Box Office: (03) 9685-5111
Administration: (03) 9685-5100
Facsimile: (03) 9685-5112
For readers outside Australia, note that the Australian international code is 613. Thus, the Playbox fax, for example, would be: (613) 9685-5112.
Box Office: (03) 9685-5111
Administration: (03) 9685-5100
Facsimile: (03) 9685-5112
For readers outside Australia, note that the Australian international code is 613. Thus, the Playbox fax, for example, would be: (613) 9685-5112.
Playbox Theatre Centre is dedicated to the creation, interpretation and promotion of theatre that reflects Australia's cultural diversity, our place in the contemporary world and, particularly, the Asia/Pacific region in which we live.
Since it's foundation in 1976, Playbox has presented over 180 Australian plays, the majority as premieres. Of those, a third have toured or transferred to regional Victoria, interstate or overseas. In particular, the company's strong links with Asia have resulted in tours to and exchanges with China, Japan, India, South Korea and The Philippines. Primarily Playbox works to foster a national repertoire of Australian plays.
This process involves the production and creation of new work through commissioning writers, hosting play readings, workshops and script assessments, and also the reinterpretation of existing drama in the light of contemporary values and concerns. Playbox has gained a reputation for creating dynamic and progressive theatre and is partly responsible for the strength of the Australian theatrical industry and the diversity and success of Australian writers both here and overseas.
The careers of many top Australian playwrights have been fostered by Playbox - including Hannie Rayson, Louis Nowra, Michael Gurr, Barry Dickins, Joanna Murray-Smith, Daniel Keene, Frank Hardy, Stephen Sewell, Michael Gow and Tobsha Learner, amongst others.
With its focus on Australian writing, Playbox also actively encourages young and upcoming Australian playwrights with a number of writing and workshop initiatives. Our Theatre In The Raw programme on Sunday afternoons showcases new works and a new season entitled Playwrights Raw of play readings has commenced on Sunday afternoons in 1995.
Playbox also hosts workshops and seminars for the performing arts industries. The need for social and cultural understanding and exposure to different theatrical and performance traditions has led to acrobatic, puppet, Japanese Noh and Suzuki companies touring Australia - under the auspice of Playbox Theatre.
We also have a very successful and popular Education Programme and a number special events designed for families and individuals wanting to know more about the venue, the company and Australian playwriting. These include Family Days, Playwright Forums and Discovery Nights. A not-for-profit company, Playbox receives subsidy from both the Australia Council (the federal arts funding organisation) and Arts Victoria (the state funding body).
In fostering artistic links with Asia, the company has toured productions of Australian work and has presented a number of Asian plays in exchange productions. Playbox has also actively encouraged Asian companies to stage their own productions of Australian plays, including Love Child by Joanna Murray-Smith in 1994 and Away by Michael Gow in 1990. In 1994, we presented a Filipino play On the North Diversion Road by Tony Perez in association with the Melbourne Festival and, in 1987, a Chinese play The Imposter by Sha Yexin. This year, we are producing the Australian premiere of The Head of Mary by Japanese playwright Chikao Tanaka which will open at the Tokyo Festival in September and run in repertory with a Japanese production of Australian playwright John Romeril's The Floating World.
In the last five years, Playbox has toured productions of new Australian plays across the nation and promoted the work of our national writers overseas.
(Melbourne season and toured regional Victoria, Sydney, Adelaide, regional South Australia, Hobart, Queensland. Planned tours include Singapore.)
Sanctuary has also been made into a feature film to be released late 1995, early 1996.
A story of an Australian expatriate, turned apologist for the worst of U.S. foreign policy. Williamson asks some important questions about integrity and the value of human endeavour. If success has been at the cost of others, is it ever rewarding? Does anything, ultimately, have meaning unless one attempts to alleviate injustice and human misery?
(Melbourne season and Sydney, and production by Sanwoolim Theatre, Seoul, Sth Korea )
Twenty-five years ago Anna gave her child away. Now Billie has staged a reunion. This first encounter between mother and daughter could change their lives forever. Love Child is a perceptive and compelling contemporary drama about the significance of adoption. Is blood really thinker than water?
(Melbourne season and Sydney, MacKay, regional Victoria and 1995 Edinburgh Festival )
A kaleidoscopic celebration of love in all its complexity. Combining poems by Australian women with songs from all over the world, Deidre Rubenstein reveals the contradictions of love and life from a female perspective.
(Melbourne season and toured regional Victoria, Brisbane, Hobart, Sydney and Canberra).
Falling from Grace is a play about women in medicine and the media. It's about power and authority in female hands. Witty, erudite and passionate, these are women in pursuit of success, juggling careers, children and lovers. Their friendship is about to be tested in a struggle about private interest and public morality and whether women should be the moral guardians.
(Melbourne season and Adelaide)
An evocative work, surreal in its beauty and powerful in its imagery. Alice looks back on her life of acclaim, celebration and accolade. The past has become her life. She wants no part of the future. But her memories are illusions.Through the vivid memories of other peoples' lives, Alice begins a fragile journey.
(Melbourne season and scheduled to tour regional Victoria and Hobart)
Good Works is a modern love story, a rivetting family saga and suspenseful thriller. Moving from the naivete of the Australian 30's to the explicit and ruthless 90's, the play charts the course of two families. Good works, undertaken in the name of sanctimonious charity, weave tragic threads into the lives of their two children.
(Melbourne season, regional Victoria and planned for Sydney in 1996)
A sex scandal threatens to bring down the government, a looming by-election and some fast talking deal-making. Nowra sets the scene for a political expose that takes us from a plush Brisbane hotel suite to the burning fields of northern Queensland and on a crusade all the way to Canberra.
Other overseas touring
In June, Hannie Rayson's HOTEL SORRENTO will receive a playreading at the Com'die Fran‡ais, along with three other Playbox writers Daniel Keene, Ron Elisha and Hilary Bell, as part of the first exchange between the French company and Australia. This is the first time an exchange between the Com'die Fran‡ais and Australia. Hannie Rayson's last play commissioned by Playbox was Hotel Sorrento which has been made into a feature film directed by Richard Franklin and starring Joan Plowright, Tara Morice, Caroline Goodall and Caroline Gilmer. It recently opened across Australia.
Playbox's Theatre In The Raw programme has also been responsible for productions GUESS WHO'S MUM'S GOT A WILLY by Kevin Harrington which toured Sydney and SLICK by Gary Day which will appear at the Wellington Festival in New Zealand and Sydney.
Touring of other Playbox productions (non-Australian plays):
(Melbourne season and toured Perth and Canberra, as well as Sth Korea and Japan in 1993)
This Playbox production marked the retirement of Carrillo Gantner who was a founding member of Playbox Theatre in 1976 and worked as Playbox Artistic Director from 1980-84 and 1988-93. Carrillo played Lear in this production which was directed by acclaimed Polish director Lech Mackiewicz.
(Melbourne season and toured Sydney and Adelaide)
American comic genius Steve Martin brought the draft of his first play to Playbox Theatre in 1993 when he visited Melbourne. A secret workshop was held and Steve offered us the Australian premiere production. Picasso at the Lapin Agile moves with Dadaist whimsy and energy. It is a comic speculation about art, science and the 20th Century.
The C.U.B. Malthouse: Playbox's Home
Since 1990, Playbox Theatre Centre of Monash University has been the resident company at The C.U.B. Malthouse. The move to this venue followed a fire which destroyed the company's previous home in Exhibition Street, Melbourne. In this year, the company also affiliated with Monash University, Australia's largest and most progressive university, and became known formally as Playbox Theatre Centre of Monash University. Host to annual events, such as the Melbourne Writers Festival, it is a lively and creative space of constant activity.
The Malthouse was converted by renowned theatre designer John Beckett, who is also a set and lighting designer. The Malthouse retains original historical features from its time as a malting, bagging and sorting house for various breweries since 1892.
Two theatres operate at The Malthouse. The Merlyn theatre seats a maximum of 500 and The Beckett seats up to 200 people. The venue also operates a gallery, a number of rehearsal rooms, a cafe and a bar. Also included as part of The Malthouse complex is the building next door, known as ArtsHouse, which houses a number of smaller arts organisations.
In 1995, renovation will begin on the front tower and the foyer will be enlarged, further enhancing The Malthouse's reputation as a hub of artistic activity in the midst of Melbourne's premier arts precinct south of the city.
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