Stage Briefs

ANGUS CERINI WINS 2014 GRIFFIN AWARD

Melbourne playwright Angus Cerini has been awarded the 2014 Griffin Award for his new work The Bleeding Tree. 

Griffin Theatre Company announced the award at the SBW Stables Theatre on Wednesday June 25.

The Griffin Award is a national playwriting prize provided by Australia’s leading new writing theatre company. In its seventeenth year, the Award recognises an outstanding play or performance text that displays an authentic, inventive and contemporary Australian voice.

Unpack This!

Unpack This! explores the humorous side of a men’s anger management workshop. Written, directed and performed by ex-Neighbours star Geoff Paine, the show explores Paine’s personal experience of head-butting a noisy neighbour and his journey of paying his dues though a court actioned anger management course. Paine plays three angry men: himself, Nguyen, the chauvinist, and Nicholas, who struggles to understand how to be a man without aggression. Unpack This!

Young Australian Performer Maddie Featherby Lives the Dream at NYMF

Rising, young Australian performer Madeleine Featherby has been cast to play the leading role of Sofia Duarte in the new Australian musical, The Mapmaker's Opera.  The show will premiere at the New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF) in July of this year as one of only ten official selections chosen by a Grand Jury of Broadway professionals for full production. 

Biggest Aussie Line-up Ever at New York Musical Theatre Festival

The New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF) has announced its largest ever line-up of events developed by Australian artists as part of its 2014 Festival. This year's Festival will begin July 7 and continue through July 27.

Rolling Thunder Vietnam: Songs That Defined A Generation

New Australian concert drama Rolling Thunder Vietnam will have its world premiere in August 2014 at the start of a national tour.

Set in the Vietnam War era, the production showcases some of the greatest rock songs ever produced, featuring the music of Steppenwolf, Joe Cocker, Buffalo Springfield, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Gladys Knight, Billy Thorpe, The Rolling Stones and Curtis Mayfield just to name a few.

Getting to Know You: Melbourne Child Cast for The King and I

John Frost and Opera Australia have announced the 39 children who have been cast in roles for the Melbourne season of The King and I, playing at the Princess Theatre, Melbourne from 10 June 2014.

The principal role of Prince Chululongkorn will be shared by Joshua Ding, George Missailidis and David Tan, and the principal role of Louis Leonowens will be shared by Jack Lyall, Campbell MacCorquodale and Beau Woodbridge.

Patch Theatre Receives Australia Council Funding to Tour Nationally in 2015 -2017

Patch Theatre Company has secured National Touring Status from the Australia Council for the Arts, with total funding of of $1,037,232 to tour nationally in 2015 -2017. The funding will enable Patch to continue its extensive established national touring program for the next three years, delivering their work throughout Australia and with a special emphasis on regional and remote areas. It will also further enhance the companies connection within regional communities across Australia before, during and after they tour each region.

THE FACTORY: NEW ZEALAND’S PACIFIC HIT MUSICAL TOURS AUSTRALIA

After becoming a hot ticket at the Auckland Arts Festival in 2013, New Zealand theatre company, Kila Kokonut Krew, are bringing their soulful musical about the Samoan migrant experience, The Factory, to Australia, premiering at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival, with seasons at Riverside Theatres, Parramatta, Canberra Theatre Centre, Merrigong Theatre Wollongong and Gold Coast Arts Centre to follow during June and July.

Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake Returns

One of the most audacious and internationally successful dance shows ever produced, Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake, will return to Australia in October 2014, playing a Melbourne season at the Regent Theatre, from 16 - 26 October, followed by a Sydney season at the Theatre Royal from October 28 to November 2.

MIRACLE CITY: New Production at Hayes Theatre Co.

Luckiest Productions in association with Hayes Theatre Co will present a brand new production of Nick Enright and Max Lambert’s musical Miracle City at Hayes Theatre Co in Sydney from October 17 – November 16, 2014.

Set in real time during a live-to-air American evangelical television show, Miracle City tells the story of the Truswells, a family with a dream to build a religious theme park, and the extreme lengths the patriarch Ricky Truswell will go to in order to make their dream a reality.