New Belvoir St Theatre artistic director Eamon Flack has announced the stellar new 2016 season, with a focus on inclusivity and the kind of faith in humanity that springs from a magic performance.
Flack is passionate about theatre representing “a variety of life”, which is something that shines through the upcoming season. In Kate Mulvany’s adaptation of Craig Silvey’s award-winning Jasper Jones we witness a coming-of-age story embroiled in issues of race. In the comedy of Hannah Gadsby we get a perspective at once thoroughly unique and typically Australian in its self-deprication. Then there’s Urban Theatre Project’s The Tribe, to be performed in crowd-sourced Surry Hills backyards, with Hazem Shammas playing a small Arab-Australian boy making sense of his family’s flight from Lebanon to Australia.
The shows in this season tackle issues both intimate and far-reaching. InThe Great Fireupcoming talent Kit Brookman weaves a warm and funny family drama, exploring where the Australian dream of the 1970s has left us now, while Stephen Sewell’sThe Blind Giant Is DancingseesThe Code’sDan Spielman andOrange Is The New Black‘s Yael Stone revisit the 1983 examination of political power and individual corruption. Other shows include Lally Katz’s story of her parents’ first meeting,Back At The Dojo;Matthew Whittet’s dreamy rite-of-passage Girl Asleep;Biran Friel’s shiesty Faith Healer, Will Eno’senigmatic Title and Deed, MAKEbeLIVE’s Ruby’s Wish, and David Greig’s The Events.
The impression this season gives is not only that the world is a diverse place, but Australia is. Though the requisite nod to the greats remains in the Flack-directed The Twelfth Night with Peter Carroll and Nikki Shiels, and in Leah Purcell’s reimagining of The Drover’s Wife, each inclusion in Belvior’s 2016 season speaks to the concerns of a contemporary Australia in some way.
This ethos of inclusivity extends to younger viewers as well, with special family sessions of certain shows and student pricing options.
Belvoir’s 2016 season is live on the theatre website now. Check it out for dates and ticketing.
