actress Alison Bell finds herself at the centre of a complex love triangle in Betrayal, Harold Pinter’s most arresting relationship drama.
MTC’s NEON Festival of Independent Theatre is back for its third year, together with the popular Cybec Electric play reading series, Women Directors’ Program, MTC CONNECT and MTC Ambassadors. MTC ’s vital education productions and programs are enhanced by even more initiatives under the banner Sharing The Light which will see greatly increased access for students, children and families across Victoria.
In 2015 MTC tours internationally and interstate taking Complexity of Belonging to Europe and Jumpy to Sydney, and co-produces Death and the Maiden with Sydney Theatre Company. MTC will also be a part of the new Southbank outdoor summer arts festival, SummerSalt, and is a Program Partner of MPavilion.
For more information and full program details including subscription packages, visit: www.mtc.com.au for details.
Image: Birdland – courtesy of Melbourne Theatre Company