Petra Kalive

Arts Centre Melbourne in collaboration with Essential Theatre and Geelong Arts Centre present

EMILIA

The Australian premiere of a triple Olivier Award-winning play by Morgan Lloyd Malcolm

10 - 27 November 2022 | Playhouse | Arts Centre Melbourne

1-3 Dec 2022 | Playhouse | Canberra Theatre Centre

“Director Petra Kalive is at her best in this work… she soars with unique and dynamic character moments. A focus on the grand, the melodramatic and the vaudevillian draws out the humour from even the darker moments of the play. “ THEATRE THOUGHTS

“an outstanding play that will surprise and satisfy.” WEEKEND NOTES

“Fierce and provocative, EMILIA is the perfect mix of comedy and fury; a rollicking ride that takes audiences on an exuberant and moving journey though love, loss, identity, ambition, power, rebellion and what it is to be a woman in a man's world.” BROADWAY WORLD

“Essential Theatre’s production deserves a place on every stage in Australia “ CANBERRA CRITICS CIRCLE

“ Petra Kalive keeps the production moving along, the fast-paced dialogue and the joyous performances keeping much of the show light and comedic. Which means when the dramatic moments hit, they pack a real punch…This is an incredible play in a stellar production with an incomparable ensemble cast. A blistering feminist attack on the history we’ve been told, opening up a new way to look at those women who have been overlooked for so long. Don’t miss it.” THEATRE FIRST

Reflection of Emilia @ Arts Centre Melbourne by Emilie Collyer

A riotous, witty reclaiming of the life of an exceptional woman.

400 years ago, Emilia Bassano raised her voice. The world didn’t listen. Who was Emilia? Was she the ‘Dark Lady’ of Shakespeare’s sonnets? What of her own poems? And why was her story erased from history?

In Morgan Lloyd Malcolm's electrifying new play, Emilia and her sisters call out to us across the centuries with passion, fury, laughter, and song. A raging call to arms that cannot be ignored. With a cast of 13 incredible women and non-binary performers, this play celebrates all voices through the trailblazing story of a woman who refused to take no for an answer.

A “fire-cracker production” with “a clever mix of history and revolution” (The Times), EMILIA makes its Australian premiere following acclaimed seasons at Shakespeare’s Globe and on the West End.

CAST

Manali Datar - Emilia 1

Cessalee Stovall - Emilia 2

Lisa Maza - Emilia 3

Heidi Arena - William Shakespeare / Man 2

Emma J Hawkins - Lady Margaret Clifford / Midwife / Man 1

Catherine Glavicic - Lord Alphonso Lanier / Lord Collins / Emilia (Othello) and others

Carita Farrer Spencer - Margaret Johnson / Mary Sidney / Hester

Genevieve Picot - Judith / Priest / Lord Henry Carey

Jing-Xuan Chan - Lady Cordelia / Lady Anne and others

Amanda LaBonté - Susan Bertie The Countess of Kent / Mary / Bob

Sonya Suares - Lady Katherine / Desdemona (Othello)

Sophie Lampel - Lord Thomas Howard / Dave / Flora

Sarah Fitzgerald - Eve / Lady Helena

Stand by Covers

NazAree Dickerson, Kuda Mapeza & Izabella Yena

Director - Petra Kalive

Movement Director - Xanthe Beesley

Set designer - Emily Collett

Costume designer - Zoë Rouse

Lighting Designer - Katie Sfetkidis

Composer / Sound Designer - Emah Fox and Sharyn Brand

Assistant Director - Darylin Ramondo

Associate Lighting Designer - Harrie Hogan

Movement Associate - Jennifer Ma

Production Manager - Rockie Stone

Stage Manager - Olivia Walker

Deputy Stage Manager - Rain Iyahen

Assistant Stage Manager - Amy Smith

Co-Producers

Amanda LaBonté, Sophie Lampel, Darylin Ramondo & Sonya Suares

Associate Producer

Trish Carlon

EMILIA was made possible with generous philanthropic support from Margaret Bland, Linda Herd and the Emilia Giving Circle led by Andy Dinan, Snowe Li and the Victorian Women’s Trust. The development of EMILIA was supported through Geelong Arts Centre’s Creative Engine artistic development program.

“An anguished, polished and unmissable piece of theatre.” Chris Boyd The Australian

Shortlisted in the Nick Enright Prize for Playwriting for the 2019 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. 

Green Room Award Nominated 2018 - Best Sound Design & Best Lighting Design

“Oil Babies is intimately confronting and leaves you feeling devastatingly exposed. This exhilarating production and its messages will be swirling around my mind for months to come.”  – Theatre People

“Kalive’s intellectual curiosity, humour and soul-baring emotion invigorate this production. Covering everything from reproductive rights to human extinction, it’s provocative and searching theatre, smartly designed and performed with an infectious sense of mischief.”  – The Age

“Intelligent, gentle, horrific, terrifying, and a work of great love and humanity. Oil Babies is the hit show this winter.”  – What Did She Think?

OIL BABIES repositions our lives as one on the precipice of a planet dramatically changing… perhaps even the moment before our own extinction. It weighs up our continued “hope-investment” in procreation against our feelings of helplessness at the state of the planet – and our role in its demise.

Throughout this piece, the body – in particular women’s bodies – are used as a metaphor to explore our world: our need to control it, our desire to want it to look and be a certain way and, ultimately, our lack of respect for it.

Written and directed by Petra Kalive and featuring an all-female cast, OIL BABIES blends lyrical, rapid-fire text with poetic imagery and domestic drama to present a dangerous, pithy and at times darkly comedic work that speaks directly to the concerns we hold now.

Proudly presented by Lab Kelpie and Darebin Arts Speakeasy. First performed at Northcote Town Hall in 2018

WRITER & DIRECTOR PETRA KALIVE

PERFORMERS KALI HULME, JODIE LE VESCONTE, FIONA MACLEOD

MOVEMENT DIRECTOR XANTHE BEESLEY

SET DESIGN ANDREW BAILEY

SOUND DESIGN DARIUS KEDROS

COSTUME DESIGN HARRIET OXLEY

LIGHTING DESIGN LISA MIBUS

PRODUCER ADAM FAWCETT

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR LYALL BROOKS

The script was developed with the support of La Mama’s Explorations Season in 2015 with performers, Xanthe Beesley, Catherine Glavacic and Petra Kalive.

Writers notes

“Harrowing. An impactful, confronting performance. A fast-moving, relatable and hard-hitting genre, wrapped up in a highly-entertaining package. Definitely worth seeing.”  – We Know Melbourne

“[An] anguished, polished and unmissable piece of theatre. Oil Babies is one of the most perfectly wrought theatrical miniatures you are likely to encounter.” – The Australian

“The performers provide a hard-hitting tour de force through the delivery of a variety of myths, facts, obsessions and compulsive behaviours aimed at preserving and protecting the environment.” – Stage Whispers

“Thought-provoking parallels are the strength of Kalive’s writing. The female body becomes the small-scale manifestation of the earth’s damage, littered with the same apprehensions, trials and compulsion to ‘fix.” – The Dialog

“Oil Babies truly possesses an epic scope, with MacLeod, Hulme and Le Vesconte giving terrific performances. A fine addition to Lab Kelpie’s collection of new Australian theatre, with plenty of heart and craft.” – Arts Review Australia

“Kalive’s script is informative, devastating and funny – often all at once.” – RMITV

Photography Lachlan Woods, & Sarah Walker

based on the novel by Joe Simpson

adapted by David Grieg

17 JAN — 19 FEB 2022

Southbank Theatre, The Sumner

“An amazingly sustained, blow-by-blow portrayal of the climb and descent convinces, inch by inch and breath by laboured breath, that these two men are at the very limits of physical endurance… Touching the Void is a strong start to the MTC’s 2022 season: a well-paced, visually splendid survival thriller with gutsy lead performances.” THE AGE

“Petra Kalive’s production is handsome, detailed and well acted” THE AUSTRALIAN

“…The audience can vicariously feel the sheer physicality of scaling the Andes. The collusion of lighting and sound work brilliantly to underscore this vertical choreography on icy terrain and the two intrepid explorers exposed to such elements. The ascent and the descent, the push and the pull, the precarious, frostbite-inducing conditions. It’s thrilling stuff. Sure it’s a tale of survival and endurance in extreme conditions none of us are likely to find ourselves in, but the message of hope in the darkest of places will nonetheless resonate for many.” ARTS HUB

***

After leaving overseas audiences on the edge of their seats, this exhilarating international smash hit comes to Melbourne for its Australian premiere. Based on a true story, Touching the Void will transport you to the snow-capped peaks and glacial crevasses of the Peruvian Andes for a jaw-dropping adventure starring Helpmann Award winner Lucy Durack (Private Lives) alongside Kevin Hofbauer (Macbeth), Joe Klocek (The Dry) and Karl Richmond (The Lifespan of a Fact).

Devastated by the loss of her brother Joe during an attempted summiting of Siula Grande in South America, Sarah wants answers. As Joe’s climbing partner Simon and their base camp manager Richard try to explain the allure of the alps, they retrace every breathtaking, agonising step on the side of the mountain; every life-or-death decision leading to that fateful moment. But there’s really only one question Sarah ultimately cares about: are you absolutely sure Joe’s dead?

Touching the Void brings the bestselling memoir turned award-winning docudrama to the stage in a remarkable feat of imaginative storytelling and theatrical wizardry. An astonishing, often wryly humorous new play, it’s an awe-inspiring tale of mind over matter and the power of sheer human determination.

Cast - Lucy Durak, Joe Klocek, Kevin Hoffbauer, Karl Richmond

Directed by Petra Kalive

Movement Director - Xanthe Beesley

Set Design - Andrew Bailey

Lighting Design - Katie Sfetkidis

Sound Design - Darius Kedros

Costume Design - Kat Chan

Assistant Director - Katie Cawthorne

Photography by Jeff Busby

By Jeremy Kareken & David Murrell and Gordon Farrell

15 MAY — 3 JULY 2021

Presented by Melbourne Theatre Compnay @ Arts Centre Melbourne, Fairfax Studio

Nadine Garner, Steve Mouzakis and Karl Richmond star in the Australian premiere of this hit Broadway comedy, a somewhat accurate, sort of fictional, mostly true story about the slippery nature of facts.

★★★★½ 'tight, intelligent and thought-provoking' -@LimelightArtsAureviews #mtcLifespanofaFact, 'a wicked mix of fact and fiction'.

@NickdMiller Highly recommend MTC’s latest show Lifespan of a Fact. Ripper of a script and flawless production.

★★★★ “Kalive directs the three-hander with the precision you’d expect from non-fiction and the texture and attention to mood and musicality you get in the finest fiction. The pace crackles, and the tensions are beautifully parsed, but there is also plenty of room for reflection and even deep existential melancholia. The performances are electric.” - Tim Byrne @ Australian Book Review

★★★★“The beauty of this play is that in Kalive’s deft direction the audience is able to see both sides of such polarised ideologies and though it deals with larger themes of life and death and thorny issues about just how 'creative' non-fiction can be, The Lifespan of a Fact is presented with a light, comic touch. “ - Thuy On @ Arts Hub

GREENROOM NOMINATED OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE

Nadine Garner & Karl Richmond

GREEN ROOM WINNER OUTSTANDING COSTUME DESIGN

Kat Chan

—

A somewhat accurate, sort of factual, non-fiction story, this comic Broadway hit makes its Australian premiere in a production directed by Petra Kalive (Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes). Nadine Garner (Photograph 51) stars alongside Steve Mouzakis (Death and the Maiden) and Ngāti Toa actor Karl Richmond (Punk Rock) – making his MTC debut – in a play about an epic ideological battle over the nature of truth and the value of storytelling.

While interning at an eminent literary magazine, recent graduate Jim Fingal is thrilled when his editor offers him a career-making opportunity: fact check venerated essayist John D’Agata’s exploration of a disturbing Las Vegas reality, which is going to press in five days. It sounds simple enough, but when Fingal is still unravelling the inconsistencies and literary liberties of the first sentence three days later, he realises he has a problem. So he does what any thorough young up-and-comer with something to prove would do: he goes straight to the source. It could be the biggest mistake, or the best decision, of his life.

Are facts negotiable? Is art more accurate at showing the heart of the matter? Can there ever be a justifiable reason to distort reality for the greater good, and who gets to decide? Based on the critically acclaimed book of the same name, The Lifespan of a Fact is a tightrope walk of playful debate on the virtues and vices of creative non-fiction. As it cleverly dissects the slippery slope from authenticity to fakery in today's world, whose side will you be on?

Creative Team

Set Design - Andrew Bailey

Sound Design - Emma Valente

Lighting Design - Paul Lim

Costume Design - Kat Chan

Photography by Jeff Busby

Based on the legendary coming-of-age novel by Miles Franklin, the musical adaptation of My Brilliant Career takes us into the world of fiery misfit Sybylla as she wrestles against the restricted life on offer for a young woman in rural Australia a hundred years ago.

We follow wannabe-writer Syb from her drought-struck farm to the paradise of her grandmother’s estate, where she grows into her looks and her mind, fighting and flirting with the local aristocrats. An offer of marriage forces the ultimate choice; will she become just another wife or risk it all in hopes of a ‘brilliant career’?

The production forms part of the Jeanne Pratt Musical Theatre Artists in Residence program, a groundbreaking collaboration between Monash University performing arts students and professional artists that aims to create and promote the development of Australian musical theatre. Written by Dean Bryant and Mathew Frank, who won Green Room awards for their musicals Prodigal and Once We Lived Here, the score promises a mix of period Victoriana and contemporary pop, bringing to vivid life one of Australia’s most loved feminist characters.

Friday Oct 18-25, 2019, Alexander Theatre, Monash University - Clayton Campus

My Brilliant Career is presented by The Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music, The Centre for Theatre and Performance and Monash Academy of Performing Arts in association with the Jeanne Pratt Musical Theatre Artists in Residence Program.

“Director Petra Kalive seamlessly brings them agll together in a single fluid ensemble.” Andrew Fuhrmann, THE HERALD SUN

“Kalive’s direction has fine subtlety with the moments between Sybylla and Aunt Helen and Hal particularly lovely...My Brilliant Career is a remarkable achievement.” David Gardette, THEATRE PEOPLE

Cast

Luisa Scrofani, Anne Wood, Natalie O'Donnell, James Millar, Alister Kingsley & Andrew Coshan

(+ Monash Student Ensemble; Sophie Bass, emma Batty, Georgina Bright, Mia Brown, Jasmine Buchla-Dober, Jessica Cork, Tia Cumberland, Susan D’Souza, Carla Di Maggio, Kenzii Docherty, Benjamin Gonsalvez, Chloe Hancock, Caitlin Harry, Jessica Hayden, Kate Hirst, Micaela Janssen, Luna Lethbridge, Liam McWhinney, Abigail Navarro, Brodie O’Halloran, Saik (Ron) Phan, Sophia Phillips, Ellena Stockdale, Emlyn Sugden, Ashleigh Tacoe, Lucy Tyrrell, Talia Yates, Nardine Youssef, Sophie Gray, Jessmin Green, Ryan Hamilton, Louise Peters Rodirgues, Amelia Van Steel, Kelly Wilson).

Creatives

Writer - Dean Bryant

Composer - Mathew Frank

Orchestrator - James Simpson

Director - Petra Kalive

Musical Director - Ashlee Clapp

Movement Director - Xanthe Beesley

Set & Costume Designer - Chloe Greeves

Design Associate - Alex Rothnie

Lighting Design - Paul Lim

Creative Sound Design - Darius Kedros

Technical Sound Design - Marcello Lo Ricco

Dramaturg - Anna Barnes

Photography by John Lloyd Fillingham & Sarah Walker

Hungry Ghosts

by Jean Tong

3-19 May 2018

Presented by Melbourne Theatre Company @ Southbank Theatre, The Lawler (part of MTC’s Education Program)

When you’re a young queer Chinese-Malaysian Australian, how do you work out where you belong in the world? Criss-crossing between our unnamed protagonist, the disappearance of flight MH370 and an unsolved mystery, Hungry Ghosts offers an unconventional take on the complexities of contemporary life.

“Petra Kalive’s direction is supple and sensitive to the lyrical currents – ripples of outrage and grief, wonder and pensive reflection – that Hungry Ghosts dives into.” CAMERON WOODHEAD, THE AGE

“Hungry Ghosts is a welcome and refreshing addition to Melbourne’s theatre scene. It has that post-colonial abundance of ideas and multiplicity of perspectives that is often lacking from the rigid, dogmatic approach to storytelling we see in the majority of Western theatre. It’s also genuinely representative, in a way that we see all too rarely on our stages. But more than that, it’s fascinating and moving, an intellectually rich piece that also taps a deep emotional vein. MTC should be encouraged to invest further in work like this, and the best way to motivate them is to go see it.” TIM BYRNE - TIME OUT

“Kalive’s direction feels as incisive and as intelligent as the piece itself with clear evidence of collaboration with all credited artistic contributors…Questioning, visually evocative and lingeringly emotional, Hungry Ghosts feels fresh and current and a most worthy piece of programming to reach out intelligently to new audiences as part of MTC’s award-winning Education program” DOUG NIGHT - AUSTRALIAN STAGE

“Hungry Ghosts is also Tong’s biting lament for a homeland that has disappointed, and it brims with anger and heartache. The situations appear hopeless, and although it rumbles with an undercurrent of hope, the characters are stuck, waiting or searching for answers. The play’s sense of limbo fittingly captures Malaysian sentiments of being repeatedly let down by their country. At the conclusion, nothing is resolved, and we go back to the same elliptical questions we began with. For the audience, there is no surfacing for air from the hungry ghosts’ watery abyss. “ Kaylene Tan

For more information check out my blog

Regional Tour
22 May – 7 June
Bendigo, Mildura, Geelong, Launceston, Wangaratta and Sale

CAST

Emina Ashman

Jing-Xuan Chan 

Bernard Sam

CREATIVES

Written by Jean Tong

Directed by Petra Kalive

Set Design Eugyeene Teh

Lighting Design Emma Valente

Sound Design Darius Kedros

Costume Design Sophie Woodward

Photography by Jeff Busby

Written by Rashma Kalsie

Melbourne Theatre Company
May 5 - 20, 2017 Lawler Theatre Southbank
May 22 - June 9, 2017 Regional Tour

With 

Rohan Mirchandaney

Sahil Saluja

Sonya Suares

Winner of the Drama Victoria Award for Best Performance by a Theatre Company for VCE Drama 2017.

2017 Green Room Nominated for

• Best Ensemble

• Lighting Design - Rachel Burke

• Music Composition/Sound Design - Darius Kedros

• New Writing For The Australian Stage - Rashma N. Kalsie

• Direction - Petra Kalive

"Kalive’s production is precision engineered, seamless and efficient." THE AUSTRALIAN, Chis Boyd

"Under Kalive’s direction, all the cast deliver exceptionally nuanced and poignant performances. " AUSTRALIAN STAGE

"Kalive’s confident direction drives the play forward, and performances are excellent throughout...Though it deals with some heavy themes, including loneliness, injury and suicidal ideation, it also demonstrates such themes are universal, whatever language they are spoken in." ARTS HUB, Richard Watts

Lighting Designer - Rachel Burke

Sound Designer - Darius Kedros

Set & Costume Designer - Andrew Bailey

Three young people see each other across a crowded Flagstaff station. They just missed the train. Now they wait. And think. They think about home: Punjab, Delhi, Hyderabad. And about how they just can’t seem to get Melbourne’s rhythm right. And of all the impossible things they must do to stay. And their time is running out.

Developed through MTC CONNECT, and the NEON and Cybec Electric play development programs, this vibrant production puts our city’s contemporary social issues centre stage. 

Photos by Jeff Busby

“I threw a stone behind me and I didn’t look back”

A world premiere, written in Melbourne, produced by fortyfivedownstairs.

Nominated for Green Room Award - Best Director, Petra Kalive (2016)

Nominated for Green Room Award - Best Ensemble (2016)

"A seamless hybrid of story and song, it fuses verbatim theatre with fierce, melancholy rebetika – urban folk music which flourished into a distinctive popular form during the same period the Greek diaspora unfurled itself across the globe. Shards of recollection become sharp vignettes, honed by anguish and passion, freedom and loss....Director Petra Kalive's sensitive direction sweeps you along on complex currents of nostalgia, letting these migrant stories speak for themselves...the most powerful argument for compassion is implied, simply from the richness of the lives represented. It may have special significance to Australians with Greek heritage, but all of us should be edified and entertained by this deeply affecting window into the migrant experience." CAMERON WOODHEAD, THE AGE

The untold stories of women who migrated from Greece to Australia in the 1950s and 60s. Filled with the poignant memories and passionate music of their homeland, these true stories resonate with the strength of the women who made new lives, creating an indelible impression on a faraway country.

Writer and singer Helen Yotis Patterson is joined by Maria Mercedes and Artemis Ioannides. 

Taxithi is proudly supported by City of Melbourne

Creative Team

Written by Helen Yotis Patterson

Directed & Designed by Petra Kalive

Musical Direction by Andrew Patterson.

Musician/Bouzouki player - Jacob Papadopolos

Sound Design - Darius Kedros

Lighting Design - John Ford

dates: 2-20 March 2016, fortyfivedownstairs

duration: 70 mins no interval

Written by Melissa Bubnic, Directed by Petra Kalive 

Melbourne Theatre Company in 2012

Beached was winner of the Patrick White Playwriting Award 2011

Nominated Green Room Award for Best Writing 2013

'Explores the revolting nature of modern entertainment culture with hilarity and skill’ - Arts Hub

'An absolute delight.’ – Crikey

Bed-bound, super morbidly obese Arthur Arthur and his mother JoJo are best friends. They watch telly together. They play scrabble together. They wash together. But when Arty has two heart attacks aged 17, mother and son turn to the only people who can help: the reality TV series, Shocking Fat Stories, who promise to transform this beached whale into…something slightly less beached.

Despite the constant surveillance and an unscrupulous TV producer who’ll stop at nothing to capture a good sound bite, Arty and JoJo are determined to get healthy the same way they do everything…together. And then Arty falls in love with Louise, the Jobcentre Pathways-to-Work Officer determined to get Arty and JoJo off disability benefits and back into the workforce.  Now Arty wants his independence but JoJo won’t lose her baby without a fight.

All Photos by Jeff Busby 

2020 was a year of lock down and ‘pivoting’ as Australia first encountered the COVID-19 Pandemic.

These are the projects that I created during that year.

• THE WINTER’S TALE with 2nd year VCA students

• Great Australian Speeches for MTC NOW AUDIO LAB

• Development reading of Pandora by Kylie Trounsen

"...a strong commentary" 

AUSSIE THEATRE.COM

"Redemption is a good looking production" 

THEATRE PEOPLE
 

One night in a forgotten country parish - two priests are reunited. 

Ben is the new face of the Catholic Church, sent to investigate a retired Monsignor accused of sexually abusing a boy, thirty years ago. Terry is his neglected mentor, a man who believes the mercy of Christ can redeem even the most heinous of sinners. And in the darkness is God. Listening to their lies. Waiting for the truth.

Much has been documented about the horrors of child sexual abuse, the terrible suffering of the victims, the betrayal of those who were supposed to provide protection. Redemption acknowledges all of these narratives by delving beneath the media coverage and investigating the terrible dichotomy that allows this abuse to go on unchecked. It examines the very philosophies of the Catholic church and asks the audience to think beyond well documented evidence of conspiracy, lies and cover-up.

Written by Anthony Crowley 

Directed by Petra Kalive

Performed by Tom Considine and Anthony Crowley

Set and costume design by Casey-Scott Corless

Lighting design by Lisa Mibus

Image by Sarah Walker and Anthony Crowley

La Mama - Carlton Courthouse March 16-27 2016

Duration: 64 minutes

As an Associate Artist at Complete Works Theatre Company Petra has directed various classic texts which have toured to schools around regional and metropolitan Victoria.

These productions include:

Macbeth -  2012, 2015

Romeo & Juliet 2012, 2015

Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, 2013

and

Phat Poetry (a 60 minute interactive poetry show), 2012

photos courtesy of Ponch Hawkes

Directed by Andrew Gray, Three Dog Night was first produced at fortyfivedownstairs in Melbourne in 2008 and then at the Adelaide Festival Centre in 2009.

Petra adapted and performed in the award-winning Peter Goldsworthy novel of the same name, Three Dog Night, questions the philosophical challenge of learning how to die and Australia’s conflicted multi-culture. It is an ironic, restless and at times confronting work about the fathomless human capacity for self-deception; about the means we invent to hide our true feelings.

This modern day tragedy explores the underlying impulses that shape human behaviour via an Aboriginal Dreaming. Indigenous spirituality and storytelling are intrinsic to this story’s exploration of the clinical conviction that compassion is the means to liberation. Beginning in the Adelaide Hills, Three Dog Night journeys to the vast expanse of the Australian outback and takes us deep into the desert of the human soul.

“Two Blue Cherries, Three Dog Night is a dramatically assured three-hander…Andrew Gray’s direction excels at animating Golsworthy’s ironic repartee. The naturalistic drama is also surefooted…Misha Doumnov’s incidental music – a mix of live violin and pre-recorded sounds – adds a pensive texture. Goldsworthy’s novel involves a dramatic triangulation between love and death and the life of the mind… this production encapsulates that tension in a compelling way.“ Cameron Woodhead, The Age

“Two Blue Cherries is a new independent theatre company making a very impressive debut production and are a welcome addition to Melbourne’s professional theatre community.”

– [Michael Magneson, On Stage (and walls) Melbourne]

Petra Kalive’s adaptation… hits all the right marks, with sharply observed characters and sophisticated, unrelentingly funny dialogue.“

–      Patrick McDonald, Adelaide Confidential

Cast

Petra Kalive, Tim Stitz & Phil McInnes

Music by Mischa Dumnov, Set Design Kat Chan (Melb) & Katherine Branch (Adelaide) Lighting Design: Lisa Mibus

Petra was Assistant Director to Kip Williams on Macbeth for Sydney Theatre Company, 2014

With a design which seats the audience onstage and sees the actors take over the space of the cavernous auditorium of Sydney Theatre.

Director Kip Williams
Designer Alice Babidge
Lighting Designer Nick Schlieper
Composer & Sound Designer Max Lyandvert

With
Paula Arundell, Kate Box, Ivan Donato, Eden Falk, John Gaden, Melita Jurisic, Robert Menzies, Hugo Weaving

Photo Michele Aboud

Because of Reasons by Rob Reid

Directed By Petra Kalive

as part of 5PoundTheatre's 2013 Repertory Theatre - 5 works in 5 weeks.

Designed by Casey Scott-Coreless

Cast: Keith Brockett, Brendan Hawke, Freya Pragt, Lelda Kapsis, Tim Wotherspoon

Photos courtesy of Casey Scott-Coreless