Packer & Sons

A battler at a Tasmanian racecourse finds ten shillings in the dirt. He puts it on a 12-1 long shot, and when it romps home he’s off to the mainland, and the Packer Dynasty is born. Fathers and sons across generations, through war, the Depression, technological change. The family myth grows with the influence, and each son feels the weight of time, of power. But now it’s the 21st century. Newspapers, magazines, broadcast TV – what are they? Now it’s time for entertainment through your phone. And back to laying bets on long shots.

A deeply researched, muscular work from Tommy Murphy (Mark Colvin’s Kidney, Holding the Man), Packer & Sons puts on stage the men who have loomed large over Sydney for nearly 100 years.

Plotted around the transitions of power from father to son over four generations, this is a play about power and what it does to the men who wield it.

Tommy writes real life like nobody else – complex dramatic portraits, a pitchperfect sense of the public interest in the private life. In other words, no one is better suited to write about the Packer line. This is about power in Sydney, and it’s about the age-old matter of what is passed on from fathers to sons. Robust and brilliant.

Supported by Australian Writers’ Guild’s David Williamson Prize

John Gaden
John Howard
Brandon McClelland
Josh McConville

Stage Manager Luke McGettigan
Assistant Stage Manager Jen Parsonage

16 November – 22 December 2019
Tuesday 6.30pm
Wednesday 6.30pm
Thursday 1pm & 7.30pm
Friday 7.30pm
Saturday 2pm & 7.30pm
Sunday 5pm

Previews
7.30pm, 16 November
6.30pm, 17 November
7.30pm, 19 November

Opening Night (invitation only)
7.30pm, 20 November

Post-show Q&A
26 November, directly following the performance

Thursday Matinee
1pm, 28 November
1pm, 12 & 19 December

Unwaged Performance
1pm, 5 December

Belvoir Briefing
6,30pm, 7 November

Book a subscription to secure tickets to Packer & Sons and save up to 31% on single ticket prices.

Single tickets will go on sale to the general public on 10 June 2019.