The Hypocrite

There's no better racket than the religion racket and no one knows that racket like Tartuffe.
Almost everyone can see what a sanctimonious hypocrite he is, but that doesn't matter. He only needs a couple of rich and influential suckers who will fall for his holier-than-thou routine and , in old Madame Pernelle and her foolish son Orgon, he's found them.
String them along for long enough and they'll give him anything he wants, money, power, even the hand of Orgaon's daughter in marriage.
Season: November 8 - December 13.

2009 Season

Artistic director Simon Phillips announced that six plays of the 2009 season would be performed at the new MTC Theatre on Southbank Boulevard and thet they would be all Australian works.
"2009 is a landmark year in aour new landmark building. With the new 500-seat Sumner Theatre and the 150-seat Lawler Studi to add the Arts Centre theatres the breadth of the work opens up enormously. for the first time in our history we will have the right theatre for any play and any sized audoences imaginable", said Phillips.
The 2009 season comprises 12 plays in total including three world premieres, five new West End and Broadway hits, the revival of a British classic and a Christmas review.
The new $55 million MTC Theatre which has been 15 years in the planning will open on Tuesday January 27, 2009 with the world premiere of Poor Boy by Matt Cameron and Tim FInn and starring Guy Pearce.
Other plays for 2009 are:
Andrew Bovell's epic new work. When the Rain stops Falling, one of the hits of the 2008 Adelaide Festival.
The world premiere of Rockabye, a new satirical comedy by Jonna Murray-Smith set in the world of celebrity, starring Nicki Wendt.
The world Premiere of Realism by Paul Galloway, winner of the 2008 Wal Cherry Award for Best New Play, a backstage farce set in the 1930s Soviet Union, starring Miriam Margolyes.
A revival of the Australian classic, Dorothy Hewitt's The Man from Mukinupin starring Amanda Muggleton.
A Christmas revue by Max Gillies and Guy Rundle, Godzone, which features the Reverend Rudd of Rudd Ministries.
There are also six outstanding plays in 2009.
Grace by UK playwright Mick Gordon and philosopher AC Grayling is a moving and thought-provoking drama and will star Noni Hazelhurst in her Melbourne stage début.
Bruce Beresford will make his theatre directing début with the madcap Hollywood comedy Moonlight and Magnolias.
Joan Didion's stage adaptation of her best=selling memoir The Year of Magical Thinking s presented in an acclaimed STC production directed by Cate Blanchett and starring Robyn Nevin.
Award-winning Broadway hit, August: Osage County by Tracy Letts, an American family drama, will be the biggest production of the year and will feature an ensemble led by Robyn Nevin, Jane Menalaus and Robert Menzies.
Yasmin Reza's new savage comedy God of Carnage is about two supposedly civilised couples will star Pamela Rabe.
Harold Pinter's first major play, the post-war classic. The Birthday Party, will be revived in a production directed by Julian Mayrick.

Grace

Scientist Grace Friedman has fought irrational belief her entire career, becoming the country's most vocal advocate for atheism. So it comes almost as a personal affront when her own son, Tom, decides to become an Anglican priest. And why aren't her husband and Tom's fiancée as upset as she is? Yet when tragedy falls, she finds that you can have all the arguments and still not have the answers.
Season: January 2 - February 14 - 2009.

New Theatres

The MTC Theatre represents an exciting new architectural addition to Melbourne's Southbank Culteral Precint and a new era in the history of the Melbourne Theatre Company.
Home to two performance spaces, the 500-seat Sumner Theatre and the 160-seat Lawler Studio, the building is the result of a creative collaboration between McDougall and Simon Phillips, MTC's Artistic director.
The Sumner will be Australia's most technically advanced drama theatre featuring:
Australia's only fleixable modular stage (enabling everything from traps to swimming pools to be installed)
A flytower housing 44 state-of-the-art powered flys, each capable of lifting 500kg
In an Australian irst, a fully flexible proscenium arch (enabling the stage to be used with or without a proscenium and the size of the proscenium to chage to suit the production).
An extensive thrust across three stage lifts (enabling the stage to move deep into the auditorium and potentially allowing for catwalk shows
Spacious seating , superb with no seat more than 18m from the stage
An interior design comprised of illuminated quotes from 80 iconic playwrights, including Aristphanes, David Williamson, Molière and Joanna Murtray-Smith
Dressing rooms for 23 performers with (for the first time) natural light.
In addition the Lawler Studio will act as both a rehearsal venue and a 160 performance space.

The MTC Theatre will also feature
Theatre bars
A café/bistro
Outdoor seating area
Spectacular views of Melbourne
The exterior of the building comprises a series of white cubes set against a black background that appear to shift as the viewer moves around the buildng.
Just like theatre, as the sun comes up the magic of the building recedes, but ay night, lit bu specially focussed floodlights, the building bursts into life in a glowing illusionisitc display.

Rhapsody

Stripping back all tradition from the circus art form and starting again Rhapsody is a raw hour of circus with a chip on its shoulder.
A contemporary take on the myth of Narcissus; the boy ho fell in love with his own reflection, Rhapsody is a dynamic new work that incoorporates edge of your seat urban choreography with live multimedia.
The production examines society and the role that interactive media such as the internet has in identity formation and social connection. Join the company literally in a MYspace and Facebook world, as they engage in 'flying' in and across cyberspace and ging 'on-line' into the relams of fantasy and beyond.
Rhapsody will not only take your breath away with bold physical roles taken on by this year's NICA performers, it will also explore and engage with interactive technologies in a study of social interaction and isolation. This is a world where identity is fluid, where you will neve be beautiful, fabulous or famous enough.
Live camera action interacts with live sound cmposition, breath-taking contemporary circus and physical artistry in a universe where everyone is a superhero, a super ego or a superstar!
Season: December 3 - 13.

Buddy. The Buddy Holly Story

BUDDY, The Buddy Holly Story is back for a strictly limited six week season at The Palms at Crown, Crown Entertainment Complex opening Saturday June 27, 2009.
Starring as Buddy Holly is Scott Cameron, The Big Bopper is too played by kin with Jonathan Whitlow as Ritchie Valens and Laura Bunting as Maria Elena Holly.
Buddy Holly started as a country and western singer in Texas and, with his two friends, formed The Crickets. With the support of local radio D. J. Hipockets
Duncan, Buddy Holly shot to stardom in 1957. He was the first white artist to ever perform at the “All Black” Apollo Theatre in New York. Tragically Buddy Holly died in plane crash alongside Ritchie Valens and J. P. Richardson (The Big Bopper).
Now on June 27, 2009 Fifty years on since the day music died BUDDY, The Buddy Holly Story brings back the remarkable Buddy and his music including such hits as That’ll Be The Day, Peggy Sue, I’m Looking For Someone To Love.  Rave On, Heartbeat ,Maybe Baby, Everyday -  songs that inspired the Beatles and helped trigger the whole 60s revolution, songs that, despite their countless cover versions and enduring airplay, have never lost their magic.

Playing Buddy Holly is Scott Cameron, a young man of 22 years, the same age as Buddy at the height of his fame and the age he passed on.
Cameron albeit his 22 years is a veteran of the music industry. Playing the guitar since he was aged  5 years his first professional performance was at age 7 opening for Comic Icon Steady Eddy and has performed with many music legends, Tommy and Phil Emmanuel, the late Slim Dusty, Lee Kernaghan, John Williamson, Gina Jefferies and Brian Cadd.
At age ten he won a gold medal in the prestigious South Pacific International Song Contest for his ballad Mama’s Gone.
Unusually for most show business personal Scott is the first in his family to enter show business. His home is the Gold Coast but does not see it too often. He toured as Buddy Holly in England and Majorca in Spain where he was surprised at the popularity of Buddy Holly. Even with all this experience as Buddy Holly he still had to audition for the role in BUDDY, The Buddy Holly Story.
A thoroughly natural young man whose keenness in his role is obvious after talking to him. It is if Buddy Holly has come alive. Cameron really has captured the feel of Holly and being a very talented young man the show is certain to be a winner.
Everyone who is a fan of Buddy Holly and even those who aren’t have heard the great hit Peggy Sue. Perhaps some still could be surprised to know that Peggy Sue is a real person. A charming lady Peggy Sue Gerron told your correspondent that her first meeting with Buddy Holly was in a hallway of Lubbock High School where Buddy, while running with guitar and amplifier in hand, accidentally knocked her over. He apologised by saying “I’m too late to pick you up, but you sure are pretty”.
Peggy sue and her steady’ Jerry Allison, double-dated with Buddy and shared rhythm and blues records and plans for the future.
Following graduation Peggy married Jerry Allison who was the Crickets drummer.
Today Peggy is a celebrity speaker, radio host and columnist. Just as a sideline she is also a ham radio hobbyist keeping in touch with Buddy Holly fans across the wild.
A charming vivacious lady and very happy to be in Australia for the first time and was excited about seeing a kangaroo and cuddling a koala. Very enthusiastic about Scott Cameron portraying Buddy. She considers he has captured the exact feel of Buddy Holly even to some of his expressions .  

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One Cloud

Inspired by the 2002 murder of Janelle Patton on Norfolk Island, One Cloud tells the story of Stella Harper, a vibrant young woman who flees to a small secluded island named Paradise in a last ditch attempt to find her place in the world.
On arrival she is saved from the bottom of the sea byPup, reluctant heir to the island. Although at first embraced as an exotic guest, when Stella begins a romance with Pup, the island women work desperately to oust the interloper and maintain the status quo. Stella becomes more and more isolated as her very presence begins to raise questions and unearth secrets that threaten the foundations of Paradise.
Season: November 13 - 28.

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Stones in His Pockets

A small Irish village lights up with star wattage when Hollywood descends.
In this hilarious comedy, Charlie and Jake find themselves cast as extras in an epic blockbuster that has hijacked their sleepy conutry village.
With a re-hot script in his back pocket Charlie sees his as his chance to hit the big time, while superstar Caroline Giovanni approached Charlie for private dialect lessons.
But while some in the town delight in the chance to rub shoulders with the famous cast, others are less impressed by the American's attitudes and the clash between the American cast and the Irish locals is inevitable and inevitibly funny.
In this incredible two-hander Michell Butel and Michael Habib play more than 20 characters including Jake and Charlie, the glamerous Caroline, her bullish bodyguard and a frustrated director.
Season: November 13 - December 13.

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The Imortance of Being Earnest

Two couples are tngled in a romantic web like none other. Jack falls for Gwendolyn but Gwendolyn loves Earnest. Jack is Earnest, only Gwendolyn doesn't know it.
Meanwhile Jack's ward Cecily thinks she loves Earnest, algernon is convinced he loves Cecily so pretends to be Earnest - however jack has arranged for the non-existent Earnest to die in Paris. When all four meet, hilarity ensues.
Season: October 16 - November 1.

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Tricicle 2s Tricicle 20

The Adelaide Festival Centre's Centre Stage program is excited to present Spain's most widely knpwn theatre company Tricicle2's Tricicle 20 appearing for th first time n Australia and exclusive to Adelaide.
Tricicle 2 is a brilliant physical comedy group from Barcelon that uses humour and clowning as a base.
Tricicle 20 is an anthology of the best moments from the five shows that make up the Company's repertoire.
Tricicle 20 will deliver excruciating funny skits including an aged chess fan being kibitzed by another elder whose shaky hands knock the pices on the floor, a diverting pasrody of the Olympicsgone wrong, a narcisism of sportsmen, sprinters flexing their shorts in order to inspect their jock strapped slendour. A collection of gags about airline travel complete with airsickness bags, oxygen masks and life jackets. And some bumbling babies bouncing balls that will have you wetting your pants or should we say nappie.
Season: October 14 & 16 at 6.30 pm 1 & 18 at 8pm October 15 at 11 am.

Ying Tong - A Walk with the Goons

Ying Tong is a tribute to an exceptionally talentd but troubled man who created one of the best-loved comedy series of our time. Milligan, much-loved in Australia, has been dubbed "The Godfather of Modern Comedy" and voted the funniest person of the millennium in a BBC poll.

Ying Tong shows Milligan at the height of his success, under pressure to deliver a new Goon Show script. He suffers a nervous breakdown and has to be hospitalised. The audience is tramsported into his crazy world and witnesses his struggle to regain mental equilibrium. There are flashbacks to Milligan's youth, earlier career ad experiences in WW II. His fantasies are peopled by Adolf Hitler, leprechauns, dispassionate hospital staff and famous Goon Show characters such as Eccles, Bluebottle and Neddie - all written in the trademark eccentric and unconvental Milligan style.
Season: November 5 - 8, 12 - 15, 19 - 22 at 8pm. November 8, 15, 22 at 2pm. November 11 & 18 at 11am.

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