This well-heeled selection sees theatre gems rub shoulders with brand new Australian works.

The Darlinghurst Theatre Company has announced an impressive 2016 season that sees award-winning favourites placed alongside classic landmark dramas and contemporary Australian works. The Company’s Executive Producer, Glenn Terry, credits the artistically diverse season to the company’s unique method for developing their programs. Each year there is a public call out for artists to submit their production concepts. “Our approach comes with ingredients that you just can’t buy,” Terry explains. “It comes with passion and drive, with artists working on projects that they are intrinsically connected to. For me, this is the gold and makes for the strongest connection between audience and performance. Our 2016 season is rich in vision, ideas and theatricality. Above all, it’s passionate, and I feel it’s our best season to date.”  

The season opens with the popular Olivier Award-winning drama The Pride, which will be presented in collaboration with the 2016 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. Writer Alexi Kaye Campbell narrates the changing attitudes to sexuality in Britain over the past 60 years. Simon London, known for his role in The Hobbit, will play the dual characters of Philip – two men with the same name who live in different times, one in the repressive air of 1958 and the other in a slightly more liberated 2008. The play is a remarkable reflection of our times, our past and society’s evolution.  

Then comes Patricia Cornelius’ Savages, an intense comedy inspired by a true story. In desperate need of a break, and determined to leave life’s baggage behind, four men find themselves aboard a cruise ship for the trip of a lifetime. It’s a powerful piece of theatre presenting flawed but likeable characters struggling to deal with their present identity and their future selves.

Nick Enright’s insightful drama, A Man With Five Children, questions the power of the media, and in our technological age of twitter, facebook, apps and smartphones, it’s a play that couldn’t be more relevant. Gerry is a documentary filmmaker who, one day each year, follows five children around with a camera with the results shown annually on television. What may sound like an uneasy premise for a play is actually a bold examination of a distorted media vision and the increasing cult of celebrity. Are the participants Gerry’s subjects, his children, or his creations? Does the presence of the camera distorting their lives and development, or is it revealing their true personalities? Enright provides a distinctive Australian perspective in this exploration of morality and media ethics.

Home of the Darlinghurst Theatre at the Eternity Playhouse

Broken won the ‘Best Script’ category of the 2014 Northern Territory Literary Awards, and was shortlisted for the 2014 Griffin Award. The play captures the haunting reality of resilience, survival and hope that is so often epitomised by the isolation of the Australian landscape. The three main characters are each broken in some way, and their worlds collide on a fateful night in the Australian Central Desert. Writer Mary Anne Butler explores the bonds that can form between individuals in distress as she poses the question: When you find yourself empty, how do you start again?

In addition to reviving dramatic classics, Darlinghurst Theatre Company will also present the world premiere of Remembering Pirates from Sydney-based composer and playwright Christopher Harley. Bell Shakespeare’s Matthew Becker will appear in the play, which is a contemporary take on the classic Peter Pan story but set in the future. Wendy’s expecting her first child, John’s a jaded history teacher and Michael’s never around. They remember their childhood adventures with the lost boys, pirates, treasure and magic, but struggle to identify whether it was real or make-believe.

A Life in the Theatre is an aptly named work from David Mamet about people who spend their lives pretending to be other people. Described as a “love letter to the theatre”, the work sees stage veteran Robert and young up-and-comer John struggle to share a dressing room and the spotlight as they perform roles from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Subscriptions and single tickets are already on sale. For full details please visit the Darlinghurst Theatre Company’s website.

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