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Alice In Slasherland

WoolloomoolooTheatre | April 18 - May 11, 2019

A PORTAL TO HELL IS OPENING UP AT THE OLD FITZ!

"GLEEFULLY SILLY! ACTION-PACKED! A SLY, SELF-REFERENTIAL COMEDY!" - THE NEW YORK TIMES

Lewis Diaz is in love with his best friend, which would be fine if he didn't accidentally open a literal gateway to hell while trying to chat her up at a party... Now, with every imaginable kind of demon, monster, and killer ravaging his small town, it's up to Lewis and his newly undead companion to save the day and protect his classmates from becoming freshly slaughtered carcasses.

Rachel Kerry directs an ensemble cast of incredible young actors (and puppets) featuring Justin Amankwah (The Flick, 2018 Sydney Theatre Award Winner for Best Actor & Best Newcomer), Jack Angwin (Youth + Destination, Friday On My Mind), Josh McElroy (Osama The Hero, Spring Awakening), Bardiya McKinnon (Metamorphoses, DNA), Mia Morrissey (Harrow, Molly), Laura Murphy (Muriel’s Wedding, Cry Baby), and introducing Stella Ye, in the Australian Premiere of Vietnamese-American playwright - and Marvel writer - Qui Nguyen’s bloody hilarious play.

"THEATRICAL BRILLIANCE!” ★★★★ - TIME OUT NEW YORK

FRIDA KAHLO: VIVA LA VIDA by Humberto Robles

NewtownTheatre | April 23 - May 4, 2019

AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE

“Mesmerising and compelling. A treat by any theatrical standards. This really is a must-see.” London Theatre Guide

On the Day of the Dead, Frida Kahlo is cooking and while she waits for her guests to arrive, she evokes Diego Rivera, Nelson Rockefeller, Leon Trotsky, exposes her opinion on art, Mexico, the United States, France and of course, the memory of her terrible accident and the presence of death.

Humberto Robles’s seminal work Viva La Vida, inspired by authentic documents, materials and memoirs from Frida Kahlo, reveals the woman behind the icon, the artist beyond the face printed on millions of bags, wallets and other paraphernalia.

“Number one of the TOP 10 shows not to be missed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival!” Fringe Review

“It’s been a long time since Theatre connected with me this viscerally and at so many levels. This performance will haunt you.” The Scotsman*****

Adapted by Gael Le Cornec and Luis Benkard

The show runs for 1h, no interval

Extinction of the Learned Response by Emme Hoy

SydneyTheatre | May 7 - 25, 2019

In a spotless room, four people are having tea.

Duncan and Marlow are scientists. Rachel and Wells are their subjects, and they can almost pass for human now.

But Wells is growing stronger and Rachel is learning faster than predicted, and Duncan and Marlow’s hold on them - and on power - is proving more fragile than expected. Tensions are rising, tempers are fraying, and somewhere in the darkness, tenderness blossoms, and a carefully controlled experiment begins to twist into something far stranger, and far more obscure…

Brutal, bold and gripping, Extinction of the Learned Response asks what really makes us human. Can it taught, replicated, removed? And once you take humanity away, what’s hiding underneath?

Boy Out of the Country

SydneyTheatre | May 9 - 25, 2019

A fast and funny Australian play about family, property and the price of progress from award-winning writer Felix Nobis.

Troubled country boy Hunter returns home from the city after a mysterious seven-year absence to find the family property swept up in a regional housing estate, his mother in care, and his brother Gordon in charge. In this moment of shifting economies and loyalties Hunter goes in search of answers, but is he ready for the truth?

Boy Out of the Country is a bush ballad for contemporary regional life, written in vernacular verse reminiscent of the poetic tradition of Banjo Patterson. Here, old Australia meets new Australia – a country cop comes to terms with rapid social change, a backyard is less important than an extra bedroom, and the places that were once so familiar can change before our eyes.

Directed by Erica Lovell this newly-realised production features a stellar cast including Tom Harwood (Things Not to do After a Break Up), Jason Glover (Tidelands, Van Dieman’s Land), Jeannie Gee (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof), Stan Kouros (Actors Centre Australia) and Amelia Robertson-Cuninghame (Anatomy of an Offence, Love Child).

“A play infused with the vitality of Aussie idiom and melodrama, that crackles with understatement and wit.” Cameron Woodhead, The Age

“Mr Nobis’s writing is a particular kind of brilliant… Nobis’s command of ‘vernacular verse’ is faultless” Stage Whispers

A story of land, family and belonging, Boy Out of the Country emerged from the Melbourne Theatre Company Affiliate Writers Scheme and was awarded the R. E. Ross Trust Script Development Award. The play was featured as the premiere work at the 2018 Pioneer Play Festival Castle Hill.

Cyprus Avenue

SydneyTheatre | May 15 - June 8, 2019

“Gerry Adams has disguised himself as a new-born baby and successfully infiltrated my family home.”

Eric Miller is a Belfast Loyalist. Proudly, steadfastly British. He believes his five-week old granddaughter is Irish republican Gerry Adams.

His family keep telling him to stop living in the past and fighting old battles that nobody cares about anymore, but his cultural heritage is under siege. He must act.

Traumas of the past collide with a terrifying future in David Ireland\'s brilliant new play Cyprus Avenue.

“Without prejudice we’re nothing! If we don’t discriminate, we don’t survive!”

Following acclaimed productions at the Royal Court Theatre in London and the Public Theatre in New York, the award-winning Cyprus Avenue comes to Australia for the first time. Written by playwright and actor David Ireland and staged by Empress Theatre in association with Redline Productions at the Old Fitz Theatre, Cyprus Avenue unravels the threads of sectarian violence against a darkly comic – and shocking – background.

Actor and playwright Anna Houston (Belvoir, Griffin, Bell Shakespeare) directs Roy Barker, Amanda McGregor, Branden Christine, Lloyd Allison-Young and Jude Gibson in a play that speaks to the heart of political and cultural anxieties about who and what we are in a rapidly shifting world. Wonderfully imaginative and savagely funny, Cyprus Avenue throws a grenade at the politics of identity and the madness of bigotry.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★
“David Ireland’s new play combines horror and humour in bone-shaking proportions.”
The Observer (UK)

★ ★ ★ ★
“Compulsive viewing... unmissable.”
The Daily Telegraph (UK)

★ ★ ★ ★
“The most shocking play on the London stage ... a subversive drama that has never been more relevant.”
The Guardian

MLIVE presents: Progress - A Festival of Ideas

ClaytonMusic | May 16 - April 28, 2019

Progress – A Festival of Ideas taking place at Monash University’s Clayton campus as part of MLIVE’s 2019 program, offers music, arts, theatre and comedy lovers an exciting line-up of performances that challenge the idea of ‘progress’.

Running from 16 to 26 May 2019, the festival celebrates the opening of the Ian Potter Centre for Performing Arts, a new state-of-the art centre that has been four years in the making.

Progress – A Festival of Ideas includes more than fifteen shows plus an impressive talk series, exploring themes of feminism, creativity in exile, technology, and more.

Music performances include Canadian artist and pianist Eve Egoyan in Solo for Duet; powerful protest music from Thando, N’fa Jones, Sophie Koh, and Mama Alto in Songs of Freedom; and celebrated Australian artist, Archie Roach featuring Paul Grabowsky. OK EG, will reframe the idea of live performance in Wavelength II.

Those looking for an evening of comedy, songs and ideas will love Smokestack hosted by comedian, Tom Ballard, while the world premier season of Whale, an immersive participatory new play by award-winning playwright Fleur Kilpatrick, is not to be missed.

The Festival of Ideas has been programmed to reflect the idea of ‘progress’ and its impact on people and society.

There is a seriously talented line-up of artists performing across the festival that offer something for all tastes. MLIVE is also excited to showcase the new Ian Potter Centre for Performing Arts with its fantastic new spaces like the informal Jazz Club and intimate Sound Gallery, featuring some of the best stage and sound technologies available.

Also forming part of the festival is an incredible series of free talks that give viewers a chance to be involved in dynamic conversations with names such as this year’s Victorian Prize for Literature winner, Behrouz Boochani joining live from Manus Island via video link. Talks include Creative Exiles, Humans + Machines = its Complicated with EK OG, Robin Fox (Liquid Architecture) and Cat Hope, plus more.

Tickets to Progress – A Festival of Ideas are on sale now. For more information, the full program and to book, visit www.monash.edu/mlive/progress.