The House of Bernarda Alba is a modern adaptation by Rona Munro of the play by Federico Garcia Lorca.
Following the gangland execution of her husband, a crime boss and father to four of her five daughters, the formidable matriarch Bernarda Alba will do anything to safeguard her family’s dubious fortune and the future of her five daughters.
A deal is struck: a marriage of convenience is set up between her eldest girl and the son of a business rival.
All she has to do is ensure that the wedding happens and quickly too, but five headstrong daughters cooped up in a penthouse apartment above a night club in an emotionally-charged atmosphere of jealousy, rivalry and repressed sexuality make that an epic challenge.
Set in Australia during a hot, steamy summer, this production is electrifyingly transposed to the money-laundering world of crime-ridden Melbourne. The play is full of waspish black humour and it is hard not to laugh right up until this contemporary family drama reaches its bitter and bloody end.
The House of Bernarda Alba plays June 5 to 26, with the preview performance on Friday June 4 benefitting the John Hunter Children’s Hospital Kids Club.
Steel Magnolias tells the story of six women and how the bonds of their friendships strengthen through good times and bad.
The play is set in the fictitious southern town of Chinquapin, Louisiana, in Truvy’s beauty shop where all the ladies, and anyone who is anyone, come to get their hair done. Wise-cracking beauty shop owner Truvy dispenses shampoo and free advice to her customers – “Honey, time marches on and eventually you realise it’s marching across your face” – and is helped by her new assistant Annelle.
Her customers include Miss Clairee, widow of the former Mayor, “the only thing that separates us from the animals is our ability to accessorise”; Ouiser, a wealthy curmudgeon “I’m not crazy…I’ve just been in a bad mood for 40 years”; M’Lynn and her daughter Shelby, the prettiest girl in town, who is about to marry her sweetheart, Jackson.
Steel Magnolias plays 24 July to 14 August, with five matinees – Sunday 25 July, Saturday 31 July, Sunday 1 August, Saturday 7 August and Sunday 8 August.
Grab your best friends and come and see this heart-warming play. Book your tickets early to avoid disappointment.
Knock And Run Theatre is thrilled to present “TREVOR” by Nick Jones!
Inspired by true events, Trevor is a subversive comedy about fame, success, and the lies we tell ourselves in order to keep people from taking away an erratic, 200-pound chimpanzee. At the centre of this hilarious and heart-wrenching play are two individuals fighting against a world unable to understand their love: Trevor, a chimpanzee who once performed in commercials with the likes of Morgan Fairchild, and his owner Sandra, who swears he would never hurt a fly…at least not on purpose. A moving exploration of family, flawed communication, and humanity.
The third and final installment of Knock And Run’s Animal Cracker Trilogy (Year Of The Rooster, Circumference Of A Squirrel, Trevor)- Trevor is directed by Allison Van Gaal and assisted by Stephanie Hilkmann. The stellar cast consists of James Chapman (Things I Know To Be True), Karen Lantry ( Much Ado About Nothing), Lissy Shand (Kid Stakes), Zac Smith (Mamma Mia), Patrick Campbell (The Shawshank Redemption), Ben Louttit (Two Point Oh) and Marissa Saroca (Ajax In Iraq).
Trevor will be presented as part of NTC’s Indie Season.
Season 18 to 28 August
When Helene Hanff, a New York script-reader sees an ad in the Saturday Review of Literature for a bookstore in London that does mail order, she writes to see if they can help with her “antiquarian taste in books.” So begins a twenty year relationship. The story of this charming correspondence is told in the play 84 Charing Cross Road.
At first the letters are between Helene and the bookshop manager Frank Doel but their warmth and humour, along with the generous gifts of food parcels, sent when Helene finds out that England is still under rationing, soon endear Helene to the entire staff and their families. Through the letters we get to join in with the big events like the coronation as well as the small, such as how to make Yorkshire pudding. Of course we also follow Helene’s dreams of one day seeing “the England of English literature”.
Helene Hanff published their correspondence after Frank died and 84 Charing Cross Road is her most famous book. It was adapted for television in 1975 and then for the stage by James Roose-Evans in 1981.
Barefoot In The Park is a romantic comedy by Neil Simon. The play premiered on Broadway in 1963, starring Robert Redford and Elizabeth Ashley.
The story focuses on a pair of newlyweds, Corie and Paul, as they begin married life in a tiny, 5th-floor walkup apartment in a Manhattan brownstone.
Paul is a strait-laced attorney, while Corie has a far more spontaneous, free spirit.
As the young couple contend with a lack of heating, a skylight that leaks snow, several long flights of stairs, oddball neighbour Victor Velasco, and Corie’s well-meaning mother, they must also reconcile their own personal differences in how they approach life’s challenges.
Adjusting to married life isn’t so easy!
Plays 9 to 30 October
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