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Canberra Today 12°/15° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Arts / Here come the girls, right on Q

 

Noni Hazlehurst playing a homeless mum in "Mother".
Noni Hazlehurst playing a homeless mum in “Mother”.
“ENRICH” is the all-purpose title that program manager at the Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre, Stephen Pike, has come up with as the theme for the 2016 season at The Q, but he might as well have called it “I am Woman”.

The coming season, of no fewer than 16 productions, is heavily dominated with works by and about women.

While there is a “megamix” pop concert called “Boys in the Band”, American actor Frank Ferrante and his one-man show “An Evening with Groucho” and the Gruffalo is surely male, but mostly the centre stage spot is reserved for the gals – and what a bunch!

Justine Campbell and Sarah Hamilton in "They Saw a Thylacine".
Justine Campbell and Sarah Hamilton in “They Saw a Thylacine”.
Noni Hazlehurst comes to town playing a homeless mum in Daniel Keene’s sympathetic play, “Mother”. HIT Productions is back with Denny Lawrence’s staging of “Educating Rita” and Goldilocks upstages the three bears in Jordan Best’s prize-winning kids’ show featuring music by her father Peter Best.

Actor Mel Dodge joins forces with Charlotte Brontë for a story of ambition, forbidden love and family in “Miss Brontë.”

In her play “All my Love” Anne Brooksbank reveals another little-known love affair, that of writer Mary Gilmour and Henry Lawson, with suffragette mother Louise Lawson hovering in the background.

Justine Campbell and Sarah Hamilton conjure up the last Tasmanian tiger through the eyes of a female thylacine tracker and a zookeeper’s daughter in “They Saw a Thylacine”, while Catherine Lyall Watson’s play “Motherland” brings the story of three women – a Brisbane socialite, an émigré academic and a single mother – seen across time.

Catherine Alcorn channels Bette Midler in "The Divine Miss Bette".
Catherine Alcorn channels Bette Midler in “The Divine Miss Bette”.
If that’s not enough big-time girls for you, Catherine Alcorn channels Bette Midler in “The Divine Miss Bette”, created by Peter Cox.

Yes, there’s room on the couch for one bloke at least, in Amy Herzog’s Obie award-winning play “4000 miles”, where 21-year-old Leo couch-surfs with his 91-year-old Jewish grandmother.

As well, the Melbourne Ballet Company makes its debut at The Q with “Divenire” and Blue Cow Theatre from Tasmania brings “Simon’s Final Sound” by Finegan Kruckemeyer, billed as a “slightly naughty” story of an unemployed dreamer slowly going deaf.

The Q continues its support of local talent with the new Pigeonhole Theatre’s feminist play, “Playhouse Creatures”, looking at five Restoration-era actresses at a time when all players were deemed rogues and vagabonds. Liz Bradley, Amy Dunham, Jenna Roberts, Emma Wood and Karen Vickery star.

Jarrad West directs another star local casting for Rick Abbot’s comedy “Play On!”, where the fictional Queanbeyan Music and Dramatic Society stage a “thrilling” murder mystery – they almost fooled us there.

“Enrich,” 2016 Subscription season at The Q – Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre, bookings to theq.net.au or 6285 6290.

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Helen Musa

Helen Musa

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