Geelong-born, Melbourne-based former street artist Rone (birth name Tyrone Wright) has crafted a remarkable time capsule three years in the making. It is set in the long-abandoned third floor wing of iconic, heritage-listed Flinders Street Station. Time is a nostalgic love letter to mid 19th century working class life in one of the world’s great cities. It is…
Cruel Intentions: The 90’s Musical sizzles, with powerhouse performances and a rousing score. There’s palpable excitement and anticipation in the theatre even before the metaphorical curtain rises. Once it does, Cruel Intentions is energetic and electrifying, oozing with sensuality and sexuality. It is slick, moving along at pace and milking the copious double entendres and physical interaction that…
Even though this is a work of fiction (termed “an act of female imagination”), the starting point for Women Talking was a recent real-life event in Bolivia. Between 2005 and 2009, more than 100 girls and women in a remote Mennonite colony discovered they had been raped in their sleep. A group of men from…
The play starts with a heartfelt warning from one of the characters that only tragedy puts you on the map. A plea to save ourselves as it is too late for her rings out. Hence begins the tale of an unremarkable mining town in Tasmania beset by evil. It is called Bluewater and after a chequered history it…
Tessa Ensler (Sheridan Harbridge) is a successful barrister. She knows the tricks of the trade and defends her clients – many alleged sexual offenders – vehemently. She relishes the game … circling witnesses until she is ready to pounce, having lulled them into a false sense of security. She is good … very good. Those who know her,…
Showmanship, humour, pathos, anger, overt messaging and song are part of this well-meaning but noticeably stretched offering. At its core is a gay man, Cole (Stephen Loftus), now comfortable in his own skin, although it wasn’t always that way. He talks about his school years and coming out to his parents. And then, after Cole references a mentor…
As the title suggests, the outcome of Spoiler Alert is obvious at the start of the film. The film charts a 13-year love story between two guys. Michael Ausiello (Jim Parsons) is a sensitive journalist who writes about TV shows. As a child, he dreamed about a sitcom with him at the centre and his…
Jonathan Larson wrote the smash hit Broadway musical Rent. How he got there involved pain and persistence. That’s the subject of tick, tick … Boom! Living in New York, Jon (Hugh Sheridan) dreams of being a Broadway musical writer. His creativity is recognised by his close and loyal friends, but he is on the cusp of 30…
Wittenoom, the former town and declared contaminated site in the Pilbara region of Western Australia was, in short, a death trap. During the 1950s and early ‘60s, it was Australia’s only supplier of deadly blue asbestos. The mine was shut down in 1966. Wittenoom, the play – a work of fiction – uncovers just how toxic an…
The story made world news. On 15 May 2010, 16-year-old Jessica Watson became the youngest person to circumnavigate the globe solo, non-stop and unassisted. It was just her, a 10-metre-long boat named Ella’s Pink Lady and the elements. In the Netflix movie True Spirit, Teagan Croft plays Watson. Her mentor is a Ben Bryant (Cliff…
