The Blue Room Theatre is thrilled to announce that after a year off, Summer Nights will return in 2022. Because what is Perth/Boorloo’s scorching feverish festive season without Summer Nights?
This award-winning program of theatre, movement and storytelling features twelve red hot shows from some of Boorloo’s best up-and-coming, established, and experimental artists. The 2022 Summer Nights program is a coming together of utopian dreams with dystopian nightmares.
You’ll find water skiing surreally staged in the heart of Northbridge. Visceral and raw theatre lit by audience torchlight. There’s an angsty teen musical set in Perth’s golden triangle and a dance and movement work that exhausts and ruins the performers.
Newly appointed Program Manager, Rose Kingdom-Barron, says you can expect fierce, fun and thrilling performances from the 2022 Summer Nights cohort, with artists that are pushing the boundaries tomake new work.
The shows face into what it means to desire and to be desired. What it means to come from a place when places disappear. What is means to know ourselves when identities blur and sharpen.
“We’re extremely excited by the stories these artists are sharing. Stories that are messy, stories with fight, urgent stories that sit in discomfort, and playful stories with humour refreshing as an ice bath,” says Kingdom-Barron.
“Our festival provides a home for the theatre die-hards as well as opening up the venue for other curious folk to dip their toe in. We’re honoured to bring people in and share the experience of live performance this summer, in its power, intimacy, challenge, and joy.”
It might be warm outside, but Summer Nights will be anything but a stuffy night at the theatre. The Blue Room Theatre invite you to drop in, grab a ticket, and a toastie. Catch a show. Catch all twelve? Enjoy the cool night air on their balcony bar as you chat with mates and new friends about what you’ve seen and done.
But get planning now! Discounted Early Bird tickets are available for a limited time. Book ahead, lock in your must-sees, and take a chance on a few others. You might surprise yourself!
And pop Friday 21 January into your diary because everyone is invited to Housewarming – Summer Night’s free opening party, which will see The Blue Room Theatre team up with RTRFM 92.1 and local party starters House of BOK.
The Blue Room Theatre has presented 283 works and supported over 2,500 artists over 11 festivals since 2010 and as a FRINGE WORLD registered program from 2012 – 2020.
In 2022, Summer Nights will evolve again, seeing the festival run entirely independently once more. For more information, visit: www.blueroom.org.au for details.
Image: Leo/Taurus/Taurus – photo by Michelle Endersbee
The Blue Room Theatre 2022 Summer Nights Program:
stillbirth
27 January – 5 February
Ground-breaking new Australian play! In a country fighting for independence, a white man is trapped in a black family’s house without their knowledge. As time passes, strange sounds and a stubborn stench fill the house. The family wonders if they are living with ghosts, but something more sinister is at play. This debut play, from playwright-to-watch Tinashe Jakwa, is a fresh and exciting exploration of how to overcome the past. The show journeys into the joys and pains of navigating racial divisions in a biting and humorous way. With a fresh spin on telling stories about difficult moments in history and presented by APK Productions, the show is for everyone who wants to build a better future.
107
27 January – 5 February
The “quiet girl” running away from her “tiger mum”. The “popular girl” and her “bitch” reputation. The “rebel” angry at life but deep down a total queer softie. And the “theatre nerd” grappling with a complex relationship to privilege. Four students, four girls of colour, four young people just trying to get through high school and figure out their place in the world. Pop in your Airpods and jump on board for a punk rock musical journey like no other! 107 is the all new production presented by Michele Gould and it’s fun, feminist and fierce as hell. Think The Breakfast Club meets Spring Awakening but… with a little extra spice. 107 flips stereotypes on their heads as it celebrates the resilience of our youth, and explores if being a “bitch” can sometimes be a person’s greatest power… all set to a killer brand new soundtrack guaranteed to be stuck in your head all summer.
Conversations with a Fish
27 January – 3 February
A fish faces a variety of existential dilemmas relating to human experience. What happens? YOU DECIDE. A highly original work revealing the depths of the human psyche in relation to our biological heritage through the figure of the fish. From fish-leather costumes to rigorous philosophical debate, this hilarious series of dark comedies is sure to make you think deep and laugh loud. This world premiere is First Nations artist Helah Milroy’s writing and directing debut. Featuring Phil Thomson, Bruce Denny, Paul Rowe, Joey Vale, Gabriel Critti-Schnaars and Jimi Fleming.
She’s Terribly Greedy
27 January – 3 February
20-year-old Ellenore stares at a bountiful feast, each plate a different future calling out to her – and she wants everything. She wants to wear every dress hanging in her closet. She wants every possible version of herself. Yet here she stands and stares at her future, and inexplicably can’t choose. She’s Terribly Greedy is a visually arresting devised work which interrogates the myth that women can only be one thing. Get twisted up as a multitude of bodies, dresses, and dinnerplates distort and reflect, fracturing the very notion of womanhood into every complex version of herself. Under the mentorship of Sam Nerida (See You Next Tuesday), this team of connected and daring artists are relentless in their pursuit of visual spectacle and human messiness. The ensemble, led by the core team of Everything Flickers (2021), will crack open womanhood and expand her into infinite identities and possibilities.
Wildcard
27 January – 5 February
In the cardgame Uno, the Wildcard represents all four colours of the game. The player of the Wildcard must choose the colour it represents for the next player. The Wildcard is a chameleon with the power to shift the tectonic plates of gameplay. Wildcard, however, is an experiment in development. A work made by a group of artists who might be considered Wildcards in each of their own lives. Facilitated and directed by Henry Boles, star of The Real Housewives of Northbridge 6003 (FRINGE WORLD 2019), host of NEST FM and current member of The Last Great Hunt Gatherer’s Collective, this is a show for people who needn’t dare to be different when it already comes so naturally. In a fast and furious 50 hours, your nightly line-up will bang heads and seek to create a work that exemplifies the exquisite space between them, with no two nights ending up the same. Music, dance, storytelling – expect every card in the deck!
Salome (Delta)
27 January – 5 February
Inspired by the Biblical dance of Salome and scored to the endless echo of prophecy and autobiography, Salome (Delta) is a dance-theatre work of desiring bodies and viral futures. Created by dance-maker Olivia Hendry with independent theatre f**kfaces Andrew Sutherland & Joe Paradise Lui (Unveiling: Gay Sex for Endtimes), Salome ? re-creates the Biblical figure through the queer & chronically sick lived-experience of its performers, in a ‘dance of the seven veils’ for the viral present. Upcycled indie fashion designer Declan MacPhail brings their vision to their set and costume design, as possible futures are made and re-made from the wreckage in an intimate spectacle for the lustful, the abject, the yearning, and the sick in search of the perfect choreography for a crumbling world.
The Complete Show of Water Skiing
8 – 12 February
In the midst of a scorching Perth summer, Jenny’s grandfather passes away. While clearing out his apartment, Jenny salvages one thing before the op shops claim her grandfather’s memories – a 1959 copy of ‘The Complete Book of Water Skiing’. Armed with this and the power of friendship, Jenny and her mates set their sights on the water, ready to honour his memory. A wholesome and funny exploration of legacy, sport and privilege. Who gets to win? But also, who gets to play? Featuring creatives Crystal Nguyen (BESIDE, Our Town), Lucy Wong (Doghouse, The Caucasian Chalk Circle), and Laura Liu (I’m fine thank you, and you?, Honey), water skiing is coming to Northbridge in a big way! So grab your life vests and hang on tight for the ride. Yeah buoy!
The Ugly
8 – 12 February
Cowboy plays guitar, Showgirl takes off clothes. One’s unwanted sexual attention is another’s forlorned fantasy. The air is thick and heavy; both are about to get ugly. Tongues, teeth and personal preferences clash in this full frontal look at our desires. With nothing but a G-string and a six string, Joe Paradise Lui (Enlightenment, Death Throes) and Phoebe Sullivan (Beginning At The End [Of Capitalism]) pick apart and strip bare the difficult questions that surround how and why we desire what we desire. Lean in close and watch this Burlesque-Cabaret duo go down on all the confusion and complexity that comes with being gendered, racial bodies that sometimes just want to – f**k.
Mother of Compost
4 – 12 February
Dearest compost, I am your mother and I am your child. We live in an ecologically precarious time. Some of us don’t want to bring children into this world, others are worried their children won’t have a world to grow old into … but we’ve still got a lot of love to give. Rethink what it means to give birth and be birthed, and sing-along with us in this gooey, camp and interactive subversion of family portraits, birthing classes, baby showers and evolutionary biology. From the minds of queer trouble-makers Noemie Huttner-Koros (The Lion Never Sleeps) and director Andrew Sutherland (small & cute oh no), Mother of Compost asks you to roll up your sleeves this Bunuru (summer)…Change only comes from getting your hands dirty.
Takatapui
4 – 12 February
Takatapui unearths the shadowy events of one fateful night among many, an attempt to ‘just be yourself,’ which ends in a cruel act of control. In turns macabre, sardonic, and candid, you’re invited to sit with the truth amidst an electrifying lyrical storm of story and sound. Perched on a toilet, armed only with a microphone, antidisciplinary artist Daley Rangi holds a solidary flame in a blistering call to action. This is an unflinching account of the violence that haunts us, inspired by ancestry and fuelled by injustice.
Leo/Taurus/Taurus
8 – 12 February
Four star-signs walk into a bar, meanwhile a INFP and an ENTJ fall in love, and across town, a phone lights up with a Co-Star notification that just says “truth”. Told through personal story-telling, movement, songs and poetry, Leo/Taurus/Taurus is a glittery, energetic, moving journey through our search for meaning, and the tools we use to figure out who we are; from astrology to Myers Briggs, Buzzfeed quizzes to IQ tests; and what happens when we strip it all away. From Lady Great Theatre Co, and directed by Michelle Endersbee (ARADIA, Watch and Act), comes a new show that explores identity in an ever changing world, and really wants to know … who are you really?
Utopia
8 – 12 February
Utopia is a collection of unreliable narratives from Afghanistan where daily life is madness and only dreams of escape to paradise give hope. Afghani writer and director Amir Musavi presents his first Australian work. Experimental and experiential, Utopia cuts across borders and cultures, repeating difficult events to find a solution. Stagger into a minefield. See siblings demand the ultimate sacrifice. Watch a terrorist fall in love. Marvel as families embark on dangerous journeys to escape a hellish life. Lit by torches, voiced by diverse actors… it’s complex, thrilling and not for the fainthearted.