NIDA End-of-year Season

The National Institute of Dramatic Art’s October 2014 program includes five productions by award-winning directors and playwrights featuring the next generation of Australia’s actors and creative professionals, there is something for everyone this season.

In the first full-scale production ever to be staged in Australia, the romantic musical The Light in the Piazza kick starts NIDA’s October program. In the summer of 1953, a wealthy American woman and her daughter are travelling through Italy, but when the daughter falls for a young Italian man the family secrets start to emerge. Helpmann award-winning director Roger Hodgman brings this emotionally intricate story to life in a visually spectacular production.

“I am delighted to be directing Australia’s first full-scale production of The Light in the Piazza. Craig Lucas’ witty libretto combines with Adam Guettel’s rich score to produce a haunting and beautiful experience. It really is one of the great musicals of recent times,” comments Roger Hodgman.

Artistic Director of Australian Dance Theatre, Garry Stewart, brings a playful and exhilarating new work to the October program, Choreography. Using movement, singing, text and irony housed in the stunning surrounds of Carriageworks, this piece redefines dance and will change how you see choreography forever.

The season also features the world premiere of a new work by Pulitzer-nominated writer Adam Rapp, Wolf in the River. This provocative work is an intimate, heart-wrenching portrayal of a girl trapped in a world of neglect, longing for escape. The play fearlessly explores yearning to leave your hometown, first love and the dangerous cost of boredom, all through the lens of savage small-town America.

Writing for Performance – A Personal Viewis a journey through the writer’s mind. It navigates the loss of innocence and the role of the memory. Both intensely intimate and vast, this epic work by award-winning Australian playwright, Michael Gow explores the lawlessness of imagination and questions whether the artist is ever really acceptable to the status quo.

Director and NIDA Acting Lecturer, Kristine Landon-Smith’s uniquely Australian production of Blood Weddingcompletes the program. Set in rural Australia in 1958, this is a fresh and daring take on Federico Garcia Lorca’s tragic story about a girl on the eve of her wedding day, haunted by memories of her childhood sweetheart.

The Productions

To book tickets or find out more visit www.nida.edu.au/events

Image: The Light in the Piazza - Jessica Vickers and Matthew Predny