MTC: Cybec Readings

PRESS RELEASE COURTESY MELBOURNE THEATRE COMPANY

Following the success of MTC’s first series of Cybec Readings at the Lawler Studio last year, MTC will be offering another series in September, showcasing three of the sharpest talents around.

Play readings always mark a crucial stage in the development of a new play. MTC Associate Director Aidan Fennessy, who as the organiser of the readings has seen the plays emerge from early drafts to something close to completion, likens the play reading process to a road test: ‘These are works in development and the readings will provide a crucial opportunity not only for the writers to gauge their work in front of an audience, but will also provide the audience with a chance to see these works at this stage in their creation.’

Presented by the Cybec Foundation, the three readings will be The Dream Life of Butterflies by Raimondo Cortese, This is How, adapted from the MJ Hyland novel by David Tredinnick, and You Won’t be Seeing Rainbows Anymore by Tom Holloway. ‘The three works themselves are remarkable for their diversity of style and approach,’ says Fennessy. ‘I encourage anyone with an interest in new Australian theatre-making to come along to all these readings.’

The Dream Life of Butterflies
by Raimondo Cortese
Directed by Heather Bolton
Featuring Natasha Herbert, Margaret Mills and Anastasia Russell-Head
Lawler Studio, Thursday 2 September 2010, 7pm

Two middle-aged women talk in a room. One is recently returned. One has always been there. Between them sits their past. The Dream Life of Butterflies is a beautiful dissertation on the illusion of memory and the impossibility of retrieving what has been lost. In a seamless single scene, award-winning writer Raimondo Cortese exposes their delusions about themselves and each other, hinting at the terrible taboo at the heart of their relationship.

This is How
An adaptation of the MJ Hyland novel by David Tredinnick
Directed by Aidan Fennessy
Featuring Katrina Milosevic, Richard Piper and Luke Ryan
Lawler Studio, Friday 3 September 2010, 7pm

Patrick, a young motor mechanic, escapes to an English seaside village to lick his wounds after a relationship break-up. However, he soon discovers that his demons have followed him, and he will end up doing a very, very bad thing. This is How traces the journey of a man through Britain’s criminal justice system in the late 1960s. It’s a waking nightmare where fantasy and reality co-exist.

Commissioned with the support of the Joan and Peter Clemenger Trust

You Won’t be Seeing Rainbows Anymore
by Tom Holloway
Directed by Matt Lutton
Featuring Julie Forsyth, Jan Friedl, Francis Greenslade, Bruce Kerr, Thomas Wright and Dylan Young. Lawler Studio, Saturday 4 September 2010, 7pm

Within the world is a city. Within the city is an apartment block. Within the apartment block are six very ordinary human beings. One is on the roof looking back at the world, which seems, in a way, that it’s perhaps, well … dying. With deft humour and his typically distinctive style, Tom Holloway’s genre defying new work guides us through the human condition as it enters its death-throes.

Commissioned with the support of the Joan and Peter Clemenger Trust

The Cybec Readings
The MTC Theatre, Lawler Studio
2-4 September 2010
Tickets: $5 (Under 30s)/$10 (Full) $24 for three readings (in person or via phone only)
Bookings: MTC Theatre Box Office 03 8688 0800 or at the door.