LGBT Plays include Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Merchant of Venice.
Sport For Jove Theatre Company is thrilled to announce its theatrical line-up for 2015.
Outdoor Sport
SFJ’s acclaimed outdoor theatre season returns for its 6th year in December and January 2015 with two works revered by audiences the world over – A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare and The Crucible, by Arthur Miller.
Arthur Miller's parable of mass hysteria draws a savage parallel between the Salem witch-hunt of 1692 – “one of the strangest and most awful chapters in human history” – and the McCarthyism that gripped America in the 1950s. But its portrait of the ordinary evils latent in any society, of mindless, hysterical persecution through ignorance, fear of ‘otherness’ and our capacity to serve ourselves above all others make it one of the world’s most transcendent and important stories, in any age.
A Midsummer Night's Dream is the ultimate expression of Shakespeare's theatrical mastery and SFJ is developing a brand new production of the play, directed by Susanna Dowling. In the heat of the shortest night of the year, young lovers and work-a-day dreamers plunge into a world between sleep and waking, where "everything seems double". One of Shakespeare's truly essential works, 'Dream', like every fairy-story, warns us that family, love and friendship are fragile – when parents are selfish, their children break the rules; when love rears its head, friendships are forgotten; and that’s just the mortal world. The Fairy Kingdom's war over a mortal child has turned the entire "mazed world" upside down.
An exceptional cast joins us including Julian Garner, Georgia Adamson, Philip Dodd, Nathan Lovejoy, Wendy Strehlow, Lizzie Schebesta, Matilda Ridgway, Adele Querol, Emma Chelsey Barnes, Michelle McKenzie, Christopher Tomkinson, Richard Hilliar, Felix Jozeps and Chris Stalley.
Join us this summer for a transformative journey through dreams and nightmares – a double bill of magic and the spirit world, and what happens when all hell breaks loose in the woods…
A Midsummer Night's Dream, By William Shakespeare
Directed by Susanna Dowling
The Crucible, By Arthur Miller
Directed by Damien Ryan
December 5th – January 25th
Bella Vista Farm, Baulkham Hills & The Everglades Garden, Leura
Indoor Sport
In May, Sport For Jove returns for its indoor season, with the iconic, dangerous, controversial and rarely staged, The Merchant of Venice; a story Shakespeare couldn’t resist…an unfathomable sadness in a man’s heart…the mysterious hazards of the ocean…our propensity for hate crime and religious intolerance…our willingness to gamble with our lives…things that still hurt and hinder us to this day in our struggle to know the difference between mercy and justice.
Some of Shakespeare’s most extraordinary characters people this play. Portia, the brilliant young woman who dresses as a man to save merchant’s life and bears witness to an untold passion between Antonio and her husband, Bassanio. At the centre of them all in the court of Venice stands a Jewish moneylender, Shylock, demanding a pound of flesh from a man who is willing to have his heart torn out of his body as a gesture of love to his friend…
The Merchant of Venice, By William Shakespeare
Directed by Richard Cottrell
May 7th – May 30th
Riverside Theatre, Parramatta and Seymour Centre, Sydney
In July, Sport For Jove presents Of Mice and Men, adapted by John Steinbeck from his extraordinary novel. This story remains a stunning indictment, particularly in today’s era of economic, political and moral disillusionment, of how we treat our disenfranchised fringe dwellers, our migrant peoples and our most vulnerable. Set in the desperation of the Great Depression, Of Mice and Men is one of the world’s most compelling tales of friendship and survival.
George and Lenny are displaced migrant workers who dream of one day settling down on their own piece of land. Their shared vision of a better future and the strength of their friendship carry them through the loneliness, oppression and uncertainty of one of the world’s most profound eras of disillusionment. Of Mice and Men teaches us the value of understanding and human kindness even under extreme circumstances.
Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
July 9 – July 25
Seymour Centre, Sydney
In October, Sport for Jove Theatre presents Marlowe’s Edward II
“You must be proud, bold, pleasant, resolute,
And now and then stab as occasion serves.”
Monarch. Prisoner. Corpse.
King Edward's illicit desire will eclipse the law, alienate his nobles and wife, and threaten to destroy a nation. Marlowe's 1593 tragic masterpiece, Edward II, shows us just how personal politics really is, offering a savage examination of an all too common modern story – how our deepest desires can lead to spectacular falls from grace.
Sport for Jove Theatre Company turns its acclaimed ensemble style toward Christopher Marlowe, Shakespeare's best frenemy – bold, bad and dangerous to know. Come and see why this young ill-fated genius gave some of the team nightmares…
Edward II, By Christopher Marlowe
Directed by Terry Karabelas
October 1st – 17th
Seymour Centre, Sydney
For more information, visit www.sportforjove.com.au.
