MISS PEONY
牡丹小姐

Archived

MISS PEONY
牡丹小姐

  • 2 Aug – 20 Sep 23 Multiple Venues
  • 2 hours 20 minutes (incl. 20 minute interval)
Archived

MISS PEONY
牡丹小姐
TOURING

National Tour

Written by Michelle Law
Directed by Courtney Stewart

  • Venue Multiple Venues
  • Dates 2 Aug – 20 Sep 23
  • Duration 2 hours 20 minutes (incl. 20 minute interval)
  • Accessibility
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  • Content warning

    Miss Peony includes some strong language, smoking of herbal and electronic cigarettes and the use of haze.

    Should you wish to speak to a member of staff regarding running times, content warnings or any other show related queries, our box office can be contacted on 02 9699 3444.

On this page you’ll find the details of the Miss Peony 牡丹小姐 national tour. If you’re looking for the Belvoir St Theatre season, head to this page.

A comedy of beauty pageants, unrealistic expectations, and the business of family.

Lily’s grandmother was a beauty queen back in Hong Kong. She doesn’t care that times have changed, that Lily lives in a new country and a new century. She sees a granddaughter caught between worlds. So Poh Poh pushes Lily into entering the highly competitive Miss Peony, and no matter how hard Lily tries to wriggle out of it, her grandma won’t take no for an answer.

And to make matters worse, she’s a ghost.

Glitzy and madcap, Miss Peony is a bold new comedy about our good old need for connection – to family, the past, the future, each other.

And for the first time ever we’re offering a show in three languages: as in real life, these characters switch between English, Cantonese and Mandarin, so the show is surtitled in all three.

I’m so excited to finally be sharing Miss Peony with Australia after two false starts due to Covid. Third time’s a charm, right! This year we’ll be touring our debut season, bringing all of the glitz, glamour and ghostliness of Miss Peony to cities across the east coast of Australia. Miss Peony will be performed in English, Cantonese and Mandarin (with surtitles in all three languages), making it inclusive for multilingual friends and family members. Join us at the theatre for an evening of laughter, tears, and pageantry! – Michelle Law

Michelle Law has an unerring nose for a fabulous comic premise, and she’s a natural born entertainer. Her Single Asian Female lit up Belvoir with its exuberance and its loving portrait of family. Miss Peony takes things further. It’s irreverent, it’s heartfelt, and it has a cast of fabulous women (plus the perennial Charles Wu). Join them! – Eamon

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TEAM

  • Michelle Law
    Writer
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    Michelle Law is a writer with experience in journalism, screenwriting and playwriting. She wrote the highly acclaimed play Single Asian Female – commissioned by La Boite Theatre Company – which earned 5-star reviews before transferring to a sold-out season at Belvoir St Theatre in 2018. The show returned to La Boite with Michelle performing in […]

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  • Courtney Stewart
    Director
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    Courtney Stewart is a Director, Dramaturg, Actor and Teaching Artist. She has worked on a number of productions and developments of new Australian work such as Eat Me for NIDA and STC, Playing Beatie Bow and Hamlet – Prince of Skidmark, Australian Graffiti for STC, Neon Tiger by Julia-Rose Lewis and Single Asian Female by […]

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  • Cast

  • Gabrielle Chan
    Adeline
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    Gabrielle was born in Vietnam and migrated to Australia in 1982. She can speak Cantonese, Mandarin,Vietnamese, and English. Gabrielle attributes her acting education to Chinese Opera performances, a form of traditional Chinesedrama and musical theatre. In the past 20 years, she has been trained by the highly respected Beijing Operateacher Duan Qiu Xia and has […]

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  • Jing-Xuan Chan
    Marcy
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    Jing-Xuan Chan graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2006. During her studies she received the Irene Mitchell Award for outstanding performance, the Orloff Family Charitable Trust Scholarship for outstanding commitment to training, and the Friends of the VCA New Emerging Talent Award. She has since worked for various theatre companies including Melbourne […]

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  • Michelle Law
    Lily
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    Michelle Law is a writer with experience in journalism, screenwriting and playwriting. She wrote the highly acclaimed play Single Asian Female – commissioned by La Boite Theatre Company – which earned 5-star reviews before transferring to a sold-out season at Belvoir St Theatre in 2018. The show returned to La Boite with Michelle performing in […]

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  • Mabel Li
    Sabrina
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    Mabel Li is a 2019 graduate from NIDA’s BFA Acting course. Their theatre credits include Miss Peony (Belvoir Mainstage), Never Closer (Downstairs Belvoir), The Seagull (Sydney Theatre Company), Delilah by the Hour (Brand X), Goldilocks (NIDA), Pool (no water) (NIDA), Ah, Tuzenbach: A Melancholic Cabaret (NIDA), and D.N.A (Seymour Theatre). Mabel made her television debut […]

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  • Shirong Wu
    Joy
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    Shirong Wu is pleased to perform as Joy for the world premiere of Miss Peony. She is lucky to have worked on the Belvoir stage previously, playing Marie in the Australian premiere performance of Cursed. She was Xiao Chen for Sydney Theatre Company and Riverside Parramatta’s co-production of White Pearl by Anchuli Felicia King. On several Melbourne stages, […]

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  • Creatives

  • Jonathan Hindmarsh
    Set and Costume designer
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    Jonathan Hindmarsh is an award winning Australian production designer. He graduated from NIDA’s Bachelor of Dramatic Arts in 2015 and is the recipient of the 2018 Green Room Award for Design and the 2018 Sydney Theatre Award for Best Costume Design. Jonathan’s recent design work includes Lady Tabouli, programmed for Sydney Festival 2020 with the […]

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  • Keerthi Subramanyam
    Assistant Set & Costume Designer
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    Keerthi is a Sydney based set and costume designer for live performance and film. Keerthi is a National Institute of Dramatic Art, BFA (Design for Performance, 2019) graduate, and a member of the Australian Production Design Guild. Keerthi has designed set and costumes for Darlinghurst Theatre Company’s Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner, Chewing Gum […]

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  • Trent Suidgeest
    Lighting designer
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    Trent Suidgeest’s lighting design highlights include: Muriel’s Wedding The Musical (Global Creatures/Sydney Theatre Company); The Rabbits, The Eighth Wonder, Carmen (Opera Australia); Appropriate, Accidental Death Of An Anarchist, Hay Fever, Talk (Sydney Theatre Company); RENT (Sugary Rum/LPD/Opera House); Betty Blokk-Buster Reimagined (Redline Productions); Young Frankenstein, Calamity Jane [National Tour], Gypsy, The View Upstairs (Hayes Theatre); First […]

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  • Dr Nicholas Ng
    Composer
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    Dr Nicholas Ng is a composer, performer and Research Fellow at the Australia-China Institute for Arts and Culture (Western Sydney University). A former Lecturer (Australian National University) and Research Fellow (Queensland Conservatorium), he has been teaching erhu (2-stringed Chinese fiddle) and theory at Sydney Conservatorium since 2016. Nicholas’ upbringing in Old Rite church music combined […]

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  • Julian Starr
    Sound designer
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    Julian is an Award-Winning Sound Designer and Composer for theatre, events and media. Julian works in London, Europe and Australia. His theatre credits include: Zog (West End/UK Tour); Cry Havoc, Martha, Josie and the Chinese Elvis (Park Theatre); You Only Live Forever (Soho Theatre/ Edinburgh Festival); Othello (The Union Theatre); The Comedy of Errors, Pericles […]

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  • Nicole Pingon
    Assistant Director
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    Nicole Pingon (she/they) is a multidisciplinary artist, theatre maker, and artist facilitator working across live performance, installation and digital mediums. Expanding across and between mediums, Nicole’s practice tends to be collaborative, curiosity-led, and process-driven. Most recently, Nicole directed Little Eggs Collective’s Moon Rabbit Rising for Belvoir 25A, which won three Sydney Theatre Awards. Other directing […]

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  • Kristina Chan
    Choreograher
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    Kristina is a dancer and choreographer based in NSW Australia. Her choreographic work includes; solo work A Faint Existence (Performance Space 2016, Sydney Opera House 2018 & Dance Massive 2019); MOUNTAIN commissioned by Campbelltown Arts Centre 2017/18; Summer commissioned by City Contemporary Dance Company Hong Kong 2018; Conform for Sydney Dance Company (Ludwigshafen Germany and […]

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  • Sheena Crouch
    Singing Teacher
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    Sheena has over 30 years experience in the entertainmentindustry, both as a performer and educator. As a performer shehas toured in National Music Theatre productions of Jesus ChristSuper Star (Harry M Miller) South Pacific (Gordon Frost) Witchesof Eastwick (Jacobsen) Assassins, Prince of Egypt, Side By SideBy Sondheim and more. She has performed in corporateentertainment Absolutely […]

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  • Samantha Kwan
    Translator (2023)
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    Samantha Kwan is a versatile producer and editor currently based in Naarm/Melbourne. With an eye for visually-compelling imagery and a do-it-yourself mentality, she seeks to help others communicate their stories across borders and languages, striving to bring more diverse representation onto screens. The latest project she produced and edited, Mother Tongue, enjoyed a successful film […]

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  • Dr Jing Han
    Subtitling & Mandarin Translator (2021)
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    Professor Jing Han is currently the Director of Australia-China Institute for Arts and Culture at Western Sydney University. Shereceived her PhD in English literature from the University of Sydney in 1995. She joined SBS TV Australia in 1996 and had been the Chief Subtitler and Head of the SBS Subtitling Department since 2006. Over the […]

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  • Sylvia Xu
    Cantonese Translator (2021)
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    Sylvia Xu 徐颖 is the Cantonese translator of Miss Peony. She is a native speaker of Cantonese and has near-native proficiency in English. She has done a variety of translations during her fourteen years of working in the international education sector in Australia. She has a BA in Marketing, a Master in Commerce and a […]

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  • Laura Farrell
    Vocal Coach
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    Laura Farrell (she/her) is a Voice and Dialect Coach living and working on Gadigal land. She holds a Masters of Fine Arts in Voice from NIDA; a Post Graduate Diploma in Voice from the Victorian College of the Arts; and a Bachelor of Music Theatre from the Victorian College of the Arts. A current lecturer […]

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  • Polly Rowe
    Writing Dramaturg
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    Polly is a script developer and dramaturg with sixteen years of experience working at the forefront of scriptwriting in Australia. She currently works as the Development Producer at Goalpost Pictures, where she manages the Company’s diverse development slate across film and television. In her previous role at Sydney Theatre Company (STC), Polly was responsible for […]

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  • Carissa Licciardello
    Production Dramaturg
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    Carissa Licciardello is a Resident Director at Belvoir. She was previously an Artistic Associate for the company and its inaugural Andrew Cameron Fellow. She graduated from NIDA’s Directing course in 2017. Her credits include: for Belvoir – as Director/Co-Adaptor, A Room of One’s Own; as Associate Director, Fangirls 2019; as Assistant Director, Counting & Cracking; Ghosts. For Sydney Theatre Company, as […]

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  • Ailsa Liu
    Community Engagement Coordinator
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    Ailsa is a creative professional and passionate about intersections of technology, art and community building. She is currently working at Burwood Library makerspace and as a Digital Storyteller at StoryFactory. Her training in Fine Arts and Arts is complemented by experiences across facilitating creative writing, arts skills, coding workshops, AV tech and live-streaming. She is […]

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  • Gayda de Mesa
    Stage Manager
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    Gayda de Mesa graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) with a Bachelor of Dramatic Art (Production). She has spent her career in technical production working in theatre and live events. She is currently the Senior Venue Technician for Belvoir St. Theatre. Her recent productions as Sound Engineer include She Loves Me (Hayes […]

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  • Ayah Tayeh
    Assistant Stage Manager
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    Born on Wurundjeri land and currently working on Gadigal land, Ayah is a theatre maker with a passion for new work and diverse storytelling. Her credits include: City of Gold (Sydney Theatre Company), The Boomkak Panto (Belvoir), A Room of One’s Own (Belvoir), seven methods of killing kylie jenner (Darlinghurst Theatre Company 2021/2022), My Brilliant […]

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  • Wun Zee
    Assistant Stage Manager
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    Wun Zee is an emerging Chinese-Australian theatre practitioner who lives and works on the lands of the Gadigal and Wallumedegal people of the Eora Nation. Since graduating from NIDA with her BFA in Technical Theatre in 2019, Wun continued to develop her skills as a lighting technician in theatre as well as film and TV […]

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