Kelly Paterniti and Alex Williams in Bell Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”. Photo by Pierre Toussaint featuring .jpg
There’s not much in the name, as “CityNews” discovered when talking to the theatre’s programming manager, Gill Hugonnet, but the sub-theme, “see something you haven’t seen”, is more to the point.
This year the theatre is offering a whopping 20 productions. A few years ago it would have been just 11 or 12, but there’s so much good theatre around, Hugonnet says, “and we don’t want to miss opportunities”.
All the same, the usual suspects are still topping the bill, such as the Sydney Dance Company, Bell Shakespeare, Bangarra, Circa, Opera Australia and the Sydney and Queensland theatre companies, recognisable to audiences and “a sure bet”.
The Sydney Theatre Company’s production of “Disgraced”, the Pulitzer Prize-winning play that touches on Islamophobia.
David Bates’ Famous Spiegeltent will pitch itself in Civic Square for circus, burlesque and speakeasy in “La Clique” while Yaron Lifschitz and his ensemble will present Saint Saëns’ “Carnival of the Animals” Circa-style, boasting, “our elephants have street cred”.
The big winners for 2016 will be serious drama-lovers, with Bell’s new director Peter Evans directing both “Romeo and Juliet” and “Othello”, Brisbane’s clever Shake & Stir company performing Nick Skubij’s adaptation of “Wuthering Heights”, Belvoir’s “The Glass Menagerie” with Pamela Rabe starring as Amanda, Sydney Theatre Company’s Pulitzer Prize-winner “Disgraced” touching on Islamophobia, Andrew Bovell’s new play “Things I Know To Be True” performed by the State Theatre Company of SA with the UK’s Frantic Assembly and Hannie Rayson’s sex and global warming play “Extinction” from Geelong’s Red Stitch Actors’ Theatre.
William Yang returns to The Courtyard Studio in “Blood Links”, his narrated photographic look at the Chinese diaspora, while at the Canberra Museum and Gallery his show “Breathing the Rarefied Air of Canberra” reflects on an artistic residency at the ANU.
Dance is very much to the fore, as Sydney Dance Company brings Swedish choreographer Alexander Ekman’s humorous piece, “Cacti”. There will also be the world premiere of Rafael Bonachela’s “Lux Tenebris” and Bangarra’s “our land people stories”, where Stephen Page adds new blood to the choreographic scene in works by himself, Daniel Riley, Jasmin Sheppard, Beau Dean Riley Smith.
Brisbane’s Shake & Stir company will perform Nick Skubij’s adaptation of “Wuthering Heights”. Photo by Dylan Evans
Musical theatre of three different kinds will unfold, with “Little Shop of Horrors” directed by Dean for the same company that brought us “Sweet Charity”, Michael Gow’s Downton Abbey-style adaptation of “The Marriage of Figaro” for Opera Australia and “Country Song”, a feel-good musical about the late Jimmy Little, directed by Wesley Enoch for the Queensland Theatre Company.
And the notorious Wharf Revue? They’re hoping their 2016 September show here might coincide with a Federal election. You never know what could unfold.
“Unfolding”, Canberra Theatre 2016 subscription season, bookings to canberratheatrecentre.com.au or 6275 2700.
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