Back to Back theatre will reconfigure the entire Hamer Hall for Melbourne Festival’s epic new work.

This article first appeared in Limelight‘s October 2016 issue, ahead of Lady Eats Apple‘s premiere at the 2016 Melbourne Festival


Entering the auditorium for Lady Eats Apple, the latest work from Back to Back Theatre, audiences will find themselves in an unexpected environment. The production takes place in Hamer Hall at the Arts Centre Melbourne – but not as we know it. “You won’t recognise Hamer Hall because it’s been so changed,” says the Company’s Artistic Director Bruce Gladwin.

Established in 1987, the Geelong-based company creates new forms of contemporary theatre with an ensemble of actors with disabilities. Their excitingly ambitious work includes the internationally acclaimed, award-winning (and controversial) Ganesh Versus the Third Reich.

Lady Eats Apple, which premieres this month at the Melbourne Festival, is their largest-scale production to date in terms of its staging. Hamer Hall has a seating capacity of over 2,400 but Lady Eats Apple will play to just 250. “The audience are on stage and there are two very large inflatables, which fill and reconfigure the space, so it’s like a space within a space,” says Gladwin. “I’ve always...