Previous Readings at Parnassus' Den in 2011
|
Last Reading of 2011......
Monday 12 December - This Girl Laughs, This Girl Cries, This Girl Does Nothing - a new Australian play by Finegan Kruckemeyer
    
Cast: Katharine Cullen, Melinda Dransfield, Andrew Henry, Lizzie Schebesta & Sonny Vrebac
Directed by Kate Gaul
This Girl Laughs, This Girl Cries, This Girl Does Nothing (recipient of the 2010 Rodney Seaborn Award) is a new work for a 10+ audience. It seeks to harness the conventions and mythologies of the classic fairytale and marry them with an original journey accessible to modern children.
The play begins with triplet sisters left in the middle of a forest by their woodcutter father. From this point of great sorrow and uncertainty, one sister resolves to walk one way, one the other, and the third to stay right where she is. Over 20 years, the three go through experiential journeys and rites of passage, before the two wanderers circumnavigate the globe and find themselves back at that same place in the woods, the place where the third of their trio waits. Here, they meet again as women.
This Girl Laughs… premiered in Buenos Aires in April 2011 as supported by funding assistance from the Australian Latin American Foundation, before undergoing a lab development in the US. An Australian season is planned for 2013.
(Photo by Andy Rasheed from Eyefood)
Finegan Kruckemeyer
Finegan (30) has had 50 commissioned plays performed – this year 15 plays have seasons on five continents. His plays have been part of 31 (inter)national festivals, three Sydney Opera House seasons, an Abbey Theatre season, and a three-month season with The Actors’ Gang in LA. In 2010, The Girl Who Forgot to Sing Badly (The Ark/Theatre Lovett) was the first children’s work ever selected for the prestigious Re:Viewed programme in the Dublin Theatre Festival.
Finegan received the 2010 Rodney Seaborn Playwrights’ Award, 2009 AWGIE Award for best Australian children’s play, 2009 Young Tasmanian Artist Award, 2008 Best Children’s Theatre Playwright and 2007 Best Playwright Oscarts, 2006 Jill Blewett Playwright’s Award, and 2002 Colin Thiele Scholarship. In 2010, Man Covets Bird (Slingsby) received the Best New Work Ruby Award, and Best Work (Comedy) Curtain Call Award.
Finegan is part of the ASSITEJ Next Generation, 25 young theatre makers selected worldwide, and spoke at the 2008 ASSITEJ World Festival and Congress (Australia) and Take Off Festival (England), the 2009 Schäxpir Festival (Austria) and Imaginate Festival (Scotland), and 2010 ITYARN Children’s Theatre Conference (Argentina). He was an invited presenter at this year’s ASSITEJ World Festival and Congress (Denmark/Sweden).
Examples of his work can be seen at www.doollee.com/PlaywrightsK/kruckemeyer-finegan.html and www.finegansworks.com
|
|
|
Monday 26 September - Lyrebird - a new Australian play by Amelia Evans
    
Cast: Justin Cotta, Harriet Dyer, Julia Kennedy-Scott, Kevin Kiernan-Molloy & Lucy Miller
Directed by Jemma Gurney
Shortlisted for the 2010 Rodney Seaborn Playwriting Award
"Mother Nature’s a silly bitch eh?"
Cate and Henry lost their house in a bushfire. So when their friend June comes over for dinner they have to eat outside on a camping table and drink champagne from plastic cups. But that’s ok – drinking from plastic reminds June of being young, Henry loves the outdoors and Cate… Well Cate hates it but she loves her husband. So everything’s fine. Everything’s just fine. Really… Isn’t it?
Developed at NIDA and shortlisted for the 2010 Rodney Seaborn Playwrights award, Lyrebird is the story of how we survive after the ash has turned to mud and the newspapers have moved onto the next disaster.
Amelia Evans
Amelia Evans has written plays; A Hypnic Trip and The Saturated World (Melbourne Fringe/Randal Theatre), short plays; In Between (PYT), Apples (Griffin Theatre), Sibling Rivalry (Emerging Writers Festival), Why Rainbows? (ABC Gallery) and short film Water. As dramaturg she has worked on; Dirtyland (Arthur, The Spare Room), Private View (NIDA, Theatreworks), Pestilence (Platform Youth Theatre) and is currently working on Wrecking. She has directed The Saturated World (Melbourne Fringe/Randal Theatre) and Transistor (PYT). Amelia has completed a BCA(Hons) in Drama from Deakin University and a Graduate Diploma of Dramatic Art in Playwriting at NIDA. She also has extensive experience in Arts Administration, working as the PR and Communications Coordinator for the Melbourne Theatre Company.
Amelia is currently working as co writer/devisor on two projects that will premiere in 2011: Inflection (Underbelly Arts Festival) and Cut Snake (Arthur/Melbourne Fringe/Sydney Fringe) She is currently associate writer for Arthur Productions.
|
Monday 24 October - One Scientific Mystery or Why did the Aborigines eat Captain Cook - a new Australian play by Victoria Haralabidou
 
Cast: Matthew Backer, Julia Billington & Justin Cotta
Directed by Jemma Gurney
…Remember those days when to Australia
Arrived ships of departed Captain Cook?
V. Visotsky
Russia. Winter. Alone, in freezing St. Petersburg. A small apartment far from anything and everything you‘ve ever loved. Or maybe not.
Doosia is a 39 year old Russian barmaid. She wants to be happy.
Ben is a young Aussie bloke, happy to be away from his parents, in a country where drink and drugs are rock-n-roll. One drunken winter night Doosia meet Ben and ends up in his apartment.
Rhys is just another Aussie bloke far away from his family running his father-in-law's Ugg boots business. Rhys thinks he is happy. Why wouldn’t he be? He has a beautiful wife, and a gorgeous son.
Doosia meets Rhys. Maybe in another time or world they would’ve ended up together - but ‘Why did the Aborigines eat Captain Cook?’ is a play about the romance that did not happen, about cost of the choices we make in our lives, disconnect, love, lies, trust and dreams of a happiness that never comes.
Victoria Haralabidou
Born in St. Petersburg Russia, later moving to Athens, Greece as a teenager, Victoria has studied acting in both Russia and Greece.
Victoria's debut film role was the lead in the Martin Scorsese feature Brides, directed by Pantelis Voulgaris. Best Actress Award at the Thessaloniki Film Festival in 2004.
Other feature film credits include Blessed, for Ana Kokkinos, With Heart and Soul for Pantelis Voulgaris, and award-winning Australian shorts Apricot for Ben Briand and The Lovesong of Iskra Prufrock directed by Lucy Gaffy.
Victoria Haralabidou's play, working title: ‘One Scientific Mystery or, Why Did the Aborigines eat Captain Cook?’ was developed, as part of the professional writing workshop Salon organized by Playwriting Australia and an earlier draft was workshopped at the National Play Festival this year at Parramatta Riverside and the National Play Workshop.
In 2011-2012 season Victoria will be part of the Griffin Theatre family as an Associate Resident Writer.
|
|
Monday 29 August - One for the Ugly Girls - a new Australian play by Tahli Corin
  
Cast: Alice Ansara, Mirrah Foulkes & Tony Llewellyn-Jones
Shortlisted for the 2010 Rodney Seaborn Playwriting Award
Alistair is a painter. When his wife dies, he tries to preserve her memory in the only way he knows how. On his canvas. With his paintbrush. However within days of her death, he feels her slipping away from him. Desperately, he orders a model to help him recall the form and shape of a woman on which he can impose the fading memories of his wife.
But when Claire shows up on his door, Alistair gets much more than he bargained for as she challenges his conventions of beauty and the memories of his wife.
A comedy about grief, love, memory, and inspiration One for the Ugly Girls follows Alistair as he comes to reconcile the memory of his wife, and Claire as she wrestles with the ideas of beauty, art and mortality.
Directed by Tahli Corin
Tahli Corin
Tahli Corin graduated as an actor from the Centre for the Performing Arts (ACArts) in 2002. Since then she has been working as an actor, playwright and producer. As a playwright, Tahli co-wrote CONCLUSIONS: On Ice with award winning playwright Joshua Tyler for the 2008 Adelaide Fringe Festival. Her debut play Bumming With Jane premiered as part of the 2008 B Sharp season. In 2009 Tahli was the winner of the Philip Parsons Young Playwright’s Award, and she is currently working on a commission for Belvoir. Her second play,The Memory Muse (or one for the ugly girls) won the audience vote at PlayWriting Australia’s Kicking Down the Doors initiative, and was shortlisted for the 2010 Rodney Seaborn Award. In 2011, Sydney Theatre Company will present one of Tahli’s short plays in Money Shots, and continue it’s development of Girl In Tan Boots through their Rough Draft program.
|
Monday 25 July - MacGuffin - a new Australian play by Ron Elisha
From the writer of "Stainless Steel Rat" - the Wikiplay
   
Cast: David Callan, Peter Callan, Elaine Hudson & Marshall Napier
Directed by Tessa Leong
In 1965, Alfred Hitchcock approached Bernard Hermann to write the score for his upcoming film Torn Curtain. Over some 12 years, the pair had developed what was arguably the most successful director/composer collaboration in film history, with seven screen credits to their partnership, including such classics as Psycho and The Birds. But the balance of power in Hollywood was changing and, with their most recent venture, Marnie, having been a box office flop, the studio was placing enormous pressure on Hitchcock to modernize his approach to film. Amongst other directives, this pressure translated into a demand that the score be ‘hip’, incorporating what was hoped would be a hit song for the female star of the movie. Hitchcock was all for kowtowing to the studio. Hermann was not. A battle of the wills ensued between these two Hollywood titans - each with such differing backgrounds and temperaments - the upshot of which would take another decade to play itself out. In a piece that adventurously ranges back and forth through time, taking in along the way such Hollywood greats as Lew Wasserman and Martin Scorsese, the tug of war that developed between Hitchcock and Hermann brings into sharp relief the perennial dilemma of the creative artist. In so doing, however – and in keeping with the play’s title – it asks us to consider the far deeper question of what the play is really about.
Ron Elisha is both a playwright and a practising GP in Melbourne, Australia.
His stage plays include In Duty Bound (1979), Einstein (1981), Two(1983), Pax Americana (1984), The Levine Comedy (1986), Safe House (1989), Esterhaz (1990), Impropriety (1993), Choice (1994), Unknown Soldier (1986) and The Goldberg Variations (2000), A Tree, Falling (2003), Ladies & Gentlemen (2004), Wrongful Life (2005), Controlled Crying (2006), Renaissance (2006), The Schelling Point (2010) and Carbon Dating (2011). He has also written a telemovie, Death Duties (1991), two children’s books, Pigtales (1994) and Too Big (1997), and many feature articles and stories in a variety of publications.
His plays have been produced throughout Australia, New Zealand, United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Poland, Israel and France, and have won a number of awards, including four Australian Writers’ Guild Awards, the Mitch Matthews Award (2006) and the Houston International Film Festival Award for Best Screenplay.
Certificate Of Life had its World Premiere in Tel Aviv in 2010, and 2003’s stage success, A Tree, Falling, is being adapted by Ron for the screen.
|
|
Monday 20 June - His Mother's Voice - a new Australian play by Justin Fleming
   
  
Cast: Jason Chong, Felino Dolloso, Noel Hodda, Lotte St Clair, Jonathan Surjadi, Pearl Tan & Shu-Cheen Yu
Directed by Christopher Hurrell
In the People’s Republic of China during the Cultural Revolution, 1966-1976, pianos are banned as a corrosive Western influence. A young Chinese boy is secretly taught piano in the home by his defiant and courageous mother, a music teacher, who paints a keyboard on the kitchen table. The boy touches the notes and she sings them. In this way, the boy learns the rudiments of music. When people or officials visit, the mother covers the painted keyboard with a table cloth.
There are consequences for this furtive deception, but neither mother nor son expected that he would one day become a leading pianist caught in a dangerous political intrigue. Nor did they imagine they would become embroiled in a diplomatic confrontation between Shanghai and Canberra. The situation becomes even more challenging because of his close relationship with the woman he loves and the Australian family into which he marries.
His Mother’s Voice was shortlisted for the 2010 Rodney Seaborn Playwriting Award & Shortlisted for the Edward Albee Masterclass, Sydney 2010
Justin Fleming:
JUSTIN FLEMING has been a Vice-President of The Australian Writers' Guild and a board member of The Australian National Playwrights' Centre.
Justin's plays include Hammer (Ensemble Theatre/Festival of Sydney); The Cobra (STC/MTC, starring Sir Robert Helpmann and Mark Lee), Harold In Italy (STC / Teatr Studijni, Lodz, Poland); Burnt Piano (Belvoir Company B Theatre/MTC/HB Playwrights Foundation Theater New York, Mainstage Hobart/Dallas Theater Centre/France Australia Theatre, Paris/Centaur Theatre, Montréal/Ensemble Theatre Sydney), Coup d’Etat (Western Canada Theatre/MTC), Kangaroo (Square Brackets Theatre), Junction (NIDA) and Tartuffe (The Hypocrite) ( MTC). Burnt Piano was shortlisted for the NSW Premier's Literary Award and won the New York New Dramatists’ Exchange Award. Coup D’Etat won the Banff PlayRites Residency, Canada, made the final short-list for the Patrick White Award and was nominated for an AWGIE award for Best Play. Burnt Piano was selected as the inaugural play for the Australia/Canada exchange between Melbourne Theatre Company and the Centaur Theatre, Montréal. The Department Store won the inaugural Mitch Mathews Award at Parnassus' Den Theatre Company.
Justin was twice awarded the Nancy Keesing Studio, Cité des Arts, Paris, and was Writer in Residence at the Dr. Robert and Lina Thyll-Dürr Foundation, La Casa Zia Lina, Elba, Italy, where he translated Moliere's Tartuffe (The Hypocrite), for MTC, and wrote A Land Beyond the River (Phoenix Education) for Storylines Cultural Festival 2009. Justin was awarded the Writer's Residency at Arthur Boyd's Bundanon, where he wrote Origin, performed at The Art of Evolution Conference 2009, Courtauld Institute, London, directed by Wayne Harrison. In 2011, Justin has been awarded the inaugural Don Bank Writer’s Residency, and again, the Bundanon Writer’s Cottage, where he will work on two new plays – Dresden, for Richard Wagner’s 200th anniversary in 2013; and Cabal, on the perils of gambling, commissioned by Murray Baker. The Bell Shakespeare Company has commissioned Justin to translate Moliere’s The School for Wives.
|
Monday 9 May - Best Possible World - a new Australian play by Tee O'Neill
    
Cast: Kate Box, Fayssal Bazzi, Libby Fleming, Mark Pound & Rebecca Smee
Directed by Cristabel Sved
Shortlisted for the 2010 Rodney Seaborn Playwriting Award
Bride is a kind-hearted, free-spirited Australian of Irish descent. She works half the year in her cousin Orla’s back packers’ hostel in the west coast of Ireland and the other half chasing love affairs and adventures across the globe. When Orla begins accepting asylum-seekers from all over the war-torn world, the new residents test the limits of Bride’s big heart.
Best Possible World was shortlisted for the Patrick White play of the Year Award, Ireland’s Corkadorka Award and the Rodney Seaborn Award and won the Siena International Play Award. It was presented at the Australian National Playwright’s conference and at the HotINK International Play Festival produced by Atlantic Theater Company New York. Film Victoria has awarded the writer a grant to write a screen play based on the stage play.
Tee O’Neill:
Tee O'Neill's writing has been awarded the RE Ross Trust Playwright's Award, the Siena College International Play Award and an International Residency at the Royal Court Theatre in London. She has been the recipient of a 2009 nomination for the Griffin Award, 2006 commendation for the Louis Esson Prize, a 2006 nomination for the NSW Premier's Award, 2007 AWGIE award and the ANPC/New Dramatists Award in NYC, and nominated twice for the Patrick White Play Award as well as the Wal Cherry Award and Corcadorca Play of the Year in Ireland. She has received writing grants from the Australia Council and Arts Victoria, Sidney Myer Fund, Ian Potter Foundation and was recently commissioned by the Sydney Theatre Company. She has recently workshopped her latest play GR8Skin with Edward Albee at the Bondi Pavilion in Oct 2010.
|
|
First reading of 2011!
Monday 14 March 2011 @ 7.30pm - This Place a new Australian play by Nina Pearce
  
Cast: Emily Brennan, Matt Edgerton and Tenille Halliday
Directed by Tanya Goldberg
Shortlisted for the 2010 Rodney Seaborn Playwriting Award
WINNER of a SA Premier's Award - Jill Blewett Playwright’s Award...here is what they said about the play...
"This Place is an ambitious and inventive script and proof of Nina’s potential as a clever and sensitive playwright. Nina is ripe for this opportunity. Her writing is exciting, courageous and passionate and touches on an issue all too often thought of as taboo."
Eliza is a messenger, an angel, busting to shed light and love upon the world. Olivia is a frustrated artist, crying out to the universe for some bloody inspiration. Gareth is Eliza’s psychiatrist and Olivia’s husband, and he can’t see what all the fuss is about. As far as he‘s concerned , life is something you just “get on with.” These two women seem hell bent on changing his mind. In a small hospital room, Eliza gradually draws Gareth into her world where she fights for freedom, for divine love, for meaning in colours. At home, Olivia implores him to wake up and help her find a reason. A reason to paint, a reason to love, a reason to bring a child into this world. Gareth thought he had it all figured out. But it’s a different world now, and all of a sudden his logic is beginning to slip.
Nina Pearce:
Nina graduated from Acting at NIDA in 2005 and has since been predominantly involved with the South Australian film industry in her home city of Adelaide. She recently landed the lead role of “Kate” in the children’s feature A Second Chance, filmed in Jan-Feb 2011, and supporting roles in other features include “Sara” in Carmilla Hyde and “Nina” in The Forest, shot in 2008 and 2009 respectively. SAFC funded short films have featured Nina as “Leslie” in The Truth About Dolphins (2010), “Pillow” in My Friend Pillow (2010) and “Ingrid” in Rock Lobster (2009). She has also recently finished work on SBS comedy series Danger 5 (2010). Prior to her work in film, Nina performed as “Journalist” in Checklist for an Armed Robber at downstairs Belvoir st, as well as co-writing and devising theatre in Sydney and Adelaide. Nina realized her passion for writing in 2009 when she wrote the first draft of This Place. It’s Nina’s first full length play and was a recipient of the Richard Llewellyn Arts and Disability Trust (2009) and won the Jill Blewett Playwright’s Award in 2010, which resulted in a development with the State Theatre Company of South Australia. As well as completing This Place, Nina is also currently writing the next screenplay for the director of A Second Chance, as well as a comedy series for the web. |
Monday 4 April - Orphans - a new Australian play by Duncan Graham
   
Cast: Guy Edmonds, Anthony Gee & Aimee Horne & Sarah Snook
Directed by Iain Sinclair
Alceste has called her husband and his friend back to the house. She’s meant to be there but she’s supposedly upstairs sleeping. Why has she called everyone? There are small clues in the form of notes Alceste has left around the house. But they only create more mystery as to what the real situation is. What happens then when the children begin to come down and ask after their mother? What has really happened? And who is culpabale? Orphans is a psychological examination of the nature of marriage, love, betrayal and death, based on Euripides’ comi-tragedy, Alkestis. In this modern retelling of an ancient myth we are taken into the very nature of Alceste’s identity and mortality. Who’s account is the real one? Is Alceste’s life a bad dream, a sinister fiction or a cruel reality?
Duncan Graham graduated as an actor from AC Arts, Adelaide in 2003.
As a writer his work includes: Black Crow Lullabies (floogle 06); one long night in the land of Nod, (Old Fitzroy 09), Ollie and the Minotaur (B Sharp 09); The Love Play (B Sharp/ABC/Malthouse ’10); In 2011 cut Belvoir St; No Exit from the Roof for STC; and Half Real Malthouse/Melbourne Festival/Border project. He was the recipient of the 2008 Jill Blewett Playwright’s Award and Adelaide Fringe Award for Most Original Work. His other works include, Red Moon Rising, Country Arts SA; Orphans, STCSA.
As a director his works include, Macbeth & Asylum (ACArts), The Homecoming (floogle), The Emperor’s New Clothes (Splash). As an assistant director Hamlet, Uncle Vanya (STCSA) & The City & Measure for Measure (STC & Company B with Benedict Andrews), Our Town (STC, Iain Sinclair).
As an actor his credits include Penetrator, Bakehouse Theatre, Architektin for STCSA; and several films, Alexandra’s Project (Rolf de Heer) and Closed for Winter.
He was the 2009 Associate Artist at STCSA and with Sarah John is a founding member of floogle an award winning Independent Theatre Company whose work has played in Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. |
|
Previous readings in 2010 |
Previous readings in 2010 |
|
  
   
Cast: Josef Ber, Kylie Coolwell, Arka Das, Melinda Dransfield, Kellie Jones, Matthew Okine, Oliver Wenn, Kate Worsley & Meyne Wyatt
Directed by Kate Gaul
To be produced by Black Swan Theatre Company (World Premiere) as part of the Perth Festival 2011with the following credits:
Writer: Reg Cribb
Conceived by: Kate Cherry & Kenneth Ransom
Director: Kate Cherry
Composer & Musical Director: James Morrison
Set Designer: Michael Scott-Mitchell
Costume Designer: Teresa Negroponte
Lighting Designer: David Murray
Sound Designer: Peter Dawson
Asst Set Designer: David Fleischer
Dramaturg: Hilary Bell |
  
Cast: David Callan, Linda Cropper, Marshall Napier & Lucy Wigmore
Directed by Caroline Craig |
|
   
Cast: Jonathan Hardy, Gus Murray, Tony Sloman, Linden Wilkinson & Kate Worsley
Directed by Dave Letch |
   
Cast: Aldo Mignone, Louisa Mignone, Catherine Moore & Drayton Morley
Directed by Tessa Leong |
|
  
Cast: Shauntelle Benjamin, Peter Carmody, Anna Housten, Matthew Okine and Karen Vickery
Directed by Anthony Skuse |
   
   
 
Cast: Zoe Coyle, Sam Haft, Owen Little, Kate Lofting, Graeme McRae, Daniel Milne, Suzanne Pereira, Matilda Ridgway, Lotte St Clair & Lisa Warczak
Directed by Joseph Uchitel |
|
 
Cast: David Callan, Martin Crewes & Samantha Turner
Directed by Laurence Coy |
   
Cast: Don Christopher, Marissa Dikkenberg, Aimee Pedersen, Don Reid and Hazem Shammas |
|
|
|
Previous Readings in 2009 |
Previous Readings in 2009 |
|
|
|
Directed by Christopher Hurrell |
   
  
Cast: Di Adams, Alan Dukes, Archie Oxenbould, Ben Oxenbould, Jamie Oxenbould, Andrew McDonell & Richard Sydenham. |
|
 
Cast: Nick Cook, Sam Haft, Jonathan Hardy, Julie Hudspeth, Matt Minto & Kate Worsley
Directed by Dave Letch |
  
Cast: David Callan, Laurence Coy, Alan Flower, Nicholas Hope, Drayton Morley & Christopher Tomkinson
Directed by Sarah Goodes |
|
  
Cast: Sean Barker, Ian Meadows & Ed Wightman
Directed by Tanya Goldberg |
  
Cast: Katharine Cullen, Garth Holcombe, Tom O'Sullivan, Don Reid & Persia Toll
Directed by Joseph Uchitel |
|
  
 
Cast: Camilla Ah Kin, Helmut Bakaitis, Katharine Cullen, Andy Cunningham, John Grinston, Stuart Katzen & Hazem Shammas
Directed by Michael Dahlstrom |
   
Cast: Sally Cahill, Matt Minto, Anthony Phelan, Tony Sloman & Linden Wilkinson
Directed by Dave Letch |
|
 
Cast: Damien Ryan & Arky Michael
Directed by Christopher Hurrell |
   
Cast: Lynette Curran, Noel Hodda, Kim Knuckey, Kirk Page & Jane Phegan
Directed by Alex Galeazzi |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
