NIDA’s Director’s Season – six plays from new graduates

The National Institute of Dramatic Art will present a season of plays by NIDA’s graduating directors: six plays in two programs. It’s a showcase of the 2013 graduating students from the institute’s one-year postgraduate Directing course, and it’s a chance to catch our next generation of directors’ work before they hit the main stages.  

The season features an Australian outback take on George Bernard Shaw’s The Shewing Up of Blanco Posnet; a feminist interpretation of Grimm’s The Red Shoes; a bloody reworking of the new Australian musical In A Pink Tutu; the suburban horror of Fewer Emergencies; Steve Martin’s eccentric, comic study of 1950s white America in WASP; and the premiere of a new tragicomedy, Klutz.

Guided by industry mentors – including Jim Sharman, Gale Edwards, Ralph Myers, Polly Rowe, Kip Williams, Jane Bodie and Darren Gilshenan – the showcase features casts and crews of current NIDA students, NIDA alumni and guest artists.

STUDIO PROGRAM

The Shewing Up of Blanco Posnet. By George Bernard Shaw
Directed by Constantine Costi
A sermon in crude melodrama. In a wild remote town a rabid mob assembles to trial an outlaw. Blanco Posnet has been accused of the most heinous of crimes, stealing a horse. A guilty verdict will end with a lynching.

In a Pink Tutu. Music, Lyrics and Book by Christopher Harley
Directed by Angus Wilkinson
In a Pink Tutu is a new Australian musical by Christopher Harley. Set in a ballet studio over an afternoon, a tyrannical and bitter ballet teacher runs a torturous class. The kids decide to take matters into their own hands and stand up for their rights… (bloody) chaos ensues.

WASP. By Steve Martin
Directed by H Lawrence Sumner
Dad, Mom, Sis and Son are the typical bible-belt family. But what happens when the great American dream becomes the great American delusion? This is 1950s White America, on a 1960s acid trip. Here’s to life, liberty and the pursuit of alien life forms.

SPACE PROGRAM

The Red Shoes. Adapted by Emma Rice. Poems by Anna Maria Murphy
Directed by Elsie Edgerton-Till
Let us tell you a tall tale, a tale of a girl who desired a pair of red shoes. Pared back to its blood and bones, this retelling of Grimm’s fairy tale will have your toes a-tapping and your heart a-pit-a-patting.

Fewer Emergencies. By Martin Crimp
Directed by Susanna Dowling
Nameless people in a nameless place recount stories of suburban horror, in a triptych of plays by Martin Crimp (Whole Blue Sky, Face to the Wall, and Fewer Emergencies). Why are they telling them? Are they true stories or just fears /fantasies? Have they told these stories many times over?

Klutz. By Ben Schostakowski
Directed by Ben Schostakowski
Hello and welcome. Melchior Klutz stands awkwardly atop the roof of his family’s bookstore. He is finished with going on. He’s soon met by Hendrick Nacht, a badminton enthusiast and neighbour. Here the pair makes a peculiar pact. This is the story of Klutz – a tragicomedy of intimate spectacle. Let’s begin.

The season will run from 27 – 30 November at NIDA Parade Theatres, 215 Anzac Parade, Kensington. For tickets and more information, visit NIDA’s website.