 |
Matthew Lutton OAM (born 28 July 1984) is an Australian theatre and opera director.
|
Matthew Lutton OAM (born 28 July 1984) is an Australian theatre and opera director.
Lutton was born at Perth, Western Australia. He attended Perth's Hale School, graduating in 2001. From 2002 to 2004 he studied Theatre Arts at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, and in 2011 relocated to Melbourne.
In 2002 Matthew Lutton formed the ThinIce theatre company which staged Ionesco's The Bald Prima Donna at the 2003 Perth International Fringe Festival. For ThinIce he directed the premiere of Brendan Cowell's play Bed at Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts [1] and devised two new works with Eamon Flack, The Gathering in 2005 and The Goose Chase in 2007. The Goose Chase was a solo piece for Eamon Flack, co-produced with Deckchair Theatre.[ citation needed ]
Lutton was appointed the Artistic Director of Black Swan Theatre Company's emerging artists' program at the BSX-Theatre in 2003 where, between 2003 and 2006, he directed Harold Pinter's Mountain Language , Mrozek's Striptease, Büchner's Woyzeck and Dürrenmatt's The Visit . He became the Associate Director of the Black Swan Theatre Company in 2006, and in 2007 directed Mishima's The Lady Aoi for the Perth International Arts Festival.[ citation needed ]
In 2008 Lutton was Michael Kantor's Assistant Director on Malthouse Theatre's production of Moliere's Tartuffe in Melbourne. Kantor fell ill two days before rehearsals commenced and Lutton was invited to take over the production as director. [2] He then went on to direct the world premiere of Tom Holloway's play Don't Say the Words at Sydney's Griffin Theatre Company [3] and Red Shoes (a version of the Hans Christian Andersen story adapted by Humphrey Bower) for ThinIce and Artrage.[ citation needed ]
In 2009 ThinIce was appointed triennial funding from both the Australia Council for the Arts and ArtsWA. Over the next three years ThinIce created six new works in partnership with other Australian arts organisations. These included a new production of Antigone (adapted by Eamon Flack and featuring singer Rachael Dease) with the Perth International Arts Festival; The Duel (a Dostoevsky adaptation written by Tom Wright) with Sydney Theatre Company; [4] Tom Holloway's Love Me Tender with Belvoir Street Theatre and Griffin Theatre Company; and The Trial (adapted from the Kafka novel by Louise Fox) with Sydney Theatre Company and Malthouse Theatre;, [5] The same year Lutton directed part one of The Mysteries: Genesis at Sydney Theatre Company. Parts two and three were directed by Tom Wright and Andrew Upton.[ citation needed ]
Lutton was appointed as the Associate Artist (Directing) at Melbourne's Malthouse Theatre in 2011, which initiated his decision to close down ThinIce and relocated to Melbourne. ThinIce was officially disestablished in April 2012.[ citation needed ]
As Associate Artist (Directing) Lutton directed award-winning productions including "On the misconception of Oedipus" by Tom Wright and "The Bloody Chamber [6] " by Angela Carter, adapted by Van Badham.
In 2015 Lutton was appointed Artistic Director and Co-CEO of Melbourne's Malthouse Theatre. [7] Directing highlights include the 5-hour stage adaptation of Tim Winton's Cloudstreet co-produced with the Perth International Arts Festival, the Australian premiere of Tom Waits' musical The Black Rider co-produced with Victorian Opera, [8] the world premiere of the stage adaptation of Picnic at Hanging Rock, which was invited to be performed at the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh and the Barbican in London, The Real and Imagined History of the Elephant Man, [9] David Grieg's Solaris in a co-production with the Lyric Hammersmith London and the Royal Lyceum Edinburgh, John Harvey's First Nations epic, The Return, co-directed with Jason Tamiru as part of RISING Festival, and Australia's largest immersive theatre production, Because the Night [10] (2021). In 2025 Lutton will direct a new adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's The Birds and a new play about the fall of Troy, by Tom Wright, for Malthouse Theatre.
In 2007 Lutton attended the Jerwood Opera Writing Foundation Program, directed by Giorgio Battistelli, at the Aldeburgh Festival in England. While at Aldeburgh he collaborated with Czech composer Miroslav Srnka for the first time. In 2008 Srnka and Lutton received fellowships from the Jerwood Foundation and Aldeburgh Music to create a new opera, Make No Noise, commissioned by the Bavarian State Opera. The opera, with a libretto by Tom Holloway, is based on Isabel Coixet's film The Secret Life of Words , and had its world premiere at the Munich Opera Festival on 1 July 2011. [11] [12]
In 2012 Lutton directed Strauss's Elektra for West Australian Opera, Opera Australia, ThinIce, and Perth International Arts Festival, with Danish soprano Eva Johansson singing the title role. [13] [14] [15] In 2013 Lutton directed Wagner's The Flying Dutchman for New Zealand Opera and in 2022 Kurt Weill's Happy End for Victorian Opera.
Lally Katz is an American and Australian dramatist writing for theater, film, and television. She now resides in Los Angeles.
Away is a play written by Australian playwright Michael Gow. First performed by the Griffin Theatre Company in 1986, it tells the story of three internally conflicted families holidaying on the coast for Christmas, 1968.
The Green Room Awards are Australian peer awards which recognise excellence in cabaret, dance, theatre companies, independent theatre, musical theatre, contemporary and experimental performance, and opera. The awards, which were established in 1982, are based in Melbourne, Victoria.
Belvoir is an Australian theatre company based at the Belvoir St Theatre in Sydney, Australia, originally known as Company B. Its artistic director is Eamon Flack. The theatre comprises two performing spaces: the Upstairs Theatre and the smaller Downstairs Theatre.
Malthouse Theatre is the resident theatre company of The Malthouse building in Southbank, part of the Melbourne Arts Precinct. In the 1980s it was known as the Playbox Theatre Company and was housed in the Playbox Theatre in Melbourne's CBD. It is a heritage-listed building which contains three theatres: Merlyn Theatre, Beckett Theatre, and The Tower.
Robin Ramsay is an Australian former television, film and stage actor. He appeared in the rural series Bellbird as Charlie Cousins, in which he was best known for the scene in which he falls to his death from a wheat silo.
Richard Pyros is a British-Australian actor, who first achieved fame in the hit Australian Channel Seven TV show, Big Bite whilst still studying at drama school. Pyros was selected to create an array of characters including the memorably disheveled newsreader, 'Tee Pee Moses', and for his impersonation of personalities such as Rob Sitch, Michael Caton, Harry Potter and Detective Lennie Briscoe from Law & Order.
Pamela Rabe is a Canadian–Australian actress and theatre director. A graduate of the Playhouse Acting School in Vancouver, Rabe is best known for her appearances in the Australian films Sirens, Cosi and Paradise Road, and for starring as Joan Ferguson in the television drama series Wentworth.
Kate Champion is an Australian choreographer and artistic director. Since 2022 and as of 2024 she is artistic director of Black Swan State Theatre Company in Perth, Western Australia. She was the founding artistic director/CEO of Force Majeure dance company in Sydney, from 2002 to 2015, where she co-devised and directed such works as Same, Same But Different and Not in a Million Years. She also created and performed the critically-acclaimed solo shows, Face Value and About Face, and has been the recipient of numerous awards, including three Helpmann Awards.
Barrie Kosky is an Australian theatre and opera director. Based at the Komische Oper Berlin, he has worked internationally.
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.
John Kachoyan is an Armenian-Australian director, writer, and dramaturg. He is a co-founder of Iron Bark, a theatre company in London, specialising in new Australian plays, and the former Creative Director of MKA: Theatre of New Writing, in Melbourne. Kachoyan has been a Director In Residence at Bell Shakespeare.
John Sheedy is an Australian theatre director.
Sam Strong is an Australian theatre director and arts leader; he was the artistic director of Queensland Theatre Company (2015–2019) and of Griffin Theatre Company (2010–2013). He has also been Chair of Circa and the Associate Artistic Director of Melbourne Theatre Company.
Tom Wright is an Australian theatre writer, mostly known for his adaptations and translations.
Anna O'Byrne is an Australian actress and soprano singer best known for her portrayal of Christine Daaé in Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera and the original Australian production of Lloyd Webber's sequel, Love Never Dies, for which she was nominated for a Green Room Award.
Night on Bald Mountain is a play by Australian writer Patrick White.
Marion Potts is an Australian theatre director.
Trevor Jamieson is an Aboriginal Australian stage and film actor, playwright, dancer, singer and didgeridoo player.
Elise McCann is an Australian actress and musical theatre performer most well known for originating the role of Miss Honey in the Australian production of Matilda the Musical and as Lucille Ball in Everybody Loves Lucy.