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26th April-5th May 2018. Experience the Ballarat premiere of Shakespeare's most feminist play. Written to mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death (2016), Margaret of Anjou could change the way we see Shakespeare. As Margaret matures from feisty princess to scheming queen, we see a female role that is an ‘Everest’ on a par with King Lear.
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Performed 8th-10th November 2018, Post Office Box Theatre, Ballarat, Australia; 15th-16th November 2018, The Lawler, Southbank Theatre, MTC, Melbourne, Australia. Our performance programs are among the most creative and productive performing arts training programs in Australia. A performance season across Ballarat and Melbourne, our #SHOWCASE2018 series celebrates the creative leaders of tomorrow. This is your chance to witness the talent of young artists on the verge of their professional careers.
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Performance of 'Garden City Weeded' at the Helen Macpherson Smith Theatre, Federation University of Australia, 6th-13th April 2017. Directed by Kim Durban.
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Performance of 'Garden City Weeded' at the Helen Macpherson Smith Theatre, Federation University of Australia, 6th-13th April 2017. Directed by Kim Durban.
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My Favorite Year Book by Joseph Dougherty Music by Stephen Flaherty Lyrics by Lynn Ahrens Licensed exclusively by Music Theatre International (Australasia). All performance materials supplied by Hal Leonard Australia. The Second Year Music Theatre Company at FedUni's Arts Academy presents My Favorite Year. Director Sara Grenfell Musical Direction by Alistair Smith Witness the future of Australian musical theatre tackle this tuneful Broadway score by the Tony Award-winning team of Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, and a snappy book by Joseph Dougherty. My Favorite Year is a classic musical comedy with a heart of gold. It’s 1954, and Benjy Stone, freshman writer on TV’s King Kaiser Comedy Cavalcade, is assigned the daunting task of baby-sitting veteran Hollywood swashbuckler Alan Swann while he's doing a live guest appearance on the show. The effort to keep the reckless Swann off the booze and out of the papers during the rehearsal week nearly drives Benjy to the brink. But when he's given an unexpected glimpse into Swann's broken heart, Benjy begins to discover a thing or two about life and love. In addition to Benjy Stone and Alan Swann, the show is filled with juicy roles for comic actors, from the overbearing Belle Carroca (played in both the original film and in the Lincoln Center production by Lainie Kazan) to the acerbic comedy writer Alice Miller, the role which garnered Andrea Martin a Tony Award. Based on the motion picture of the same name that first premiered in 1982, the original movie starred Peter O'Toole, Mark Linn-Baker and Jessica Harper. The studio season at the Arts Academy allows audiences to experience lesser-known and surprising theatre works and to witness our Arts Academy training in progress.
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Peformed 7th-11th November 2017, Post Office Box Theatre, Ballarat, Australia; 15th-16th November 2017, MTC Southbank Theartre, Melbourne, Australia. Directed by Kim Durban (Acting) and Sara Grenfell (Music Theatre), Musical Direction by Robyn Womersley, Choreography by Christina D'Agostino. Passionate and contemporary, SHOWCASE 2017 celebrates FedUni’s Arts Academy and the graduating students of the Acting and Music Theatre Companies. The season will demonstrate the breadth of talent at the Arts Academy and provide the opportunity for audiences to witness young artists on the verge of their professional careers, as they emerge to enliven Australia's cultural landscape.
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The Chekhov Project The Second Year Acting Company will investigate and interrogate Anton Chekhov, presenting a season of his short stories at the Arts Academy as part of the Ballarat Writers Festival. Canonised and celebrated as a playwright, Chekhov is a pivotal figure who transformed contemporary theatre practice through his landmark plays. Perhaps lesser known as a prolific short story writer, Chekhov is celebrated as having changed the genre itself with his spare, impressionistic depictions of Russian life and the human condition. Under the watchful guidance of Arts Academy acting lecturer Ross Hall, the Second Year Acting Company will delve into the evocative and transcendent short stories of Chekhov, to present a poetic performative mosaic of his writing. The studio season at the Arts Academy allows audiences to experience lesser-known and surprising performance work, and to witness our Arts Academy training in progress. The season is presented in conjunction with the Ballarat Writers Festival 2017 at the Arts Academy.
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Musical Director, Rainer Pollard A New Australian Work. A group of Irish girls sail on a boat around the wide belly of the world to a young country whose name they can barely pronounce – Australia. Each has a story to tell; one will. Set against a backdrop of the Irish potato famine, Ebbingtide is a story chronicling the capacity of the human spirit to endure, survive and remember.
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Peformed 6-8 November, 2014 Post Office Box Theatre, Ballarat, Australia 12-13 November, 2014 MTC Southbank Theatre, Melbourne, Australia Music Theatre directed by Sara Grenfell Staging/Choreography by David Wynen Musically Directed by Robyn Womersley
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Peformed 6-8 November, 2014 Post Office Box Theatre, Ballarat, Australia 12-13 November, 2014 MTC Southbank Theatre, Melbourne, Australia Music Theatre directed by Sara Grenfell Staging/Choreography by David Wynen Musically Directed by Robyn Womersley
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Performance of 'The Tempest' at the Helen Macpherson Smith Theatre, University of Ballarat, 13 June - 17 June 2012. Directed by Kim Durban.
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Performance by third year performing art students at the Ballarat Arts Academy at the Ballarat Mining Exchange Helen Macpherson Smith Theatre, 31st May, 2007- Running time - 2hrs 34 mins
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Performance by third year performing art students at the Ballarat Arts Academy at the Ballarat Mining Exchange Helen Macpherson Smith Theatre, 31st May, 2007- Running time - 2hrs 34 mins
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Live performance of 'Kiss Me, Kate' directed by Kim Durban, Princess Theatre, Melbourne. 24 November - 3 December 2006. Research Background: Companies all over the world have produced this American musical. Research Contribution: This original Australian production used an innovative approach to the aesthetic of the play-within-a play The Taming of the Shrew, which is normally set in Shakespearean dress. In this version the players were set in the Art Deco/Jazz era, causing a series of innovative approaches to, and thus a shift in audience perception of character, costume, design, choreography and instrumentation. Research Significance: The significance of this research is that it proved the authenticity and theatrical flexibility of the material and provided sophisticated benchmarks for artist training. Durban's dramaturgical approach also supported the script and introduced the work of the regional Arts Academy to Melbourne audiences through a unique partnership with Melbourne's Princess Theatre. Its value is attested to by the following indicators: cast members have gained employment with national and international arts companies including MTC and Wicked (Asian Tour). Design team members have worked on the Australian Ballet and Moomba. The production was extensively attended and reviewed.
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Live performance of 'Kiss Me, Kate' directed by Kim Durban, Princess Theatre, Melbourne. 24 November - 3 December 2006. Research Background: Companies all over the world have produced this American musical. Research Contribution: This original Australian production used an innovative approach to the aesthetic of the play-within-a play The Taming of the Shrew, which is normally set in Shakespearean dress. In this version the players were set in the Art Deco/Jazz era, causing a series of innovative approaches to, and thus a shift in audience perception of character, costume, design, choreography and instrumentation. Research Significance: The significance of this research is that it proved the authenticity and theatrical flexibility of the material and provided sophisticated benchmarks for artist training. Durban's dramaturgical approach also supported the script and introduced the work of the regional Arts Academy to Melbourne audiences through a unique partnership with Melbourne's Princess Theatre. Its value is attested to by the following indicators: cast members have gained employment with national and international arts companies including MTC and Wicked (Asian Tour). Design team members have worked on the Australian Ballet and Moomba. The production was extensively attended and reviewed.
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(Choreography & Staging by David Wynen) New choreography and interpretation of movement for Cole Porter's musical Kiss Me Kate. This work was in the field of dance and theatre performance. Most specifically music theatre. The research that underlies such a project relates to the brief given to a choreographer by the project's Director. This brief included making my dance work historically referenced as well as in line with the physical design of the piece. This had to encompass a set and aesthetics using shapes and references relating to Cubism and Deco design movements. My research question relates to fulfilling such criteria whilst supporting a project designed to graduate and showcase our Music Theatre students to the industry. Its research component relates to historic referencing, and educational and professional outcomes. Reviewed in The Age December 2006.
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(Choreography & Staging by David Wynen) New choreography and interpretation of movement for Cole Porter's musical Kiss Me Kate. This work was in the field of dance and theatre performance. Most specifically music theatre. The research that underlies such a project relates to the brief given to a choreographer by the project's Director. This brief included making my dance work historically referenced as well as in line with the physical design of the piece. This had to encompass a set and aesthetics using shapes and references relating to Cubism and Deco design movements. My research question relates to fulfilling such criteria whilst supporting a project designed to graduate and showcase our Music Theatre students to the industry. Its research component relates to historic referencing, and educational and professional outcomes. Reviewed in The Age December 2006.
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Live performance of 'Twelfth Night by William Shakespear' directed by Kim Durban, Post Office Box Theatre, Ballarat. 14 - 18 June 2006. Research Background: Companies all over the world have produced this Shakespear play which enjoyed its first production by the Arts Academy. Research Contribution: This original Australian production used an innovative approach to the aesthetic of the play in 3 ways - first, by representing the characters using multiple actors who shared the lines and the part, second by using a peer actor to work alongside the graudate company and provide a professional role model and third by using a sculptor, a painter and a theatre designer as collaborators on the design setting. Research Significance: The significance of this research is that it proved the authenticity and theatrical flexibility of the material and provided sophisticated benchmarks for artist training. Durban's dramturgical approach also intersected with current Shakespeare scholarship and introduced the play to a regional audience. Its value is attested to by the following indicators: Cast and creative members have gained employment with national and international arts companies, including Steven Spielberg's 'The Pacific'.
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Live performance of 'Twelfth Night by William Shakespear' directed by Kim Durban, Post Office Box Theatre, Ballarat. 14 - 18 June 2006. Research Background: Companies all over the world have produced this Shakespear play which enjoyed its first production by the Arts Academy. Research Contribution: This original Australian production used an innovative approach to the aesthetic of the play in 3 ways - first, by representing the characters using multiple actors who shared the lines and the part, second by using a peer actor to work alongside the graudate company and provide a professional role model and third by using a sculptor, a painter and a theatre designer as collaborators on the design setting. Research Significance: The significance of this research is that it proved the authenticity and theatrical flexibility of the material and provided sophisticated benchmarks for artist training. Durban's dramturgical approach also intersected with current Shakespeare scholarship and introduced the play to a regional audience. Its value is attested to by the following indicators: Cast and creative members have gained employment with national and international arts companies, including Steven Spielberg's 'The Pacific'.
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'Special Study of Tennessee Williams', directed by Ross Hall, consisted of 5 live performances held at the Post Office Box Theatre, Ballarat during October 2005. The production was undertaken by 2nd Year students within the undergraduate acting program at UB and constituted in-depth research into the area of naturalistic American theatre in the wake of Stanislaski's influenct on the Group Theatre. Specifically, research focussed on two rarely performed pieces by the playwright Tennessee Williams: Orpheus Descending and Suddenly Last Summer. The work exposed the viewing public to material now, in the main, unfamiliar to contemporary Australian audiences. It also focuses perfroming students on material which is now culturally and socially foreign to them, with a special focus on performance within a Black Box mode: theatre stripped of conventional set and costume machinery, and, along with many other performance projects, constitutes part of my ongoing research with respect to theatrical representation in contemporary Australian pedagogically-based theatre.
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Performance by Tom Hodgson in 'Tenebrae Trilogy Parts I and II', Sydney Town Hall, Sydney, Australia. March 2005 and April 2006. A collaboration between physical theatre company Force Majeure and The Song Company. Both internationally recognized for their excellence and fearless approach to performance. Research Contribution: Intensive workshop and improvisation period investigating all possibilities and limits of movement when performed simultaneously with Carlo Gesualdo's intricate score. Research into singing techniques and limits of body position whilst moving. Development of choreographic material morphing singers and dancers into a collective movement experience. The research has led to further collaborations between the two companies and also a new approach in their individual work. The significance of this research is that it overcomes traditional physical and staging barriers relating to performance of complex, historical compositions. Its value can be attested by the following indicators: its success both artistically and in ticket sales, the creation and completion of the third and final part of the Trilogy, its attendance by an extremely broad audience demographic and greater understanding of how singing technique can be adjusted to facilitate greater movement during performance.