Sport For Jove: 2016 Season
Sydney-based Sport For Jove Theatre Company has announced its its 2016 theatre season.
In December and January, Sport For Jove’s Outdoor Summer Season returns for its 7th year with a double bill of moonlit romance, of men behaving badly and women winning the day, with a swift kick up the backside for a culture that is still discussing the rights and rules of marriage equality centuries after our greatest poets shot Cupid’s arrows right back at him.
The outdoor season features The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde, and Shakespeare's only entirely original comedy, Love’s Labour’s Lost, the play most closely tied to his Sonnets. Sport For Jove brings this little-known gem to the stage in a full Elizabethan setting, fusing the sonnets and the play into a passionate study of the act of artistic creation, in the surrounds of Bella Vista Farm and Leura Everglades Gardens.
Also playing as a bonus curtain raiser to Love’s Labour’s Lost throughout the festival season is the short one-act play Shakespearealism, by Australian actor, writer and film director Josh Lawson, directed by Lizzie Schebesta.
Love's Labour Lost
By William Shakespeare. Adapted & Directed by Damien Ryan. Designed by Melanie Liertz. Featuring Emily Eskell, Sabryna Te'o, Tim Walter, Berynn Schwerdt, Madeleine Jones, Lara Schwerdt, Curtis Fernandez & George Banders
Playing with the curtain raiser,
Shakespearealism
By Josh Lawson. Directed by Lizzie Schebesta.
Featuring Gabrielle Scawthorne, James Lugton, Aaron Tsindos & Ed Lembke-Hogan
&
The Importance of Being Earnest
By Oscar Wilde . Directed by Damien Ryan and Terry Karabelas. Designed by Anna Gardiner
Featuring Deborah Kennedy as Lady Bracknell with Claire Lovering, Eloise Winestock, Aaron Tsindos, Scott Sheridan and Wendy Strehlow.
December 12h – January 25th,
Bella Vista Farm, Baulkham Hills & The Everglades Garden, Leura
No End of Blame
Moving indoors, Sport For Jove returns to the Seymour Centre to stage Howard Barker’s No End of Blame, about censorship of the world’s most innocent yet dangerous satirical device – the political cartoon.
Set over 6 decades of the 20th Century across Europe’s most significant historical moments, the story pits a passionate, provocative pair of artists, one a painter, the other a cartoonist, against the forces of censorship and insidious state control that corrupt and stifle the human right to freedom of thought and freedom of speech. This brutal and savagely funny play could not be more relevant to our modern world in light of the Charlie Hebdo tragedy and the world’s new brand of warfare, journalism and censorship. A visual and aural feast for the senses, sharp, biting, hilarious and full of variety.
By Howard Barker. Directed by Damien Ryan . Designed by Lucilla Smith
Featuring Yalin Ozucelik, Lizzie Schebesta, Danielle King, Amy Usherwood.
March 4th - March 19th
Reginald Theatre, Seymour Centre, Chippendale
The Taming of the Shrew
In May, Sport For Jove is remounting successful production of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew on the great Hollywood soundstage of the silent film era, in the York Theatre, Seymour Centre and the Riverside Theatre, Parramatta.
Shakespeare’s love stories challenge us very deeply. They tend to be models of disharmony and madness in which trust, patience and finally, hope, are only reached through chaos and pain. They are as troubling as they are funny, and as beautiful as they are disturbing. The Taming of the Shrew captures that paradox perfectly, among the most challenging, confronting and exuberant plays ever written.
Sport for Jove’s production won critical acclaim in its 2011/12 Summer Festival Season, where it was nominated for 5 Sydney Theatre Awards including Best Independent Production, Actor, Actress, Director and Design.
By William Shakespeare Directed by Damien Ryan Designed by Anna Gardiner. Featuring Danielle King, James Lugton, Michael Cullen, Eloise Winestock, Chris Stalley, Terry Karabelas & Christopher Tomkinson
May 5th – May 7th,
Riverside Theatres, Parramatta
May 19th – May 28th,
Seymour Centre, Chippendale
AWAY
In June, Sport For Jove stages Michael Gow’s Away on the big stage of the York Theatre for its 30th Anniversary.
Michael Gow’s epic and intimate story of family renewal, death and awakening is brought to life with an exceptional ensemble cast, offering theatre goers a must-see experience. The coming of age story of Tom and Meg and their families celebrates a lost time and place in 1960s Australia that still expresses our deepest national, social and personal anxieties today. We are thrilled to present this national treasure in a vibrant new production.
By Michael Gow. Directed by Damien Ryan. Designed by Lucilla Smith.
Featuring James Bell, Georgia Scott
June 2nd – June 6th
Riverside Theatres, Parramatta
June 22nd – June 25th
York Theatre, Seymour Centre, Chippendale
Three Sisters
In late July Kevin Jackson directs Chekhov’s Three Sisters. Anton Chekhov’s vision of the Prozorov family is one of the most atmospheric and complete portraits of the ordinary/extraordinary flux of human life and ebbing dreams ever penned and this production combines faith and bold invention for a beautiful and rewarding experience in the theatre.
This production will also be part of The Anton Project, a study over several months of Chekhov’s life and work, including Russian history, dance, writing, and even cooking! This complete and immersive experience will allow people to become more engaged with the play, the people, and the culture, allowing for a deeper more appreciative understanding of the work. Anyone will be welcome to this series of talks and events in the months leading up to the production.
By Anton Chekhov. Directed by Kevin Jackson
July 29th – August 13th
Seymour Centre, Chippendale
Antigone
The final play in Sport for Jove's 2016 Season brings a new adaptation written Andrea Demetriades and William Zappa, along with Damien Ryan and Terry Karabelas of Sophocles' Antigone.
Antigone is a child of war, like too many in our world. She asked a simple question thousands of years ago that remains too difficult for us to answer even to this day, as so many recent events have demonstrated. What do we do with the body of a terrorist, a murderer, who has brought destruction, death and horror to our community when that terrorist is our brother, our own flesh and blood? How do the unwritten laws of personal conscience co-exist with the laws of a society and a nation?
Like Hamlet, Joan of Arc, Galileo and Sir Thomas More, Antigone inspires us with her courage, fortitude and impenetrable strength of conscience. She stands against the monolith and brings her society to a reckoning it sorely needs.
By Sophocles
Featuring Andrea Demetriades & William Zappa
October 6th – October 22nd
Reginald Theatre, Seymour Centre, Chippendale
November 9th – November 12th
Riverside Theatres, Parramatta
Photographer: Marnya Rothe
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