WITH a daring mix of old and new directorial faces, Canberra Rep’s 92nd season was launched on Friday evening before subscribers, members and old friends.

Among the familiar directorial faces will be Anne Somes, Aarne Neeme, Kate Blackhurst, and Jarrad West, while newcomer directors will be Lainie Hart, already famous for her acting roles; Caitlin Baker, fresh from directing Joanna Richards’s new philosophical thriller, “You Can’t Tell Anyone” for Canberra Youth Theatre and Lachlan Houen, who co-directed the recent “Mr Burns” for NUTS, holding campus audiences spellbound.

It’s a decidedly fresh approach from the much-loved Rep, one of Australia’s most-respected and longest lasting theatre companies but one sometimes chastised for tameness.

As you’d expect from a company keen to please its loyal membership base, the choice of plays is eclectic, with a mix of tried-and-true playwrights and those yet unfamiliar to Canberra audiences.

Taking no chances, first up is “Last of the Red-Hot Lovers” by Neil Simon, directed by Anne Somes, set in ’60s New York, where middle-aged Barney would like to swing a little.

Next, Sydney director and Rep veteran, Aarne Neeme returns to stage “The Actress” by Peter Quilter, a comedy-drama that takes us backstage as the curtain is ready to rise on Lydia Martin’s final performance before retirement.

Actor-director Kate Blackhurst then stages “Dead Man’s Cell Phone” by US playwright Sarah Ruhl, best-known for “ In the Next Room”, which dealt with the early history of treating so-called “female hysteria”. In the play to be staged, well-meaning Jean answers a stranger’s incessantly ringing cell phone, but the stranger is dead.

William Golding’s “Lord of the Flies” will be a co-production by two of Canberra’s youngest directors, Caitlin Baker and Lachlan Houen, both of whom have developed their skills at Canberra Youth Theatre, an astute hook-up on Rep’s part.

Scripted by Nigel Williams, the play is faithful to the famous novel by Nobel Laureate Golding as it depicts 11 young boys stranded on an uninhabited island.

Another classic text will be bought to life by Hart when she stages Michael Gow’s play, “Away”, where three families on holidays in the summer of ‘67 meet on a Gold Coast beach. Shakespeare‘s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” makes an appearance, too.

Finally, how better to approach the silly season than with a classic British murder-mystery, “Bloody Murder”. Written by US playwright Ed Sala, it’s set in a remote grand English country house filled with a rogues’ gallery of stage stereotype types gathered for a weekend retreat.

It’s “murder most meta”, director Jarrad West says of this diabolical comedy, full of twists and turns.

2024 Rep season

• “Last of the Red Hot Lovers”, February 22-March 9.
• “The Actress”, May 2-18.
• “Dead Man’s Cell Phone”, June 13-29.
• “Lord of the Flies”, July 25-August 10.
• “Away”, September -21
• “Bloody Murder”, November 21-December 7