NEON Festival of Independent Theatre

Melbourne Theatre Company’s Artistic Director Brett Sheehy today (March 18, 2013) launched the program for NEON – MTC’s Festival of Independent Theatre, celebrating Melbourne’s independent arts community.

NEON features original works from Daniel Schlusser Ensemble, Fraught Outfit, The Hayloft Project, THE RABBLE and Sisters Grimm, each for a ten-day season, as part of this inaugural festival in the Lawler at Southbank Theatre between May and July 2013.

‘This festival of independent theatre is one of MTC’s most significant initiatives to date. With NEON, we celebrate Melbourne’s unique and thriving independent theatre landscape and its astonishing artists. These five NEON companies represent a huge diversity of talent, and all create work which is thrilling, confronting and entertaining,’ Brett Sheehy said as he unveiled the program.

Brett Sheehy also announced NEON EXTRA , a diverse program of activities for the public and independent theatremakers, which includes forums, workshops, networking events and mentoring opportunities.

‘Like all great festivals, NEON includes a raft of activities designed to flesh out the experience of the performances, as well as provide a platform for dialogue between theatre makers of our city. NEON EXTRA will see Southbank Theatre become a ten week focus of discourse and discussion,’ Brett Sheehy said.

NEON EXTRA brings together industry commentators, journalists and leading creatives such as Wesley Enoch, Alison Croggon, Andrew Upton, Emily Sexton, Lally Katz, Ralph Myers and Anouk Van Dijk to take part in a range of events, sharing their views with the public and tackling themes guaranteed to get the creative juices flowing. The NEON Bar will be open throughout the festival so audiences can continue the conversation.

NEON opens with Menagerie (May 16 – 26) presented by Daniel Schlusser Ensemble, based on the work of one of the giants of the American stage, Tennessee Williams.

‘In this work for the Australian stage, created in honour of one of the heroes of American theatre, we are strip-mining Williams’ plays to reveal the pantheon beneath, the dark melodrama of gods at war,’ Daniel Schlusser said.

‘It is a cruel mythos in which youth and beauty are never spared. Williams is one of the great poets of the broken and broken-hearted,’ he said.

The latest production from Fraught Outfit promises a theatrical experience of radical and daring intimacy. On the Bodily Education of Young Girls (May 30 – June 9) explores the most slippery aspects of innocence and power.

Artistic Director Adena Jacobs said ‘The work I create with Fraught Outfit always has a strong visual component and this production is no exception. It will be a theatrical poem, largely silent, created in rich, sensory detail with a large ensemble cast. We are asking an audience to enter the theatre and observe the world these girls inhabit, a private and slippery reality.

‘This piece draws upon the human themes that recur within my own work; the precariousness of identity, the private vs public, and our desire to connect with others at any cost. I believe that at its most powerful, theatre has the ability to expose our innermost fears and desires,’ she said.

The Hayloft Project brings a new work to the stage written, directed and performed by Anne-Louise Sarks and Benedict Hardie. By Their Own Hands (June 13 – 23) offers a stark opus on ancient Greek myths and contemporary humanity, welcoming the audience into an epic yet utterly recognisable world.

Artistic Director Anne-Louise Sarks said ‘As a theatre maker I keep finding myself drawn back to the Greeks. I keep intending to move away, but they call me back. To me, these plays seem to get to the core of the question about what it is to be human. It is so rich and so full of possibilities.’

Artistic Associate Benedict Hardie said, ‘Anne-Louise and I are both devising and performing this work. It’s exciting and terrifying at the same time, and I think they’re the two best conditions in which to be making new work.

‘It’s an extension of work we’ve been doing together for years involving storytelling and imagination. There’s this limitless fluidity of character, space and time. It’s something most of our audiences have never seen from us before,’ he said.

Story of O (June 27 – July 7) is THE RABBLE in their element. Artistic Directors Kate Davis and Emma Valente have taken Pauline Réage’s famous novel and reinterpreted it as a surreal and erotic visual fantasia. Together they apply fresh perspective to the themes of gender and sexuality, leading the audience through a visceral odyssey.

Artistic Directors Kate Davis and Emma Valente said ‘Story of O is a natural progression for THE RABBLE, after delvinginto the world of Orlando and Virginia Woolf, it will be acontinuation of our investigation into representations ofgender and sexuality. Depicting the world of O is both thrillingand terrifying.’

Sisters Grimm close NEON with the story of one woman’s quest to find her strength pitted against the harsh Australian outback. The Sovereign Wife (July 11 – 21) leads audiences on a journey spanning one hundred and fifty years, from Ballarat to the Simpson Desert.

‘NEON is devoted to presenting only Melbourne companies and is dedicated solely to the artform of theatre. Part of our mission is to literally throw open our doors to all of Melbourne and to make Southbank Theatre a place of connection, accessibility and welcome, no matter what form of theatre Melbourne desires,’ Brett Sheehy concluded.

Tickets to each show are $25, or grab a NEON PASS to see all five plays for just $100.

More detais - http://www.mtc.com.au/tickets/index.aspx?section=studio&season=current