ENCOUNTER(S)

ENCOUNTER(S) is a three-year Theatre Works project that will commission and present one-on-one and small-scale intimate performances at various locations throughout St Kilda. In 2012 some of Australia’s most adventurous performance makers will undertake creative development residencies as they explore more profoundly the relationship between audience and artist through the development of new work in surprising and unusual locations.

During two weeks in December commissioned artists will be given the opportunity to share their creative developments and Theatre Works will program a series of workshops and discussions focusing on small-scale, intimate and site-sympathetic performance.

In future years ENCOUNTER(S) will develop to become a full scale festival of intimate performance presenting a program of events which celebrate immersive, experimental and participatory artistic experiences.

For applications please visit:

www.encounters.org.au

2013 Selected Works Program

Theatre Works Selected Works program supports independent artists and companies present live performances across a variety of genres.  Artists from throughout Australia are encouraged to apply for this program.  In 2013 Theatre Works will be able to make a modest contribution to Creative Fees to projects which are new work.

Submission Deadlines 

Applications for 2013 Selected Works have now closed.

For further information about the program please download the information pack

This project has been supported by the City of Port Phillip

2012 IN THE WORKS program

In 2012 Theatre Works will support 4 groups of artists develop work through In the Works program and also provide  exciting residency opportunites for The Daniel Schlusser Ensemble and The Rabble.

Theatre Works is committed to working with more artists from the ground up on projects, increasing and deepening the support we can offer to enable visioanry artists to make work.

More than just a fantastic independent theatre venue; Theatre Works strives to develop innovative partnerships with artists from throughout Australia and assist them through the many stages of creating new live performances.

Keep in touch to find out what projects will have public showings.

This year we will be supporting these projects:

The Master and Margarita
Daniel Schlusser Ensemble
In residence Feb 6 - Feb 18
This project has been supported through The Australia Council for the Arts Program Presenter Funding

-And so who are you, after all?
-I am part of the power that forever wills evil and forever works good.

Over two thrilling weeks, the Daniel Schlusser Ensemble will tackle a theatrical adaptation of the one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century, Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita.

The Master and Margarita is a brilliantly conceived fairy tale, a magical realist text with strong satirical impulses, interpolated with a ‘novel within a novel’ that takes the form of a dialogue between Pontius Pilate and Jesus Christ. Wholly situating The Master and Margarita in the here and now, playing off quotidian behaviours as a way of framing the fantastical elements of the novel, grounding the work in the physical disciplines of the performers but not shying away from the supernatural and magical motifs of the work, investigating the themes of devotion, evil and genius, this Master and Margarita will be a powerful and exciting theatrical event.

The Daniel Schlusser Ensemble is a collection of freelance artists that are united by a shared investment in the theatrical practice of director Daniel Schlusser. The ensemble is developing and expanding in tandem with the projects that are created. This Theatre Works residency is a chance for the ensemble to further investigate a practice that is unique in its exploration of contemporisation and localisation of canonical texts. It follows an initial development process at Hothouse Theatre’s A Month in the Country residency.

Room of Regret
The Rabble
In residence July 9 - July 22
Emma Valente and Kate Davis

This project has been supported through The Australia Council for the Arts Program Presenter Funding

THE RABBLE will develop an immersive theatrical experience based on themes of voyeurism and narcissism at Theatre Works in July 2012. Room of Regret is part artwork, part photography exhibition, part performance, part extravaganza.

Room of Regret is inspired by Oscar Wilde’s character Dorian Gray from his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. Dorian is played by multiple figures and genders, he a duplicitous ego maniac -never satisfied, all his flaws reflected in a series of portraits. We follow Dorian through a labyrinth of rooms, he is obsessed by his own image, portraits and photographs of his impeccable face hang on the wall, he can’t stop looking in the mirror. His regrets are slowly revealed to us.

The rooms are luscious and decadent, much like the excess and hedonism of the book, but as you delve deeper into the labyrinth the rooms begin to peel away, portraits grow uglier and older, fruit rots in the corner and the audience are invited closer and closer to Dorian until they find themselves inside the bowels of the Room of Regret, they are the ones being watched now. At the end of the piece the audience are confronted with themselves (pictures taken of them prior to the performance and projected). These pictures then morph, some with age, some demonic. The audience are forced to sit with themselves for the longest time.  

The Rabble want to recreate the experience of pure joy associated with watching others in secret and the terror of being watched/ exposed. Working with different modes of viewing, through keyholes and letterboxes, one -way glass and video footage, THE RABBLE will create a voyeuristic labyrinth.

TUESDAY
MKA Theatre of New Writing
Brienna Macnish and Louris van de Geer
Feb 24 - Feb 27

A suburban supermarket. In the car park, mothers vie for parking spots behind the wheels of their spotless four-wheel-drives.  Inside, the trolleys are battered, their advertising faded and the last packet of cinnamon was just taken from its carefully alphabetised place in the spice section.  The fluorescent lights are really very bright in here.  

TUESDAY is a haunting dissection of suburban banality and social alienation and explores the potential explosive consequences of a pervasive sense of disconnection from others.  Writer Louris van de Geer and director Brienna Macnish originally developed the script as part of MKA’s supported development season at the Melbourne Theatre Company in 2011.  As part of Theatre Works’, In the Works season Brienna and Louris intend to tear apart the script and discover it’s theatrical potential in preparation for a full production in mid-May as part of MKA’s 2012 season.

OEDIPUS THE KING
THE HAYLOFT PROJECT
Claude Marcos

Sophocles' Oedipus is a groundbreaking new chapter for THE HAYLOFT PROJECT. Exploring the power of theatre design as a narrative device, Oedipus is an unprecedented work directed by designer Claude Marcos. Communicating the story through the interplay of light, sound, objects, architecture, and time, this will be as much a scenographic event, as a play.

In this development, the core team, made up of Hayloft artists and established industry professionals, will collaboratively devise the structural underpinnings and initial scenes of this large and ambitious new work.

THE HAYLOFT PROJECT has a proud history of daring contemporary storytelling using classical texts, and this development, with the support of Theatre Works will see it investigating a new theatrical language with the same imaginative and critical engagement that has marked its past.

The Book of Rachael
Present Tense

Eight years ago, Dr.Leslie Cannold was watching a documentary on the life of Jesus Christ.  History says Jesus had four brothers, but little is known of his sisters. , "Here was a famous person whose four brothers were carefully noted and written down, yet there wasn't even an acknowledgement of whether Jesus did or did not have sisters,'' says Leslie Cannold. "These women are lost. They're lost forever. That's what it means to be forgotten. . The only way to bring them back to life is through fiction"

Now, Present Tense is developing her first work of fiction, The Book of Rachael into an immersive theatrical work.

"The Book of Rachael is more then a retelling of a well known story. At its heart is the story of courageous individuals, Rachael of Nazareth is an extraordinary young woman, sometimes working with and against the two men in her life: her brother Joshua, and her husband Judah. With the support of Theatre Works, we are committed to devoting significant time to researching and developing this work" says Director Bryce Ives.

Summerland
Company No. 3
Dana Miltins and Daisy Noyes

There's a farmers' belief that if a sheepdog kills a sheep, if is tastes fresh blood, that it will always hunger to taste it again – once a killer, always a killer.

Summerland is a one-woman show created by Daisy Noyes and Dana Miltins.

As an aspiring artist takes a commission to paint the outback sheep station Summerland and full of romantic fervour marries the farmer. Ill equipped for the isolation and disconnection once the reality of her situation settles she creates a male alter-ego and enters into an online relationship with a young woman searching for her own Prince Charming. Told from a prison cell and using a personal and confessional style of performance, the woman attempts to untangle her own story to expose her first taste of blood: the moment that sealed her fate.

Summerland explores gender boundaries and constructions, fantasy vs. reality in the human psyche under duress, and the latent violence that underpins everyday adherence to social norms. It is an extended character sketch in the style of the short story transcribed to the stage and inspired by Australian storytellers Barbara Baynton and Henry Lawson.

Company No.3 is a production collective with members in Melbourne, Sydney and New York. It supports independent artists working across performance, theatre and visual arts mediums. Company No. 3 presented Roland Schimmelpfennig's For a Better World as part of Griffin Theatre Co.'s 2010 Independents season.