Cherry shares Black Swan wings
Black Swan State Theatre Company artistic director Kate Cherry's seventh season, announced this week, begins in January with David Ives' 2010 erotic comedy-thriller Venus in Fur as part of the Fringe World festival.
The most produced play in the US over the past two years, according to Cherry, the WA premiere of Venus in Fur will feature Adam Booth and Felicity McKay directed by Lawrie Cullen-Tait.
Cullen-Tait is one of six directors steering Black Swan productions this year as the company extends its capacity to encourage a wider variety of opportunities for artists.
"I wanted people to come to me knocking down the door with ideas they are passionate about, " Cherry says, adding that Venus in Fur was among about 20 plays Cullen-Tait had pushed her way.
Among the interstate talent appearing next year will be Tasma Walton, Myles Pollard, Damien Walshe-Howling, Rachael Beck and Roz Hammond.
In March, the Geraldton-born Walton, wife of fellow WA export Rove McManus, will lead the cast of Dinner, Moira Buffini's black middle-class satire centred on a dinner party that turns pear-shaped under the evil eye of the manipulative hostess.
Walshe-Howling (Underbelly, Janet King, Bikie Wars) heads a pack of desperadoes including Peter Rowsthorn in David Mamet's ruthless real-estate drama Glengarry Glenn Ross, which will be directed by Cherry in May as the first main-stage season in Perth since 1985.
A younger generation takes a fresh, mid-winter look at the comic chestnut of Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit, when prolific local theatre-maker and Black Swan associate director Jeffrey Jay Fowler marshals a cast including Booth, Hammond, Adriane Daff, Jo Morris and Michael Loney.
The first world premiere is an endangered-species drama by Hannie Raison, Extinction, which was initially commissioned by the Manhattan Theatre Club in New York City and then workshopped at Black Swan. Directed by Stuart Halusz, it stars Pollard as a conflicted vet opposite English newcomer Hannah Day, who played Beatrice in Shakespeare in the Park's Much Ado About Nothing last year.
Coinciding with the 2015 Awesome Festival in October, Black Swan will enter the children's theatre market with The Red Balloon, an adaptation of the sweet book by Albert Lamorisse which also was an Oscar-winning French short film.
The project was initiated by emerging designer India Mehta and will be adapted by Hilary Bell and directed by renowned WA choreographer Chrissie Parrott.
Cherry says the play, about a lonely latch-key kid whose balloon is his only friend until bullies shoot it down with a slingshot, is an example of what she calls Black Swan's most accessible season.
"We have tried to engage and draw in many different aspects of the community," she says. "Let's face it, the five-year-olds now are our next generation of theatre-goers, theatre participants and even board members. We want to start getting them involved."
Another first for Black Swan in November will be Next to Normal, Brian Yorkey and Tom Kitt's 2009 Tony Award and Pulitzer-winning rock musical about a woman struggling with bipolar disorder while trying to maintain the perfect suburban family.
Cherry says she had wanted Black Swan to take on a musical to capitalise on the talent streaming out of WAAPA and "we forget that the musical form is used as a way to deal with stories that are current and difficult".
Next to Normal is a cause celebre of director Adam Mitchell and performer Brendan Hanson, who will appear with Beck in one of the most critically acclaimed musicals since Rent.
"It has taken years to persuade me to do a musical about mental health but it clearly rings out on so many levels," Cherry says.
AT A GLANCE
Venus in Furs by David Ives (Studio Underground, January 15-February 8)
Dinner by Moira Buffini (Heath Ledger Theatre, March 14-29)
Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet (Heath Ledger Theatre, May 23-June 14)
Blithe Spirit by Noel Coward (Heath Ledger Theatre, July 18-August 9)
Extinction by Hannie Raison (Heath Ledger Theatre, September 19-October 4)
The Red Balloon by Albert Lamorisse/adapted by Hilary Bell (Studio Underground, October 1-17)
Next to Normal by Brian Yorkey and Tom Kitt (Heath Ledger Theatre, November 7-22)
Season details: bsstc.com.au.
