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Biographies of stars from the early Australian stage, including George Lauri, Florence Young, Carrie Moore and many more.
An extensive series of appreciations of Australian theatrical figures of the early 1860s in doggerel verse. Text is entirely hand lettered and reproduced by lithography, printed on one side of the sheet and folded concertina fashion in the Japanese manner.
In this entertaining backstage tour, Graeme Blundell has selected almost three hundred anecdotes about Australian theatre from its rather sordid origins in the 1790s to the more celebrated age of Barry Humphries, Wendy Harmer and John Bell. Drawn from newspapers, magazines, biographies, memoirs, and historical works, the anecdotes are arranged chronologically and contain reminiscences of all the great figures of the Australian stage: George Coppin, J.C. Williamson, Nellie Melba, Gladys Moncrieff, Roy Rene ('Mo'), Gwen Plumb, PeterFinch, Ray Barrett, Frank Thring, Noel Ferrier, June Slater, Gordon Chater, David Williamson, and Reg Livermore. Overseas artists have also been drawn to the Australian stage, and several of them drift through these pages - Lola Montez, Charles Kean, Sarah Bernhardt, and Noel Coward. (Asked at theairport if he had anything to say to the Sydney Sun, the Master said simply 'Shine'.) Ending with Barry Humphries' caustic account of the opening night of the operatic version of Summer of the Seventeenth Doll and with Barrie Kosky's notorious attack on the current state of Australian culture, this is a memorable and spirited celebration of Australian theatre.
Playing Australia explores the insights and challenges that Australian theatre can offer the international theatre community. Collectively, the essays in this book ask what Australian drama is, has been, and might be, both to Australians and non-Australians, when it is performed in national and international arenas. Playing Australia ranges widely in its discussions and includes analysis of Australian practitioners playing away from home; playing with Australian stereotypes; and the relationship between play, culture, politics and national identity. Topics addressed in this diverse collection include: whiteness, otherness and negotiations of Aboriginal and Asian identities; Australian school and college drama; the discourse of Australian professional theatre magazines: Aboriginal Shakespeare; Australian drama and Australian cricket; the marketing of Australianness in Germany; the international successes of Tap Dogs and Cloudstreet. New histories of Australian theatre are offered and practitioners whose careers are reconsidered in detail include high wire-walker Ella Zuila, playwright May Holt, suffrage worker and playwright Inez Bensusan, classicist Gilbert Murray, and commercial playwright Haddon Chambers. With contributions from authors as diverse as Guardian theatre critic Michael Billington and leading post-colonial critic Helen Gilbert, and interview discussion with Cate Blanchett and Tap Dogs producer Wayne Harrison, Playing Australia seeks to pay tribute to the complexities of Australian theatre experiences, to reassess Australian theatre as a significant force in the international arena and to challenge traditional thinking on what Australian theatre can be.
This spectacular book is an affectionate celebration of Melbourne's Her Majesty's Theatre. Packed with evocative text and hundreds of rare, nostalgic images, it documents the shows and stars who've entertained Melburnians over the past 14 decades. Her Majesty's great stage has housed everything from Show Boat, Oklahoma! and Fiddler on the Roof to Les Miserables, Mamma Mia!, Mary Poppins and The Rocky Horror Show - hundreds of shows, including an intriguing few that were not exactly box office bonanzas! Its dressing rooms have been home to Dame Nellie Melba, Anna Pavlova and Dame Joan Sutherland as well as Peter Allen, Dame Edna, Jerry Hall, and even Bananas in Pyjamas. It hasn't always been easy. Her Majesty's has survived two world wars, two serious depressions, the introduction of talkies and television, and a disastrous 1929 fire. Seventy years later it escaped almost certain demolition when it was purchased and completely refurbished by entrepreneur Mike Walsh. Your guide on this nostalgic ramble is noted Australian entertainment historian Frank Van Straten. He's mined not only the treasures in the theatre's extensive archive, but also the memories and memorabilia of many showbiz veterans. The result is a landmark publication that will delight everyone who loves the magic of the theatre - and, especially, The Maj.
Everyone knows Mrs Danvers as a byword for menace in Hitchcock's Rebecca and as a poster girl for lesbians in the movies. But only dedicated fans know her brilliant creator. This book tells Judith Anderson's life story for the first time. It recovers her career as one of the great stars of stage and television and an important character actress in film. Born in Adelaide, Australia, in 1897, brought up by a determined single mother, she parlayed her rich, velvety voice and ability to give reality to strong emotional roles into stardom on Broadway in the 1920s. Not a conventional beauty, she was alluring, with her beautiful body, perfect dress sense, and striking, volatile personality. After playing glamorous roles, she was recognised as a Leading Lady of the American Stage under the direction of Guthrie McClintic in Hamlet and co-starring with Laurence Olivier and Maurice Evans in Macbeth. Her reputation as a great actress was confirmed by her landmark performance in 1947 in the ancient Greek Medea, adapted for her by her friend, poet Robinson Jeffers. In a long career, she appeared in Medea again in 1982 at the age of 85, playing the Nurse to fellow-Australian Zoe Caldwell's Medea. Ambitious and driven, Anderson toured extensively, made numerous highly praised appearances on television, and, after her unforgettable role as Mrs Danvers, was a sought-after character actress in film, playing her last role as Vulcan High Priestess in Star Trek III at the age of 87. She won many awards and was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire in 1960 and Companion of the Order of Australia just before her death in 1992. She had a stormy private life and two short marriages, which, she remarked, were 'much too long.'
This book about the work of actor director John Bell is essential reading for anyone interested in Australian theatre and in Shakespearean performance. Adrian Kiernander makes use of the Stage on Screen archive of Australian theatre with extensive video excerpts of performances, and lucidly explains how, for over five decades, Bell has revived and reinvented theatre in Australia with his interpretations of radical new drama and particularly his innovative approach to staging Shakespeare’s plays. This scholarly book reveals why Bell deserves the reputation as a ‘national living treasure’ and a giant of the Australian theatre. It presents a perspective on recent history and national identity through the achievements of theatre and its evolution over time. From carnivalesque to circus, tragedy to farce, Bell has created theatre that is dynamic, vibrant and politically aware and that continues to challenge and excite audiences.