Company B (theatre)
Encyclopedia
Belvoir is an Australia
n theatre company based at the Belvoir St Theatre
in Sydney
, Australia
. Its Artistic Director is Ralph Myers
.
Belvoir receives government support for its activities from the federal government through the Major Performing Arts Board of the Australia Council for the Arts and the state government
through Arts NSW
.
, the company engages Australia's most prominent and promising playwrights, directors and actors. Belvoir also tours to major arts centres and festivals both nationally and internationally.
Belvoir sprang into being out of the unique action taken to save the Nimrod Theatre building from demolition in 1984. Rather than lose a performance space in inner city Sydney, more than 600 arts, entertainment and media professionals as well as ardent theatre lovers, formed a syndicate to buy the building. The syndicate included nearly every successful person in Australian show business.
Belvoir St Theatre’s greatly loved Upstairs and Downstairs stages have been the artistic watering holes of many of Australia’s great performing artists such as Geoffrey Rush
, Cate Blanchett
, Jacqueline McKenzie
, Ursula Yovich
, Richard Roxburgh
, Max Cullen, Bille Brown
, David Wenham
, Tyler Coppin
, Deborah Mailman
and Catherine McClements
.
Sell-out productions like Cloudstreet
, The Judas Kiss, The Alchemist
, Hamlet
, Waiting for Godot
, Gulpilil, Stuff Happens
, Keating!
, Parramatta Girls, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Michael Gow
's Toy Symphony, have consolidated Company B's position as one of Australia's most innovative and acclaimed theatre companies.
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n theatre company based at the Belvoir St Theatre
Belvoir St Theatre
Belvoir St Theatre is an Australian theatre venue in Sydney. The venue in Belvoir Street, Surry Hills previously operated as the Nimrod Theatre, and was founded as "Belvoir St" in 1984 by Sue Hill and Chris Westwood...
in Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. Its Artistic Director is Ralph Myers
Ralph Myers
Ralph Myers is an Australian theatre set-designer and director. In November 2009 was appointed as the new Artistic Director of Sydney's Company B Belvoir. He will replace outgoing Artistic Director Neil Armfield at the beginning 2011...
.
Belvoir receives government support for its activities from the federal government through the Major Performing Arts Board of the Australia Council for the Arts and the state government
Government of New South Wales
The form of the Government of New South Wales is prescribed in its Constitution, which dates from 1856, although it has been amended many times since then...
through Arts NSW
Arts NSW
Arts NSW, an agency of the Government of New South Wales, is responsibile for arts funding and policy development that is committed to building stronger communities through the arts...
.
History
Belvoir was formed in 1984 and, originally under the artistic leadership of Neil ArmfieldNeil Armfield
Neil Geoffrey Armfield AO is an Australian director of theatre, film and opera.Born in Sydney, Armfield was the youngest of three boys. The son of a factory worker at the nearby Arnott's biscuit factory he was brought up in the suburb of Concord adjacent to Exile Bay...
, the company engages Australia's most prominent and promising playwrights, directors and actors. Belvoir also tours to major arts centres and festivals both nationally and internationally.
Belvoir sprang into being out of the unique action taken to save the Nimrod Theatre building from demolition in 1984. Rather than lose a performance space in inner city Sydney, more than 600 arts, entertainment and media professionals as well as ardent theatre lovers, formed a syndicate to buy the building. The syndicate included nearly every successful person in Australian show business.
Belvoir St Theatre’s greatly loved Upstairs and Downstairs stages have been the artistic watering holes of many of Australia’s great performing artists such as Geoffrey Rush
Geoffrey Rush
Geoffrey Roy Rush is an Australian actor and film producer. He is one of the few people who has won the "Triple Crown of Acting": an Academy Award, a Tony Award and an Emmy Award. He has won one Academy Award for acting , three British Academy Film Awards , two Golden Globe Awards and four Screen...
, Cate Blanchett
Cate Blanchett
Catherine Élise "Cate" Blanchett is an Australian actress. She came to international attention for her role as Elizabeth I of England in the 1998 biopic film Elizabeth, for which she won British Academy of Film and Television Arts and Golden Globe Awards, and earned her first Academy Award...
, Jacqueline McKenzie
Jacqueline McKenzie
Jacqueline Susan McKenzie is an Australian actress.McKenzie made her film debut in the 1987 film Wordplay and on stage in Child Dancing for Griffin Theatre Company. She made a strong impression in Romper Stomper , and over the next couple of years came to be regarded as one of Australia's most...
, Ursula Yovich
Ursula Yovich
Ursula Yovich is an actress and singer. She received a Helpmann Award in 2007 for her performance in Capricornia and was nominated in 2005 for her performance in The Sapphires...
, Richard Roxburgh
Richard Roxburgh
Richard Roxburgh is an Australian actor who has starred in many Australian films and has appeared in supporting roles in a number of Hollywood productions, usually as villains.-Early life:...
, Max Cullen, Bille Brown
Bille Brown
Bille Brown, AM is an Australian Shakespearean actor and acclaimed writer of plays.Brown was born in Biloela, Queensland and studied drama at the University of Queensland where he received and Honorary Doctorate of Letters...
, David Wenham
David Wenham
David Wenham is an Australian actor who has appeared in movies, television series and theatre productions. He is known in Hollywood for his roles as Faramir in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, Carl in Van Helsing and Dilios in 300 and Neil Fletcher in Australia...
, Tyler Coppin
Tyler Coppin
Tyler Coppin is an Australian-American actor, playwright, and American dialect coach for actors in film, television and theatre.-Childhood and Education:...
, Deborah Mailman
Deborah Mailman
Deborah Mailman , is an Australian television and film actress. She was the first Aboriginal actress to win the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role...
and Catherine McClements
Catherine McClements
Catherine McClements is an Australian actress.-Early life:Catherine is the third of four children, and after acting with the St Martin's Youth Arts Centre in Melbourne for a couple of years, she successfully auditioned for the prestigious National Institute of Dramatic Art when she was 17...
.
Sell-out productions like Cloudstreet
Cloudstreet
Cloudstreet is a novel by Australian writer Tim Winton. It chronicles the lives of two working class Australian families who come to live together at One Cloud Street, in a suburb of Perth, over a period of twenty years, 1943 - 1963...
, The Judas Kiss, The Alchemist
The Alchemist (play)
The Alchemist is a comedy by English playwright Ben Jonson. First performed in 1610 by the King's Men, it is generally considered Jonson's best and most characteristic comedy; Samuel Taylor Coleridge claimed that it had one of the three most perfect plots in literature...
, Hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
, Waiting for Godot
Waiting for Godot
Waiting for Godot is an absurdist play by Samuel Beckett, in which two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, wait endlessly and in vain for someone named Godot to arrive. Godot's absence, as well as numerous other aspects of the play, have led to many different interpretations since the play's...
, Gulpilil, Stuff Happens
Stuff Happens
Stuff Happens is a play by David Hare, written in response to the Iraq War. Hare describes it as "a history play" that deals with recent history.The title is inspired by Donald Rumsfeld's response to widespread looting in Baghdad:...
, Keating!
Keating!
Keating! is a musical theatre production which portrays the political career of former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating. Keating was Prime Minister between 1991 to 1996; the musical follows him from his ascendancy to the leadership through to his eventual electoral defeat by John Howard...
, Parramatta Girls, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Michael Gow
Michael Gow
Michael Gow is an Australian playwright and director most famed for his 1986 work Away.As a student at Sydney University, Gow acted and directed with the Dramatic Society from 1973-1976. After graduation, Gow went on to act with Nimrod, Thalia and Sydney theatre companies.He has been the Artist...
's Toy Symphony, have consolidated Company B's position as one of Australia's most innovative and acclaimed theatre companies.
2010 Season
- That FaceThat FaceThat Face is a two-act play written by Polly Stenham. It premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in London on 26 April 2007, directed by Jeremy Herrin. The play was revived at the Duke of York's Theatre in the West End in 2008, opening on 1 May...
- written by Polly StenhamPolly StenhamPolly Stenham is an award-winning English playwright best known for her play That Face, which she wrote when she was only 19 years old.-Background:...
, directed by Lee Lewis - Love Me Tender - written by Tom Holloway, directed by Matt Lutton
- The Power of Yes - written by David HareDavid Hare (playwright)Sir David Hare is an English playwright and theatre and film director.-Early life:Hare was born in St Leonards-on-Sea, Hastings, East Sussex, the son of Agnes and Clifford Hare, a sailor. He was educated at Lancing, an independent school in West Sussex, and at Jesus College, Cambridge...
, directed by Sam Strong - Measure for MeasureMeasure for MeasureMeasure for Measure is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1603 or 1604. It was classified as comedy, but its mood defies those expectations. As a result and for a variety of reasons, some critics have labelled it as one of Shakespeare's problem plays...
- written by William ShakespeareWilliam ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
, directed by Benedict Andrews - Gwen in Purgatory - written by Tommy Murphy, directed by Neil Armfield
- Namatjira - written by Scott Rankin, directed by Soctt Rankin and Wayne Blair
- The Diary of a Madman - written by Nikolai GogolNikolai GogolNikolai Vasilievich Gogol was a Ukrainian-born Russian dramatist and novelist.Considered by his contemporaries one of the preeminent figures of the natural school of Russian literary realism, later critics have found in Gogol's work a fundamentally romantic sensibility, with strains of Surrealism...
(adapted by David Holman with Neil Armfield and Geoffrey Rush, directed by Armfield)
2011 Season
- The Wild Duck - written and directed by Simon StoneSimon StoneSimon Stone is an Australian theatre director, writer and actor.-Film and Television:Stone has acted in the television series John Safran's Music Jamboree, MDA , Blue Heelers, Rush , City Homicide, and the films Jindabyne, Kokoda, Balibo, Blame, and The Eye of the Storm.-Theatre:In 2007 Stone...
, After Henrik IbsenHenrik IbsenHenrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre... - Jack Charles v the Crown - written by Jack Charles and John Romeril, directed by Rachael Maza Long
- Cut - written by Duncan Graham, directed by Sarah John
- The Busines - based on Vassa Zheleznova by Maxim GorkyMaxim GorkyAlexei Maximovich Peshkov , primarily known as Maxim Gorky , was a Russian and Soviet author, a founder of the Socialist Realism literary method and a political activist.-Early years:...
, adapated by Jonathan Gavin with Cristabel Sved, directed by Cristabel Sved - The Kiss - written by Anton ChekhovAnton ChekhovAnton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...
, Kate Chopin, Peter Goldsworthy and Guy de Mauppasant, directed by Susanna Dowling - The SeagullThe SeagullThe Seagull is the first of what are generally considered to be the four major plays by the Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov. The Seagull was written in 1895 and first produced in 1896...
- written by Anton Chekhov, directed by Benedict Andrews - Neighbourhood Watch - written by Lally Katz, directed by Simon Stone
- Windmill Baby - written by David Milroy, directed by Kylie Farmer
- Human Interest Story - choreographed by Lucy Guerin
- And They Called Him Mr Glamour - written by Gareth Davies, directed by Thomas Wright
- Summer of the Seventeenth DollSummer of the Seventeenth DollSummer of the Seventeenth Doll is a pioneering Australian play written by Ray Lawler and first performed at the Union Theatre in Melbourne, Australia, on 28 November 1955...
- by Ray LawlerRay LawlerRaymond Evenor Lawler is an influential Australian actor, dramatist and producer. His most notable play was his tenth, Summer of the Seventeenth Doll , which had its premiere in Melbourne in 1955. The play changed the direction of Australian drama...
, directed by Neil Armfield - The Dark Room - written by Angela Betzien, directed by Leticia Cáceres
- As You Like ItAs You Like ItAs You Like It is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 or early 1600 and first published in the folio of 1623. The play's first performance is uncertain, though a performance at Wilton House in 1603 has been suggested as a possibility...
- written by William Shakespeare, directed by Eamon Flack
Belvoir Education Program
- School matinee performances: Belvoir holds up to five school matinee performances of every subscription season show.
- Tours: School groups are able to take a behind the scenes tour of Belvoir St Theatre where they learn about the history of the building and Belvoir, and the running of a professional theatre company.
- Priority Funded Schools Program: Through the support of Education Partner, FreehillsFreehillsFreehills is a commercial law firm that operates in the Asia-Pacific region. In Australia it is considered one of the 'Big Six' law firms.-Offices:Freehills has offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Brisbane in Australia...
, Belvoir offers students from priority funded schools the opportunity to attend school matinee performances for free. - Workshops: Belvoir runs a number of education workshops throughout the year for both students and teachers. The workshop program includes workshops in lighting, set, costume and sound design as well as in composition, theatre criticism and performance.
- Work Experience: Belvoir runs a work experience program for high school students the aim of which is to give students a first hand experience of the company's artistic and administrative operations.
- Work Placement at Belvoir: Belvoir also offers a limited number of work placements to students studying the VET Entertainment Industry Course.