Archived

Seventeen

By Matthew Whittet
Director Anne-Louise Sarks

  • Venue Upstairs Theatre
  • Dates 1 August – 13 September 2015

    This one’s a real treat no matter which way you look at it. Take the cast: six acting legends of Australian theatre. Or take the play: written specially to make these legends seventeen again. Or take the writer: one of the funniest and most delightful theatrical imaginations in the country. Or take the director: the wonderfully inventive creator of Belvoir’s A Christmas Carol. Or take the central theme: life, whether it’s stretching out before you or laid out behind you, is a wonderful thing.

    Matthew Whittet (Cinderella, Old Man) is the true original mind of Australian theatre – actor, writer, muse, inventor of marvels, scribe of human beauty and lover of oddity. Seventeen is the play he’s been getting ready to write for a long time. It’s about the cusp of adulthood, and it has been written for a rollcall of the country’s great senior actors. To be precise:

    Peter Carroll, Maggie Dence, John Gaden, Genevieve Lemon, Barry Otto, Anna Volska. The lot of them.

    These venerables play a group of teenagers (!) drinking, singing, dancing, gabbling, worrying and maybe even pashing (!!) their way through their last night of childhood and their first night of adulthood.

    Funny, immature, wise and a little bit but quite beautifully sad, Seventeen is about the size of life.

    Team

    By Matthew Whittet
    Director Anne-Louise Sarks
    Set Designer Robert Cousins
    Costume Designer Mel Page
    Lighting Designer Paul Jackson
    Composer Alan John
    Sound Designer Nate Edmondson
    Dramaturg Anthea Williams
    Choreographer Sara Black
    Movement Director Scott Witt
    Stage Manager Luke McGettigan
    Assistant Stage Manager Vanessa Martin

    Cast

    Peter Carroll
    Maggie Dence
    John Gaden
    Genevieve Lemon

    Barry Otto
    Anna Volska

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