Breaking with tradition!
Fri, 4 Jan 2013, 04:37 pmGrant Malcolm1 post in thread
Breaking with tradition!
Fri, 4 Jan 2013, 04:37 pmThe Man from Mukinupin will be the first of the first in a season of three works presented by the Graduate Dramatic Society celebrating the work of prominent UWA graduates during the University’s Centenary year.
After eighteen consecutive years of presenting summer Shakespeare in the New Fortune Theatre, GRADS will open this year’s season with a musical by one of Australia’s better-known playwrights, UWA Graduate and former staff member, Dorothy Hewett. The Man from Mukinupin was first produced at the old Playhouse Theatre in 1979 to celebrate Western Australia’s 150th anniversary.
GRADS has been fortunate in enlisting director Aarne Neeme, a long-time friend of Hewett, to return to Perth having produced three of her other plays (written for the New Fortune Theatre), The Chapel Perilous, Catspaw and The Rising of Pete Marsh. Neeme has an extensive history of involvement with theatre in Perth, including work as resident director of the Octagon Theatre Company; head of drama at WA’s Academy of Performing Arts; artistic director of the Hole-in-the-Wall Theatre Company and of the National Theatre Company. In recent years he has directed extensively for television.
He has attracted a very talented cast of local actors, singers and musicians to help realise the play on the New Fortune stage that he originally commissioned for the Playhouse Theatre. Anka Cikic is Musical Director.
1912 to 1920, the period of the play, was an exciting era of change in the development and growth of WA and Australia at large, showing the effects of the First World War on a tiny rural community. The importance of WWI for Australia was that it established our nationhood to the world. So Australia came of age as did the young people of Mukinupin.
“The Man from Mukinupin is a play about fruition, harvest and weddings, with the promise of renewal,” says Neeme. “It is about young people losing their innocence, growing up, taking partners, and moving about the world… “It is about the imaginative powers of theatre and ceremony/ritual, to transform and clarify the humdrum of existence. The Man is what emerges out of (dual character) Jack/Harry, but Polly/Lily’s journey is equally important, if not more so – and of course it is a musical – a romantic fantasy!”
The Man from Mukinupin
New Fortune Theatre UWA
9th to 21st February at 8pm
NB: seven performances only!
Book online at www.grads.org.au
or via email bookings@grads.org.au
Enquiries to Pat Stroud: 0408 908 928
The Man from Mukinupin will be the first of the first in a season of three works presented by the Graduate Dramatic Society celebrating the work of prominent UWA graduates during the University’s Centenary year.
After eighteen consecutive years of presenting summer Shakespeare in the New Fortune Theatre, GRADS will open this year’s season with a musical by one of Australia’s better-known playwrights, UWA Graduate and former staff member, Dorothy Hewett. The Man from Mukinupin was first produced at the old Playhouse Theatre in 1979 to celebrate Western Australia’s 150th anniversary.
GRADS has been fortunate in enlisting director Aarne Neeme, a long-time friend of Hewett, to return to Perth having produced three of her other plays (written for the New Fortune Theatre), The Chapel Perilous, Catspaw and The Rising of Pete Marsh. Neeme has an extensive history of involvement with theatre in Perth, including work as resident director of the Octagon Theatre Company; head of drama at WA’s Academy of Performing Arts; artistic director of the Hole-in-the-Wall Theatre Company and of the National Theatre Company. In recent years he has directed extensively for television.
He has attracted a very talented cast of local actors, singers and musicians to help realise the play on the New Fortune stage that he originally commissioned for the Playhouse Theatre. Anka Cikic is Musical Director.
1912 to 1920, the period of the play, was an exciting era of change in the development and growth of WA and Australia at large, showing the effects of the First World War on a tiny rural community. The importance of WWI for Australia was that it established our nationhood to the world. So Australia came of age as did the young people of Mukinupin.
“The Man from Mukinupin is a play about fruition, harvest and weddings, with the promise of renewal,” says Neeme. “It is about young people losing their innocence, growing up, taking partners, and moving about the world… “It is about the imaginative powers of theatre and ceremony/ritual, to transform and clarify the humdrum of existence. The Man is what emerges out of (dual character) Jack/Harry, but Polly/Lily’s journey is equally important, if not more so – and of course it is a musical – a romantic fantasy!”
The Man from Mukinupin
New Fortune Theatre UWA
9th to 21st February at 8pm
NB: seven performances only!
Book online at www.grads.org.au
or via email bookings@grads.org.au
Enquiries to Pat Stroud: 0408 908 928