The School of Arts by Bille Brown
Theatre Tours
Producer and Touring Producer for the Queensland Theatre Company and Queensland Performing Arts Centre co-production, The School of Arts by Billie Brown.
Location: Queensland, Australia
Year: 2009
Venues / Dates: Playhouse, QPAC (13 July – 1 August), Blackwater Civic Centre (6 August), Rockhampton Pilbeam Theatre (6 August), Biloela Cultural Centre (8 August), Mundubbera Shire Hall (11 August), Chinhilla Cultural Centre (13 August), Warwick Town Hall (15 August)
About
A tribute to an extraordinary time in Queensland’s cultural history, Bille Brown’s play The School of Arts follows a band of travelling actors to Biloela where their gun-toting version of Hamlet creates comic mayhem. When star of the show Byron Savage decides to “modernise” Hamlet with guns, he accidentally gets shot with a real bullet, but the show must go on. Tensions run high, both on and off stage, as decades of family secrets and simmering feuds are revealed.
Presented by Queensland Theatre Company and QPAC and commissioned as part of the State’s Q150 celebrations, The School of Arts is a mix of farce and whodunit drama, set against the backdrop of the 1967 referendum to include Aboriginals in the national census.
Director: Michael Gow
Cast: Christine Amor, Sally McKenzie, Sophia Emberson-Bain, Ian Stenlake ,Peter Marshall ,Paula Nazarski, Andrew Legg, Joss McWilliam, Billie Brown, Leon Cain, Christopher Sommers
Reviews
“performances within the piece are quite outstanding. Sally McKenzie as the Stage Manager Gwen Frawley delivers one of the best comic performances yet witnessed from this highly talented actor. Likewise Ian Stenlake as the local Priest Michael Walsh brings a lovely calm to the stage in a beautifully understated performance.” – ABC