Spread Your Wings
On Monday, October 14, 2013, The much-lauded Black Swan State Theatre Company unveiled their program for the next 12 months at the State Theatre Centre. 2014 will see the company mount six plays in the Heath Ledger Theatre as well as two in the smaller Studio Underground as part of the Black Swan Lab program.
Director Kate Cherry will not only direct Sigrid Thornton as Blanche DuBois in a new production of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, but she will also be in charge of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull, which is set to star Greta Scacchi and her daughter, Leila George.
Sometime Fremantle resident, Ben Elton, will be revisiting his 1980 play, Gasping, under the tile Gasp! The work will be updated for a new time and a new country, and is directed by Wesley Enoch and presented with the Queensland Theatre Company.
Australian comedian, Peter Rowsthorn take the lead role of comedian Max Prince in Neil Simon’s Laughter On The 23rd Floor, which draws on Simon’s experiences writing for Sid Caesar’s Your Show Of Shows in the early years of broadcast television.
Dust, by Suzie Miller, is a new play about a very dusty day in Perth and will have its world premier next June. Meanwhile, Roger Hodgman will direct the Shakespeare comedy, As You Like It, which we are told will feature a sprawling Western Australian cast.
The Black Swan Lab program will present two world premieres in the coming year: Flood, written by Chris Isaacs and The House On The Lake, written by Aidan Fennessy.
A number of subscription options are available for those keen to soak up some of the best theatre that the Perth scene has to offer. Interested parties should make their way to bsstc.com.au for more information.
_ TRAVIS JOHNSON
