THE CHAIN BRIDGE

Written By Tom Davis

Directed by Caroline Stacey

The Street Theatre to 29 November

Review by Len Power 22 November 2015

‘The Chain Bridge’ by Tom Davis involves a Hungarian family in Melbourne in 2010 dealing with the truth about life in Hungary during the Second World War and under Communist rule in the 1950s.  The mother believes the past should stay buried but the son wants to know what really happened.  In pushing for the truth, horrors emerge through flashbacks that test the relationships around him.

Imogen Keen has designed a spectacular set that uses the entire stage space of The Street theatre.  It looks exciting and imaginative but the setting often works against the staging of the play.  Many of these scenes get lost in the vast playing space and there are sound problems, too, when the cast are positioned at the back of the set.  In addition, the size of the set dwarfs the actors, making this a less involving experience than it should be.  Gillian Schwab’s lighting and Kimmo Vennonen’s startling sound effects work very well.

The play consists of many short scenes with the five actors playing multiple roles but always in the same costumes.  For example, the mother also plays herself as a child and her daughter-in-law plays the child’s mother.  Scenes often occur simultaneously with actors swapping back and forth between characters.  It’s an awkward device and confusing at times.

The actors do well, though.  Geraldine Turner is impressive as the mother who doesn’t want the truth to be heard.  Zsuzsi Soboslay and PJ Williams give strong performances as a Hungarian couple deeply involved with the family and Kate Hosking and Peter Cook give very real performances as the young couple.

Caroline Stacey’s work with the actors’ characterisations is fine but at over two and a half hours the script needs severe cutting.  There’s good writing in the 2010 dinner sequences and the conflict of interest between the older generation of people coming from the horrors of war and oppression and their children who want to know what really happened is a great subject for a play.

Len Power’s reviews can also be heard on Artsound FM’s ‘Artcetera’ program from 9am Saturdays.

JACOB MARLEY'S CHRISTMAS CAROL by Tom Mula.

Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol by Tom Mula.

Directed by Michelle Higgs. Presented by Craig Alexander in association with The Street. Studio Two. The Street Theatre. November 27 – 29  2015

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

Every now and again one comes across an ingenious, funny, poignant and original idea that makes one think, “Of course! Why didn’t I think of that?” Tom Mula’s tale  of Jacob Marley’s quest to redeem the apparently irredeemable Ebenezer Scrooge is such a work. Of course, we know from Dickens’s A Christmas Carol that the Spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Future are the agents of Scrooge’s redemption, but did we know that it was Jacob Marley, who signed the contract to ensure his own redemption and escape the ghoulish caverns of Hell. Such is the premise of Tom Mula’s engrossing Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol.

Craig Al;exander as Jacob Marley in Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol

Banished to an eternity in Hell, the tortured, dead former business partner of Scrooge signs a contract to take on the seemingly impossible task of changing the intractable Scrooge. He is allotted only twenty four hours to achieve his goal and release the pendulous chains that weigh him down with every link of his miserably penurious life. He is accompanied on his mission by Bogle, a mischievous hell sprite with a sly will to see Marley fail in his quest. In a stroke of cunning ingenuity, Marley inhabits the familiar spirits that visit Scrooge, and lead him towards enlightenment.

Mula has channelled the spirit of Dickens to tell a story, colourful in its tapestry of characters, rich in its vivid prose and thoroughly engaging in its dramatic construct. Mula is the consummate storyteller, spinning his yarn with a thread that winds through the fires of hell to the dome of St. Paul, the counting house of Scrooge and Marley and the prophetic sites of the spirits. Marley’s foreboding intensity is deliciously counterpoised  by Bogle’s impish cat and mouse Puckish playfulness.



Craig Alexander as Jacob Marley in Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol

 

Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol poses an actor’s Leviathan challenge. Craig Alexander and director Shelley Higgs have chosen to perform the solo version of Mula’s play. Alexander is faced with the daunting task of playing all characters, plummeting at times to the depths of despair while navigating the treacherous course of his emotional rapids. In the intimate confines of the Street Theatre’s Studio Two, Alexander’s performance is electric, magnetic in its intensity, mercurial in its humour and relentless in its forceful energy. Mula’s two act tour de force demands of an actor exhausting versatility, vibrant imagination, physical endurance and keen intelligence served by a vivid imagination. In Alexander, Mula’s demands are fully realized in a performance that will have audiences captivated by an outstanding stortyteller actor. There is at times the risk of a driving energy that knows no respite, and only very occasionally does Alexander take pause to let the effect linger.  Marley’s account of his own abusive father offers a moment of deeply moving sentiment but bullroaring bluster can at times abuse the sensitivity of a moment. Reflection can offer pause to contemplate. This small quibble notwithstanding, Alexander offers a performance not to be missed.

Quite remarkable in this production is the use of light as a leitmotif in Marley’s search for salvation of his own soul and the redemption of Scrooge’s miserly, inhumane past. Suitcases hide moments of illuminating magic, while candles flicker and fade at will to reveal moments of awareness or the dark and frightening abyss of human failing. Alexander operates the lights as an integral part of the action in a setting of suitcases, ladder and lights designed to create an eminently tourable show.

Craid Alexander as The Bogle in Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol

Audiences should be aware that this production offers a darker insight into Dicken’s immortal Christmas tale, but Mula has interwoven the spellbinding appeal of Dicken’s story into his original and clever conceit. We should all be comforted by the fact that Marley, too, though seven years dead, may also be afforded redemption, as may we all if only we too may listen to the spirits, ignore the sprites and deserve the words of Tiny Tim “God Bless Us, Everyone.” Yes, Tom Mula’s play also has a moral, but then what is a good fable without a good moral, and Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol is a jolly good fable.

JACOB MARLEY'S CHRISTMAS CAROL

Written by Tom Mula

Directed by Shelly Higgs

Street Theatre 27-29 November 2015

Reviewed by Bill Stephens

As performed in this production, Tom Mula’s award winning play recounting the Dickens Scrooge story from the point of view of Marley’s ghost seemed to have lost something in translation and failed to engage on opening night.

The concept for this production was as a “show in a suitcase”, with the premise being that everything used, including lights, sound and set pieces could all fit in a suitcase and be easily set up in a variety of performance spaces.

Craig Alexander in "Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol"

The performance began promisingly with the audience entering the theatre to discover actor, Craig Alexander, casually arranging and adjusting props in a circular area marked out on the floor by candles, stacked suitcases, a ladder and some theatre lights.

Nothing about the setting, or Alexander’s costume, suggested Dickens, but theatrical magic had been promised, so this added to the anticipation.

As the audience settled in their seats, Alexander engaged some in conversation, setting up a casual atmosphere. When all were settled he gently segued into his story, switching out the auditorium lights to let his special lighting take over.

Adopting a variety of voices and accents to differentiate characters, Alexander incorporated small torches and other props into the performance. Unfortunately these props were not sufficiently well handled to provide the expected magic or create atmosphere.

As the show progressed, it became increasingly clear that managing the lighting and props was distracting Alexander from his performance which soon lapsed into coarse acting with rushed, shouted lines, wildly varying accents, and undisciplined movement with little of the finesse and polish necessary to make a one-man show memorable.

Therefore, experiencing difficulty engaging with any of the characters, the story, or indeed, the production, which surprisingly captured little of the expected Dickensonian period or sensibility, this reviewer took advantage of the interval to escape.  

DANCE, SING, LOVE, LIVE!

Art Song Canberra

Louise Page, Soprano

Phillipa Candy, Piano

Caitlin McAnulty, Oboe

Rachel Best-Allen, Clarinet

Wesley Music Centre, Forrest 22 November

Review by Len Power 22 November 2015

With the theme of  'Dance, Sing, Love, Live!', you would expect a program of great variety and that's just what Canberra soprano, Louise Page, gave us in Artsong Canberra's latest Sunday afternoon concert.

Ranging from Canteloube to Delibes, Mahler, Berlioz and others, the chosen songs gave Louise Page every opportunity to show the full range and colour of her voice.

Whether singing joyously or with strong emotion, Louise Page gives full weight to the intent of a song as well as singing every note with great clarity and precision.  The intense emotion of the opening number, ‘Song Of Happiness’ by Berlioz was perfectly captured and the well-known ‘Bolero’ from ‘Songs Of the Auvergne’ was sung with great feeling.  By contrast, Delibes’ ‘The Girls Of Cadiz’ was delightfully humorous.  The rapture displayed at the end of the Strauss song 'Secret Invitation' was especially moving as was her singing of a second highly emotional Strauss song, ‘A Dedication’.  The highlight of the concert was the presentation of songs by Australia’s Calvin Bowman, especially her delicate singing of the haunting, ‘Words By The Water’.

For an encore, Louise Page delighted us with a flirtatious and sexy ‘My Kisses Are So Hot’ (with real kisses for some lucky audience members) from Franz Lehar’s ‘Giuditta’.

The accompaniment on piano by Phillipa Candy was excellent and there was sublime additional accompaniment by Caitlin McAnulty on oboe and Rachel Best-Allen on clarinet in the selections from ' Songs of the Auvergne'.

Once again Artsong Canberra provided a perfect afternoon's musical entertainment.

This review was first published in Canberra City News Digital Edition 23 November 2015.

Len Power’s reviews can also be heard on Artsound FM’s ‘Artcetera’ program from 9am Saturdays.

HOT TO TROT

Presented by QL2 Dance

QL2 Theatre, Gorman Arts Centre

November 21st and 22nd 2015           

  

Reviewed by Bill Stephens

“Hot to Trot” is an annual showcase of new works created by Quantum Leap dancers, for which selected dancers with choreographic ambitions are each provided with the facilities and support necessary to create and produce a contemporary dance work which is then given two performances before a paying audience. The choreographers must choose and train their dancers, source costumes and music, consider lighting design, write program notes and schedule their rehearsals so that their work is delivered on time. After each performance opportunity is provided for audience members to comment and question the choreographers and dancers about the works presented.

Although a polished product is expected, and the choreographic choices and execution is limited by the ability and experience of the young participants, it’s the process that is important, and the results are often startling in their originality and sophistication.

This year the choreographers were inspired by some unlikely topics like atomic forces, fractals, meditation and the refraction of light. How well their works realised these inspirations provided a fascinating program of 10 original dance works.

Among the more successful was a delightful duet called “Ember” danced by the creators, Ruby Ballantyne and Milly Vanzwol, which attempted to explore in dance terms,  the different ways light refracts, reflects and absorbs.

An eye-catching dancer, Ballantyne appeared again with Caspar Ilschner and Nasim Patel, in a cheerful little piece by Jason Pearce called “What are You Waiting For” which explored how people move and react while waiting, and in perhaps the most original work of the evening, “9.81 metres per second” choreographed by Ilschner and Jack Clements inspired by contrasting aspects of gravity.

Ursula Taylor composed her own soundscape to accompany her work “Feeding line” for which she used a large wooden cube to explore the interactions of individuals. Walter Wolffs incorporated ropes, plastic toys and silver balls for his playful piece, “Snowflakes” which focussed on the mathematical phenomenon of fractals. 

Abstract projections featured in Caroline De Wan’s interesting piece, “Something That’s Not” exploring altered states of consciousness, a topic also explored by Ayla Scholtz with her cleverly fragmented work “Mind over Matter”.

Elyse Lenehan tackled self- image for her work for three dancers, “The Norm?”, while Nasim Patel rounded out the program with his ambitious work “Recess” for which he worked with six dancers to create a playful work focussed on memories of childhood.

Lighting, costume and music choices for each of the works were intelligent and appropriate, and given the limited time available to each choreographer to prepare and rehearse their piece, the standard reached in the execution of the works was impressive.

This review first published in the digital edition of CITY NEWS on 23.11.15  

The Chain Bridge- The Street Theatre

Review by John Lombard

Script by Tom Davis. Directed by Caroline Stacey.

Few people in real life host dinner parties so they confront their guests with accusations - at the very least, it is extremely bad manners. Even so, historian Imre (Peter Cook) and his wife Sarah (Kate Hosking) do just this with Imre's mother Eva (Geraldine Turner) and her close friends Jozef and Katalin (PJ Williams and Zsuszi Soboslay), inviting the three survivors of World War 2 Hungary over for bad soup and a vicious interrogation on just how they survived not only the Nazis but the Communists.

An even half-alert audience member is aware that if Eva and her friends don't talk about their experiences in these harrowing "bloodlands", it is probably because the truth is too brutal and horrible and degrading to reveal over bad fish soup. Nonetheless, Imre is a zealot, hounding his mother with the rigour of a prosecuting attorney, pouncing ferociously whenever her story does not quite match the few surviving documentary records.

The script works hard to give Imre a lot of motivation to coax the truth from his mother. First, he is a struggling academic, and the book he is writing about her experiences could make his reputation and career. Second (and more implausibly) he and his wife have been engaged in a longstanding debate over the nature of truth, and his mother telling all just might save their slightly frayed marriage. On a more deep level, Imre's mother was a "bad" one and he is struggling to save his own life by finding out what traumas stripped her of her ability to give him love.

Eva is a fabulist, filching scraps of other people's stories and inventing a heroic past for her family to replace the tawdry and dismal one they left behind. She is also worn out, reduced to the role of carping mother-in-law who joylessly criticises husband and wife for their many inadequacies. A tantalising glimpse of her years before, early in Imre's romance with Sarah, reveals a much softer woman, suggesting that her souring may be shockingly recent - perhaps she has wilted because of her son's blooming hatred.

In the end, the truth about Eva comes out, and we also learn that Imre was keeping secrets of his own. Importantly, we only have one brief glimpse of Imre's childhood: we never have enough evidence to say whether Eva really was a bad mother, although we can understand how her experiences might have stripped her of her ability to love. There is a mystery at the heart of the script, and the final scenes makes us question whether the events we saw really happened. Did Eva tell the truth? Did this night of confrontation and revelation really happen?

The play is fascinated with how people experience horrors but somehow are able to find the strength to endure them and even thrive. Elderly couple Katalin and Jozef are in the throes of lifelong romance, still singing and dancing and loving each other with fervour into old age. They have secrets of their own, but somehow they have not been swallowed by them. P. J. Williams and Zsuzsi Sobolay are delightful as this joyful couple - and form a vivid contrast with the bitter Eva - but the script is humane enough to show us that Eva's heartlessness is not entirely her own fault.

Finally the characters reach a mutual conclusion: "fuck history". However that is not the response the audience is likely to have, because the more the truth is revealed the more we connect with the characters. This is close to Imre's initial thesis that what is important in history is empathy and understanding - a thesis that is, strangely enough, the opposite of his actual actions during the play.

The recurring symbol of the fish soup is closer to the play's message: Imre meticulously dictate the recipe followed by his mother, but somehow the soup always comes out bad. Only when Imre and Katalin take over and add what's not written down does it come out right.  What's written down may be rigorously true, but we are wise to be alert to silences as well.

Even if Imre is destined to go on making bad soup, this play has all the right ingredients - a stunning cast, a strong script and excellent staging create a powerful, thought-provoking experience.

Don't Dress For Dinner

Don’t Dress For Dinner.

 Written by Marc Camoletti. Adapted by Robin Hawdon Directed by Walter Learning. Canberra Repertory Society. Theatre 3. November 21 - December 5 2015.

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

 

Monique Dyson as Jacqueline. Peter Holland as Bernard. Michelle Cooper as
Suzanne in Canberra Rep's Don't Dress For Dinner.

 

Canadian director Walter Learning returns to Canberra to direct Canberra Rep’s final production for 2015. In keeping with an enviable and popular tradition of ending the year’s programme with a comedy, audiences are treated to Marc Camoletti’s French farce, Don’t Dress For Dinner, guaranteed to make the belly shake with laughter and set your mind spinning through a tangled web of deception, misconception, bumbling evasion and back-peddling explanation. Learning’s tightly directed and expertly timed production ensures an evening of hilarity and mirth with careful observation of the essential elements of farce: quicksilver timing, buffoonery and clowning, slapstick and physical exaggeration. Rep’s production has all this and more. The improbable becomes probable, the lie becomes the truth and none is whom they seem until it all becomes unravelled and the audience is led down another path of absurd probabilities.

Michelle Cooper as Suzanne. Robert De Fries as Robert.
Natalie Waldron as Suzette in Don't Dress For Dinner

Good farce is defined by its plot and situation. Bernard (Peter Holland) has arranged for his mistress Suzanne (Michelle Cooper) to visit while his wife Jacqueline (Monique Dyson) is at her mother’s. Jacqueline learns that their Best Man, Robert, is also coming, and feigns illness to continue her secret affair with Robert (Robert de Fries). Suzette (Natalie Waldron) arrives from the Bon Appetit Agency to cook a birthday meal for Suzanne and Bernard. Bernard convinces her to pretend to be Robert’s mistress. Suzanne arrives and is talked into playing the role of the cook. And the rest is farcical mayhem and madness as characters weasel and worm their way through a maze of twists and turns in which they change identities and stories. Robin Hawdon’s adaptation of Camoletti’s ingeniously convoluted sequence of events remains true to the fierce pace and absurdity of the farce, challenging an audience to keep up with the sudden shifts in the plot.

Robert De Fries and Natalie Waldron in
Don't Dress For Dinner

Learning has assembled a strong cast for Don’t Dress For Dinner. He is particularly fortunate to have two of Rep’s comic stalwarts in the roles of Bernard and Robert. Holland and De Fries bounce off each other with split second timing. From droll to demonic; from triumph to terror, these two masters of the double take and comical timing lend the production a turbine thrust forward. Camoletti’s female characters are less well developed and the three female actors make the most of their roles, which do little more than serve the action, driven largely by Holland’s Basil Faulty -like Bernard. Waldron in the role of the coquettish, opportunistic Suzette is someone to watch out for in the future, and there is a strong cameo performance from Daniel McCusker as Suzette’s bewildered husband, George.

Robert De Fries and Peter Holland in Don't Dress For Dinner

Don’t Dress for Dinner is what a Rep audience could expect from Canberra’s longest running, well established and highly respected repertory company. The production values, evidenced in Andrew Kay’s professionally created renovated barn setting, are high. Performances are engaging and the production in the hands of a professional director ensures the success of the farce. Rep has hit on a perfect precursor to the Festive Season and if laughter is the best medicine, then Don’t Dress For Dinner is the ideal remedy for the furrowed frown.

An edited version of this review was published in The Canberra Times on November 24th. 2015

 

Dalman honoured at 2015 ACT Arts Awards

THE 2015 Citynews Artist of the Year award has gone to dance artist Elizabeth Cameron Dalman, it was announced at the 25th ACT Arts Awards ceremony on Monday November 23 at the Canberra Museum and Gallery.

Elizabeth Cameron Dalman, photoby  Barbie Robinson

Ms. Dalman, who is currently teaching at an arts university in Taiwan, could not attend the ceremony, but her son, Andreas Dalman, spoke on her behalf and accepted a cheque to the value of $1,000, together with a fine porcelain bowl from the “After the Fire” series by Canberra ceramic artist Avi Amesbury.

A daring choreographer and pioneer of modern dance in this country, Ms. Dalman was described by one member of the Canberra Critics’ Circle judging panel as “the doyenne of Australian dance.” At 81 she is fully engaged in dancing and creating new works, often collaborating with Aboriginal and Taiwanese dance artists.

Circle members unanimously supported the nomination of such an exemplary artist.
Founder in 1965 of the Australian Dance Theatre in Adelaide, Ms. Dalman made her home in the Canberra region 26 years ago, setting up an arts centre and the Mirramu Dance Company at her property on the shores of Lake George while also founding “Weereewa – a Festival of Lake George”.
Speaking by phone from Taipei, she said the news gave her pangs of home sickness,” adding, “I have always felt proud to be a part of Canberra's artistic and cultural community.”
The ACT Arts Awards evening, hosted by the Canberra Critics’ Circle, also featured the Circle’s own arts awards.
Among the more unusual awards was one to filmmakers Declan Shrubb, Christian Doran and Daniel Sanguineti, for their feature, Me and My Mates Vs the Zombie Apocalypse, which has achieved more than 30 screenings nationwide.

 
The 2015 Canberra Critics Circle is as follows:

 Cris Kennedy  Jane Freebury  Kerry-Anne Cousins  Meredith Hinchliffe  Claire Capel-Stanley  John Lombard  Alanna Maclean  Frank McKone Peter Wilkins  Helen Musa  Simone Penkethman  Johnny Milner Len Power Michelle Potter Samara Purnell  Bill Stephens  Peter Wilkins  Joe Woodward  Clinton White Jessica Oliver Jennifer Gall Anni Doyle Wawrzynczak  Ian McLean and Judith Crispin

The full citations for the 2015 Critics Circle Awards  are as follows:

Visual art

For her exhibition Table Tools at Craft ACT: Craft and Design Centre in September this year. The vessels, spoons, scoops, whisks are fully resolved, bringing the artist’s concept to fruition. The paring back of form and decoration creates simplicity of form. In particular, ‘ten bowls for ten days’ were outstanding.

Alison Jackson

Visual art

For her exhibition Unfold/ Construct at Bilk Gallery in February this year. An exhibition of beautifully crafted and constructed jewellery that was sculptural in concept playing with shape, texture and colour in a sophisticated way showing contemporary jewellery that has integrity as art and is eminently wearable.

Phoebe Porter

Visual art

For his exhibition Canopy at the Australian National Botanic Gardens in July that was based on the artist’s engagement with the Mount Ainslie Nature Reserve and for his continuing contribution to the visual arts in Canberra through his exploration of all aspects of printmaking as well as his mentoring of aspiring artists.

John Pratt

Visual art

For her singular and sophisticated investigation of the aesthetics, production, dissemination and consumption of print-media, culminating in the innovative and visually outstanding exhibition Death of a Broadsheet at Megalo Print Studio and Gallery, in May 2015.

Alison Alder

Visual art

For his dedicated and innovative efforts to foster experimental and multi-art practice in Canberra across a range of public platforms, including the collaborative arts events, Playful Sound at Gorman Arts Centre.

Danny Wild

Film

For his mystery documentary Maratus, an excellently-made film concerning the Peacock Spider (Maratus Volans), a garbage collector and a journey of self-discovery for a colourful citizen-scientist.

Simon Cunich

Film

For the feature film Me and My Mates Vs the Zombie Apocalypse. Written and directed by Declan Shrubb, the film saw the use of a new and untested distribution platform, tugg.com, which crowd-sourced audiences and booked venues. This creative entrepreneurial team achieved more than 30 screenings around the country, including in every capital, for its very funny, quality film.

Declan Shrubb, Christian Doran and Daniel Sanguineti

Poetry

For his spellbinding performance of his own brand of urban haiku for Poetry at the Gods in September 2015. Bullock, a master of this elusive poetry form, has also been noted for his poems on environmental, health and current affairs issues, published on Crikey's online health blog.

Owen Bullock

Fiction

For The Anchoress, a compelling and haunting debut novel set in mediaeval England depicting  a 17 year-old-girl who renounces the world.

Robyn Cadwallader

Fiction

For Goodbye Sweetheart, a powerful novel of love, loss, betrayal and the desire for understanding. Halligan’s superb writing about grief is clear-eyed yet compassionate.

Marion Halligan

Illustrated Fiction

For Crow Mellow, Julian Davies’ reinterpretation of Aldous Huxley’s satire Crome Yellow, in which the characters, illustrated by Phil Day, are transplanted into contemporary Australia.

Julian Davies & Phil Day

Music

For stepping into Canberra Choral Society's 2015 performance of Handel's 'Hercules' at very short notice to perform the virtuosic lead role of Lichas, performing it from memory and demonstrating a fine understanding of Handel’s baroque-period music and harmonic language.

Katie Cole

Music

For its concert, This American Life in Wesley Uniting Church and for its tour de force performance of the 1742 version of Handel’s Messiah in St Paul’s Church Manuka, both performances signalling it will not take the easy way out.

Coro Chamber Music

Music

For his original songs of ‘self-renewal’, often drawn from life in Canberra and Queanbeyan, evident in two LPs and one EP released in 2015 and featured in this singer-songwriter and guitar whiz kid’s August tour to Tokyo.

Tom Woodward

Music

For her outstanding CD recording, Aubade and Nocturne, released in 2015, amazingly beautiful in every respect, providing a wonderful retrospective of her recent works and featuring many of Canberra’s finest professional musicians.

Sally Greenaway

Musical Theatre

For his insightful portrayal of the character Albin in the musical La Cage Aux Folles for Supa Productions.

Ben O’Reilly (SUPA PRODUCTIONS’ GARRICK SMITH TO PICK UP)

Musical Theatre

for his outstanding performance as Dick in the musical High Fidelity for Phoenix Players.

Will Huang (HWANG)

Musical Theatre

For her outstanding performance as both the Bird woman and Miss Andrew in the Free Rain production of the musical Mary Poppins.

Bronwyn Sullivan

Musical Theatre

For her superbly realised choreography for Free Rain Theatre’s production of the musical Mary Poppins.

Jacquelyn Richards

Musical Theatre

For outstanding technical achievement in lighting and sound for the arena production of the musical Jesus Christ Superstar for Peewee Productions.

Chris Neal

Dance

For Walking and Falling at the National Portrait Gallery in conjunction with All That Fall— the Gallery’s contribution to the Anzac Centenary. With a small cast of three, this was impeccably performed, delivered huge emotional impact to audiences, made excellent use of a small range of props to suggest a range of situations and was choreographed to suit perfectly the confined space of the gallery’s foyer.

Ruth Osborne

Dance

For her works Fortuity and L, with which she celebrated her 50th Anniversary as a trail blazer in the field of contemporary dance. Containing many of her signature pieces from her early career, along with recently choreographed works for her Mirramu Dance Company, these formed an important retrospective of Dalman’s contribution to Australian contemporary dance.

Elizabeth Cameron Dalman

Theatre

For the impact and excellence of his play Scandalous Boy, which tackled the story of Emperor Hadrian and his lover Antinous in a way that communicated it clearly to a modern audience while maintaining a sense of the past.

To David Atfield

Theatre

For the excellence and impact of her portrayal of Violet Weston in Free Rain Theatre’s August – Osage County.

To Karen Vickery

Theatre

For her restrained and elegant direction of Tuesdays with Morrie.

To Liz Bradley

Theatre

For his original, excellent and creative set for Canberra Repertory’s The Crucible.

To Michael Sparks

Theatre

For her role as producer/director/dramaturg, with co-creator Louise Morris; for the conception, originality and execution of Anthology, a  site-specific  piece of theatre that brought the people and history of the lost Canberra suburb of Westlake to life.

Pip Buining

By Helen Musa, Convener, Canberra Critics Circle.