It’s been a long, cold, dark winter for Sydney’s theatre scene, which was largely shut down by Covid-19. But things are starting to look a little brighter, as companies begin launching their 2021 seasons and we look forward to plenty of joyful, celebratory and provocative theatre in the coming year.
STC artistic director Kip Williams is “bursting with excitement” as he launches “Act One” of the company’s 2021 season. Not only is he grateful to be in a position to launch the season considering the havoc Covid-19 continues to wreak on performing arts budgets, but the company’s debut show coincides with the STC finally moving back to Walsh Bay after a near-three-year renovation of its Wharf Theatre home base.
“If it had just been about reopening the Wharf that would have been exciting enough, but it comes on the back of this extremely challenging year,” Williams tells Broadsheet.
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SIGN UPThe company re-emerged from lockdown to a 50 per cent-capacity crowd in late September with the two-hander Wonnangatta, starring Hugo Weaving and Wayne Blair. Little wonder Williams is elated to be announcing the first five productions of 2021, with the following 10 shows of the season slated to be announced in March, all (hopefully) playing to full houses, Covid-safe guidelines permitting.
And so to STC’s first show of 2021, an adaption by Kate Mulvany of Ruth Park’s celebrated novel Playing Beatie Bow – set in The Rocks on which the STC stands – directed by Williams and premiering February 22.
Released in 1980 the book follows Abigail (Catherine Văn-Davies), a curious teenager who follows a mysterious young girl, Beatie Bow (Sofia Nolan), back in time to 1873 when the area was vastly different, populated by gangsters and struggling immigrant families.
“It was my favourite novel when I was 10 years old,” says Williams. “The story is so remarkable, the magic is captivating, the narrative of a young person finding their own voice is very relevant to young people ... and the beautiful way it looks at Sydney, the history of our local area where we’re returning to, all makes it very exciting.”
Playing Beatie Bow reunites Williams with Mulvany – he directed her multi-award-winning 2018 adaption of Park’s The Harp in the South .
“It’s perfect because it’s a family show that will hopefully introduce The Wharf to a whole new generation of theatregoers who will love it and come for the next 60 years, and feel a real ownership of that theatre,” says Williams.
The next show (launching March 15) is the long-awaited Australian debut of young American playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s work Appropriate. The dark comedy will be directed by former STC resident director and outgoing Sydney Festival director Wesley Enoch.
“I was lucky enough to see the opening night of Appropriate at the Donmar Warehouse in London about 18 months ago and was completely captivated by it,” says Williams of the comedy, which follows a family packing up their family home in Arkansas following the death of their father, only to discover something highly inappropriate. The show also “appropriates” the classic family drama form of 20th-century writers such as Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller, exposing elements those great classics failed to address, including America’s shameful relationship with its racist past. Appropriate will star Mandy McElhinney and Lucy Bell.
The final three plays of the company’s first act are shows programmed for 2020 that have been “salvaged from the joys of coronavirus”: the Olivier Award-winning 1950s picture-perfect housewife-gone-wrong comedy Home, I’m Darling; the Broadway and West End hit musical Fun Home, starring Ryan Gonzalez (In the Heights) and Marina Prior and directed by Dean Bryant; and the last-ever Wharf Revue, Good Night and Good Luck, starring Jonathan Biggins.
“I made a commitment early on to do everything I could to reprogram the cancelled shows of 2020 and I’m doing that,” Williams says.
His revised 2021 line-up looks a little different to what was planned pre-Covid, taking into account audiences’ need to laugh, and feel connected and united. “But audiences are also going to want interesting, challenging material that helps them make sense of what they’ve just been through and offer provocation for what our new world is going to be. I’m always looking for variety,” he says.
More than anything Williams is simply happy to be up and running. “I couldn’t be more eager to reconnect with our audience, particularly when they’ve been instrumental in keeping us afloat during this period.”
Tickets for the Sydney Theatre Company 2021: Act 1 go on sale to season ticket holders from Tuesday November 10 and general sale from Wednesday December 2.