Fear or Love
You Choose
Then take a step…

Precipice is a play about two characters balanced right on the edge, hovering, held in the moment before inevitable change. It’s about recent times — the tensions between anxiety, threat and compassion. About a society where some desperately want to raise the barricades, while others weep as they feel humanity slipping away.

It’s about the bridges between us. About how powerful and how fragile they are. The Tasman, the Westgate, the one over your favourite creek bed in a childhood memory. How deeply these engineering marvels, these sites of suspension, imagination and tension are stamped in the Australian psyche. And it’s about how potent, but often how seemingly insignificant and mundane, the chasms that divide us can be. And the awakening of the discovery that we may not just be simply divided after all.

Mel is a 40-year-old single working mother, struggling but strong, trying to maintain family, job and herself in a harsh world. A potent childhood incident has left her suffering from chronic vertigo, which she is only able to relieve by running. Al is older, a compulsive reader of death notices, and an obsessive attendee of the funerals of strangers. Through interior monologues and far-reaching conversations they reveal their pasts, presents, inner worlds and differing levels of consciousness as their lives converge.

Writer AWGIE Award winning playwright Catherine Ryan  Director Green Room Award winner Laurence Strangio  Producer Castlemaine State Festival  Set & lighting design Uli Radchevich & Jens Milbret  Sound design Jacques Soddell  Cast Bev Geldard, Tammy McCarthy, Tiffany Raae & Ian Scott

Winner of the 2009 George Fairfax National Playwrights Award

Developed in the Melbourne Theatre Company Hardlines
Affiliate Writers Program

Joint Winner of the 2009 Inscription Regional Script Award

I found Catherine Ryan’s play PRECIPICE to be well-written and provocative, and I am highly supportive of its being produced.
Edward Albee, Legendary Playwright, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Imagine this … it is becoming increasingly difficult to discern the difference between the present and the past, between what is familiar and what is foreign. Events that took place just minutes ago are being constantly erased, while memories that you have been able to keep at bay for decades now come rushing towards you. KAGE, in partnership with Alzheimer’s Australia, invites you into this mystery.

Despite the explorations of poets, novelists, doctors, scientists and philosophers, the realm of memory remains a great mystery. And Sundowner’s Syndrome remains an unanswered question. Why is it that just as the sun goes down, so many of those with Alzheimer’s become particularly disorientated and confused?

This breathtaking performance traverses sorrow, fears, humour and dignity. Through the eyes of three generations, Sundowner tells the story of so many Australian families. Ultimately, it is a story of love: love of family, love of history, and love of life.

Featuring renowned Australian actress Helen Morse, with music by Kelly Ryall, Paul Kelly and Megan Washington, and an appearance from the Tivoli Lovelies (dancers from the original Tivoli Theatre), Sundowner is a major new performance work combining dance, drama and original composition.

Director Kate Denborough  Writer David Denborough  Cast Helen Morse, Gerard Van Dyck, Michelle Heaven, Stuart Christie  Tivoli Lovelies Betty Arnold, Vicki Charleston, Verlie Whittaker, Jackie O’Neil, Dot Lanphier, Lil Paranos, Lila Wells, Julie Obst  Lighting Designer Damien Cooper  Set Designer Dan Potra  Costume Designer Paula Levis

Simone (!) is an intimate 90-minute journey into the life of French radical, philosopher and mystic, Simone Weil (1909–1943).

During Simone Weil’s brief life, and in the 60 years since her writings began to be published, this young Frenchwoman has constantly amazed, infuriated, perplexed and endeared herself to people with her profound thinking and uncompromising behaviour. The essential drama in the play is the struggle between Simone’s deep engagement with society and her growing relationship with her God; a struggle which works to destroy her self and her vivid connections with the world.

Enmeshed in the political and social upheavals of the 1930s, and
the calamities of war, Simone’s compulsion for justice and the paradoxes of her living and dying are enlightening and disturbing. Simone Weil’s story is one of the most intriguing of the last century, and her writings are as lucid and disconcerting as ever. On her gravestone is written, ‘My solitude held in its grasp the grief of others until my death’.

Simone (!) is passionate and nourishing theatre. Simone’s own words have been used by Lorender Freeman to create a powerful one-woman show performed with great sensitivity and intensity by Samantha Bews.

Performer Samantha Bews  Writer Lorender Freeman  Director Mandy Smith
Lighting designer Tim Preston

Within the intimate surrounds of each Pandemonium Pavilion you can choose to either howl to the chorus line of original gothic country songs with ‘Underdog and the School of Obedience’ or taste ‘melting moments’ whilst sharing in exclusive interviews, stories and exceptional acts with the girls at the CCWA (Castlemaine Cultural Women’s Association). Then you can gavotte ‘til you drop with Ensemble Systolica and rock with the raucous as clowns get a drubbing in the Clown Master Class. Acrobats, shadow mechanics, bike inventors and shambolic makers invite you to a Pandemonium Pavilion world, to discover the cultural wealth of our region and our top-notch illustrious festival creators.

The Pandemonium Pavilions, located around Castlemaine’s central Market Building and extending into Victory Park, will blend the best of local cultural talent with sideshow pizzazz to create a unique gathering place for family, friends and Festival visitors throughout the opening weekend of the Festival.

Co-producer Punctum

Renowned for her spell-binding stage presence and emotional expression, Belgian chanteuse Micheline inhabits the poetry and passion of Jacques Brel’s music, singing in French, Flemish and English. Rather than just performing them, Micheline inhabits each of the songs.

Belgian-born Brel, one of the 20th century’s greatest chansonniers, died in 1978. He channelled the light and dark of the human soul, writing memorable songs such as Ne Me Quitte Pas, The Port of Amsterdam, Seasons in the Sun, Mathilde, Marieke, Bruxelles and many others.

Micheline has played to packed houses at the Edinburgh Festival and the Sydney Opera House, has had two sell-out seasons at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival, and in 2009 completed a 60-day European tour with Jacques Brel’s nephew, and keeper of the flame, Bruno Brel.

Behold this Belgian diva; whether in French, English or Flemish, she communicates with a livid sensual force that has the listener transfixed.

Micheline is accompanied by Australian jazz guitarist Ben Hauptmann.

Saltbush is an exquisite interactive journey through the culture and landscape of Aboriginal Australia, celebrated through live dance, music, song and stories. Internationally acclaimed Italian company Compagnia TPO has worked in collaboration with Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians to create another beautiful piece in the highly acclaimed Children’s Cheering Carpet series.

The Saltbush narrative centres on the journey of two friends from different Aboriginal backgrounds as they cross Australia on foot, and is performed on a touch-sensitive floor using infra-red imaging technology that triggers images and sound. Their journey sees them travel across diverse Australian landscapes (countries) — river country, an urban landscape, desert and the sea. The journey is one of discovering the land (country), growing an understanding and acknowledging how it challenges or provokes personal journeys.

Children are invited to explore, play and dance with the performers as the landscape unfolds around them, providing a unique immersive experience, where the audience can become part of this visually beautiful journey.

Co-Artistic directors Davide Venturini (Italy) & Jason Cross (Australia)  Dramaturgy Sasha Zahra (Australia)  Composer/musician Lou Bennett (Australia/Yorta Yorta/Dja Dja Wurrung)  Choreographer Deon Hastie (Australia/Tjapukai)  Dancer Rosealee Pearson (Australia/Yolngu)  Dancer Sani Townson (Australia/Saibai Koedal)  Narrator/performer Jada Alberts (Australia/Larrakia)  Visual artist/designer Delwyn Mannix (Australia/Wangkangurru)  Digital designer Elsa Mersi (Italy)  Technical designer Rossano Monti (Italy)  Sound designer Spartaco Cortesi (Italy)  Artistic collaborations Edoardo Donatini & Francesco Gandi (Italy)  Technical operators Niccolo Gallio & Alberto Martino (Italy)  Tour creative producer Insite Arts — Lee Cumberlidge & Jason Cross (Australia)  TPO manager Valentina Martini (Italy)

The seas have risen, the human race is on the brink of destruction and only one man can save the world. Now science and humanity are turning to the oceans. A last ditch effort to save the human race requires journeying down through the mysterious depths of the deep blue sea to find a new place for us to live.

This is micro-epic theatre that melds technology and comedy in a touching story of enduring love at the end of the world.

Alvin Sputnik, Deep Sea Explorer, is our unlikely hero in a curious and fantastical production that will captivate audiences of all ages. Creator and performer Tim Watts uses mime, puppetry, and live and recorded music with animation to present an exploration of the next and oldest frontier: the deep blue sea.

This show is REALLY not to be missed.

Winner Best Solo Show 2009 New York International Fringe

Winner Best Puppetry 2010 Adelaide Fringe Festival

A Weeping Spoon production presented in association with Perth Theatre Company.

SUPPORTED BY MEZ WOODWARD

Below stairs is a world of differing speed
Morning . Noon . Night
She eats . . . . . . . . . . blackout
Peas
He craves . . . . . . . . . peas
A tall short tale where taste may equal . . .
Blackout

Enter the unique world of one of Australia’s most intriguing dancers and independent choreographers, Michelle Heaven.

Reminiscent of an old silent film in its style and execution, this bizarre and beautiful work sees Michelle in an unforgettable ‘pea de deux’ with the inimitable Brian Lucas. Disagreeable Object will be encased within Ben Cobham’s distinctive design and beautifully accompanied by Bill McDonald’s original sound score.

Choreographer/performer Michelle Heaven  Collaborator/performer Brian Lucas  Collaborator/designer Ben Cobham / Bluebottle  Composer Bill McDonald  Costume designer Louise McCarthy  Production manager Bluebottle.

She — a widow, a seamstress, a liar and a sly grog seller. He — a celestial traveller, poet, prospector, herbalist and grower of cardoons.

This is an imagined account of an uncommon marriage, drawn from historical sources, as played out on the goldfields of 1850s Victoria. Themes of love and loss, distance and collision, and cultural difference are experienced in a series of spaces as the story unfolds. Part installation, part performance, Phoenix Vixen Crinoline is a multimedia re-imagining that will engage all the senses.

Writer Kathrin Ward  Performers Kathrin Ward & Emily Sanderson  Director Kirsty Babbage  Lighting designer Helena Read  Lighting operator Leslie Thornton Sensory effects & foley Forest Keegel & Glendon Blazely Projection Jilli Rose