8 minute read
Arts
All the world’s a stage
AUDIENCES all over the Sunshine Coast will be busy in the month of May as The Anywhere Festival sees performances popping up across the coast.
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The sixth instalment of Little Seed Theatre Company’s annual Shakespeare at the Lake As You Like It provides plenty of laughs. The story is set in the forest of Arden where dreamers and schemers seek a new world. “All the world’s a stage,” in this setting overlooking beautiful Lake MacDonald. So pack a picnic, bring your favourite tipple, a cushion or two and get lost in the world of dukes, daughters and disguises; just how you like it!
In 2017 the company presented Romeo and Juliet as their first foray into Shakespeare, staging the show at the amphitheatre in the Noosa Botanical Gardens overlooking Lake MacDonald. This experience was a great delight for cast, director and the hundreds of audience members who turned out for the event that year. The success of the first year lead the company director to establish Shakespeare at the Lake as an annual event. Performed in May as part of the Anywhere Festival the event is a highlight for the company and has a wonderful reputation within the community for its vibrant costumes, strong sense of physical theatre and for bringing Shakespeare to life for modern audiences.
While long term locals know the history of the grand Greek-style theatre in Noosa Botanical Gardens, newcomers and visitors may wonder why such a splendid structure with all it’s ancient Greek and Roman evocations was built here.
Ida Duncan OAM, PHF and Friend of Rotary, owned a property that formed the entry to the gardens and she hated to see the land used as a dump. After touring Greece and falling in love with their amphitheatres Ida had an idea that the vacant hillside in the gardens could become an amphitheatre. While many said it could not be done, Ida fundraised furiously and was undeterred.In 1997 the construction was completed and Ida’s dream a reality.
Celebrating nature, shifting gender roles and the absurdities of politics, confusion reigns supreme in this big hearted comedy by the Bard. Tickets are available through www.little-seed. com.au and the show plays May 14, 15, 21 and 22 at 2.30pm.
Tilly Wood as Rosalind and Naire MacDonald as Touchstone. Photo: Nathaniel Knight
THE GOLDEN AGE OF HOLLYWOOD
FRIDAY MAY 13, 7 TO 9PM CLASSIC AUSTRALIAN MOVIE AGE OF CONSENT (1969) STARS: JAMES MASON, HELEN MIRREN, JACK MCGOWRAN
Disillusioned with life, celebrated artist Bradley Morahan (James Mason) retreats to the solitude of a tropical island on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. The island however is far from uninhabited. Bradley soon stumbles on Cora a beautiful highly spirited teenage girl (played by Helen Mirren) who lives with her alcoholic grandmother. The Majestic Theatre, 3 Factory Street, Pomona. Doors & Bar open 6pm movie starts 7pm. $15.00 at ticket, No need to book get your tickets at the door.
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National one-act play festival
SINCE 1978, Noosa Arts Theatre has run the National One-Act Playwriting Competition. With an $8000 cash prize pool, it attracts entries from playwrights not only from Australia but across the world. Three finalists are selected on the quality of the writing, not on subject matter, and the winning order is decided before the plays are presented in this Festival. Many emerging playwrights have been discovered through this process.
During the Festival, the audience is asked at each performance to vote for the ‘Nancy Cato Audience Choice Award’. Other awards include Best Director and Best Actor. Presentation of the awards takes place after the final performance.
The play’s the thing and without plays there is no theatre. Noosa Arts Theatre is proud to offer this opportunity to aspiring and established playwrights.
This year we have a wonderful array of plays to tempt your theatrical pleasure.
A WILDE NIGHT BY ROBIN HAWDON – DIRECTED BY JOHN MCMAHON
The fate of Oscar Wilde is well known. His trial for ‘indecent acts’, his subsequent imprisonment in Reading Gaol – which virtually destroyed his enormous popularity both as a playwright, and as a society celebrity – and his subsequent descent into depression, alcoholism, and illness, leading to his premature death in Paris at 46 – all these have been well documented, and often portrayed on screen and stage.
What is not so well known is that the whole tragic saga really came to a head on the occasion of the first night of his most successful, and ultimately most enduring comedy, ‘The Importance Of Being Earnest’. Whilst the audience were laughing and applauding uproariously in the auditorium, Oscar himself, banned from sitting out front, was going through emotional confrontations backstage, and his nemesis, the deranged Marquess of Queensberry, was marauding outside with a prizefighter companion, seeking an opportunity to assault him.
The irony of these contrasting circumstances surely did not escape Wilde, whose tragedy ultimately had such an effect on today’s very different moral attitudes.
MORNING TEA BY KERRY FAIR – DIRECTED BY MARIA KARAMBELAS
Three mobile phones, a brand new Alpha X, an older smart phone and a little flip phone, are left on a table at a conference as phones are not allowed to be taken into the auditorium. The conversation between the phones reflects the personalities of their humans, the dependence of humans on their phones – and vice versa!
THREE WIVES AND A FUNERAL BY ROB SELZER – DIRECTED BY LIZA PARK
Richard Green had a lot of love to give, which may explain why he tied the knot three times. But it’s only now at his funeral that his three wives finally get to meet each other. Informed that Richard’s will is to be read immediately following the service and that the beneficiaries will be the people he considered to be his true soulmates, his wives jockey as to who really had the closest relationship. Secrets are exposed, jealousies unmasked and, in the process, the women divulge more about themselves than about their marriage to the dearly departed. Ultimately, the real soul mate is revealed to be someone completely unexpected. Cut price Preview May 19 at 7.30pm. Evenings May 20, 26, 27 at 7.30pm. Matinees May 21, 22, 28 at 2pm.Tickets: Adults $35, Conc $30, Member/Group $25, U/18 $25. www.noosaartstheatre.org.au
A GREAT START TO THE NOOSA OPEN STUDIOS 2022 CAMPAIGN
NOOSA Open Studios members celebrate their success as finalists in Local Artist, Local Content Art Prize 2022
Pictured left to right: Darren White, Beatrice Prost, Helen Lawson, Julie Field, Carol Watkins, Trevor Purvis, Charlotte Wensley. Not pictured Wendy Mcgrath and Libby Derham.
One of the artists, Carol Watkins from Black Mountain is also the newly elected president of Noosa Open Studios 2022. Registration is now open to participate in this years event. Noosa Open Studios 2022 Art Trail, October 1-9. Visit www.noosaopenstudios.com.au
Diversity in nature on show at Pomona
A COLLABORATION between four local artists has resulted in Diversity in Nature, an exhibition at Pomona Railway Station Gallery’s Carriage Room during May.
Natalie Barlow and Erica Evans bring their realistic styles to paintings of birds and landscapes. Natalie’s oils and Erica’s acrylics complement each other in their interpretation of the natural world.
Jeff Fraser is a woodturner and carver who transforms pieces of wood into richly tactile and very collectable bowls, spoons and hearts.
Erica Harvey uses discarded elements and integrates them into living botanical artworks. A long-time collaborator with Jeff, she also carves beautiful spoons and hearts.
Diversity in Nature opens on Saturday May 7 at 11am and runs until June 1.
Meanwhile Noosa Colours by Kasia Bekalarek is on show in the gallery’s Banana Shed from April 30 - May 25. Kasia’s naïve painting style celebrates Noosa, particularly beaches, wildlife and birds. Pomona Railway Station Gallery is at 10 Station Street Pomona, open 10am4pm Tuesday to Friday and 10am to 2pm Saturday and Sunday.
Works from Jeff Fraser and Erica Harvey Natalie Barlow
TWO FACTORIES ARTISTICALLY COLLIDE IN COOROY
Zeke Farrington holding his alien
ONE of the factories used to produce butter and the other clothing but now both provide professional artistic mentoring to people with disabilities.
The results are an all-abilities exhibition, Mentors and Makers which features throughout May at the Cooroy Butter Factory Arts Centre. It will include large scale and complex paintings from Factory Arts in Warrnambool, Victoria and colourful and expressive ceramics works completed during all abilities workshops at the Pottery studio at BFAC.
At the old Fletcher Jones factory participants in its inclusive program produce large scale complex paintings. There is a growing sense of pride as the layers of paint build on their canvases.
Harry Wood, Dog, a hand built ceramic
The artists are encouraged to incorporate their own lived experience as subject matter. The results are an array of styles and forms: portraits, landscapes, street art, impressionism, abstraction and indigenous story telling.
The Butter Factory workshops in turn have created haptic ceramics of small-scale animals, incense holders, vases and mugs. The colourful glazes are expressive, playful, and lively giving the artworks an added sense of movement and gesture. Exhibiting until June 5 at the Cooroy Butter Factory Arts Centre. 11A Maple Street, Cooroy. Other exhibitions also opening are ‘Textures of Nature ‘by Claire Riddington Jones and ‘The Vibrant Coast’ by Dallas Lesley. www.butterfactoryartscentre.com.au
