The Ensemble Theatre is an Australian theatre company and theatre, situated in the Sydney suburb of Kirribilli, New South Wales.
The Ensemble Theatre is an Australian theatre company and theatre, situated in the Sydney suburb of Kirribilli, New South Wales.
It is Australia's longest continuously running professional theatre group, [1] having given its first performance in Cammeray Children's Library on 11 May 1958. It relocated to the current premises in the old boatshed on the shore of Careening Cove in 1960. [2]
The theatre was founded by Hayes Gordon AO OBE along with the Ensemble Studios acting school, which introduced Stanislavsky-influenced method acting to Australia. Ensemble Studios was Australia's longest surviving acting school when it closed in 2009. Gordon passed on the position of Artistic Director of Ensemble Theatre to Sandra Bates in 1986, but remained Principal of the acting school until his death in 1999.[ citation needed ] Bates was joined by Mark Kilmurry first as her deputy and then as co-director, with Kilmurry replacing Bates upon her retirement in 2015. [3]
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia, the Ensemble had to postpone their 2020 Season - the company allowed ticket holders to convert their ticket to a credit voucher. [4]
The Ensemble complex honours veteran stars Lorraine Bayly, incorporating Bayly's Restaurant, in recognition of her long-running commitment to the theatre (she was a founding member), to mark her retirement from the stage in June 2003; and Henri Szeps, with the Henri Szeps Room. [5]
Incoming artistic director Mark Kilmurry initiated the Sandra Bates Director's Award (SBDA) in honour of Sandra Bates, who held the position for 30 years before her retirement [6] in 2015. [3] The award is sponsored by the Seaborn, Broughton & Walford Foundation. [7]
Winners of the award include:
As of 2016 the most successful play in the theatre's history was Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks , a two-hander which in 2006 paired Todd McKenney, in his first non-musical play, with Nancye Hayes. [12] The pair reprised these roles ten years later, reuniting with Sandra Bates in her final directorial role. [13] [14] The play was taken on tour, in collaboration with Christine Dunstan Productions, and won the 2007 Helpmann Award for Best Regional Touring Production. [15]
In 2016, the company produced the Sydney premiere of Jane Cafarella's e-baby , a two-hander "quietly feminist play that asserts a heartfelt approach towards matters of infertility, adoption and motherhood." [16] Caferella's first full-length play [17] which was world premiered in 2015 at the Chapel Off Chapel theatre in Melbourne. [18] The production was directed by Nadia Tass, and starred Danielle Carter and Gabrielle Scawthorn; Carter and Scawthorn were described as bringing "such life to their roles" and being "utterly believable – in equal parts loveable and frustrating – [so that] the heartbreak, when it comes, is visceral". [19] Tass, described e-baby as "a play for today – the advances in medicine create a new world that allows new possibilities – in e-baby we enter that world and explore the raw truth, the unbridled joy and the paradox of surrogacy through a carefully woven story of love, generosity and a newborn child." [20]
Sydney Theatre Company (STC) is an Australian theatre company based in Sydney, New South Wales. The company performs in The Wharf Theatre at Dawes Point in The Rocks area of Sydney as well as the Roslyn Packer Theatre and the Sydney Opera House Drama Theatre.
Reginald Dawson Livermore is an Australian actor, singer, theatrical performer, designer, director, lyricist and writer and former television presenter.
Nadia Tass is an Australian theatre director and film director and producer. She is known for the films Malcolm (1986) and The Big Steal (1990), as well as an extensive body of work in the theatre, both in Australia and internationally.
Todd McKenney is an Australian dancer, theatre performer and TV personality. He is best known as a judge on Australian television talent show Dancing with the Stars.
Alana Valentine is an Australian playwright, dramatist, librettist, and director working in theatre, film, opera and television.
Kate Champion is an Australian choreographer and artistic director.
Danielle Carter is an Australian actress. She has acted in a number of popular television shows, films and plays.
Ursula Yovich is an Aboriginal Australian actress and singer.
David Harris is an Australian actor and singer. In Australia, he is best known for his performances as Chris in Miss Saigon, Fiyero in Wicked and Emmett in Legally Blonde having received Helpmann Award nominations for all three leading roles. Harris also starred as the Baker in Victorian Opera's production of Into the Woods and, in America, as Jean Valjean in Les Misérables opposite Terrence Mann in 2015. He has released two solo albums. Since early 2023, he has played the role of The Duke of Monroth in the Broadway theater production of Moulin Rouge! The Musical.
The Concourse is a cultural centre in the North Shore suburb of Chatswood, which is a 20-minute journey from the Sydney Central Business District. In 2007 the City of Willoughby commissioned new designs to replace the old Chatswood Civic Centre.
Kip Williams is an Australian theatre and opera director. Williams is the current Artistic Director of Sydney Theatre Company. His appointment at age 30 made him the youngest artistic director in the company's history.
Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks is a 2001 play by American playwright Richard Alfieri. It is a play with only two characters: Lily Harrison, the formidable widow of a Baptist minister, and Michael Minetti, a gay and acerbic dance instructor hired to give her dancing lessons. It premiered at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles before moving to Broadway. It has gone on to performances in 24 countries and been translated into 14 languages.
Mitchell Patrick Butel is an Australian actor, singer, director and writer. He is best known for his work in theatre, including musical and opera productions. He has been the artistic director of the State Theatre Company of South Australia since March 2019.
The Secret River is a play by Australian playwright Andrew Bovell, based upon the novel of the same name by Kate Grenville.
Lucy Maunder is an Australian cabaret and theatre performer. She originated the role of Lara in the Australian premiere of Doctor Zhivago opposite Anthony Warlow, and has toured with her own cabaret Songs in the Key of Black, releasing an album with the same name. Maunder toured with the national touring company of Grease playing the role of Rizzo. She then starred in the role of Miss Honey in the Australian tour of Matilda the Musical, replacing Elise McCann. In 2021-22, Maunder starred as the adult Alison Bechdel in the Sydney Theatre Company and Melbourne Theatre Company's co-production of Fun Home.
Nancye Lee Bertles AM, billed under her maiden name as Nancye Hayes, is an Australian actress, dancer, singer and choreographer/director and narrator. She has been a leading figure in Australian musical theatre since the 1960s. Although her roles have been almost exclusively in theatre, she has briefly worked in television in series and mini-series, as a character actress including filling in for an Judy Nunn in the series Home and Away.
e-baby is a two-hander play written by Jane Cafarella that was premiered at Chapel Off Chapel in Melbourne in 2015. It is set over a 16-month period in 2015–16 and deals with two women going through gestational surrogacy, the genetic mother of the embryo created by in vitro fertilisation, and the woman carrying the child. It has been described by Patricia Tobin as a "quietly feminist play that asserts a heartfelt approach towards matters of infertility, adoption and motherhood".
The Hayes Theatre is a 111-seat theatre specialising in music theatre and cabaret in Potts Point, Sydney, Australia. It is named after the Australian performer Nancye Hayes.
Alex Rathgeber is an Australian actor and singer, perhaps best known for his Helpmann Award-winning performance as Billy Crocker in Anything Goes. More recently he appeared as the Tin Man in Andrew Lloyd Webber's revival of The Wizard of Oz.
Gabrielle Scawthorn is an Australian actress. She has appeared in numerous stage productions as well as TV and film. Gabrielle grew up in Ipswich, Queensland. She trained at NIDA.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
