Toy Symphony (play)

Last updated

Toy Symphony is a two-act play written by Australian playwright Michael Gow and published by Currency Press in 2008. [1] It is Gow's first full-length play in over a decade since Sweet Phoebe and won several awards at its 2007 premiere production at Belvoir St Theatre in Sydney.

Contents

Toy Symphony is the story of writer Roland Henning, a character who has appeared in Gow's earlier play Furious , Toy Symphony tells the story of the turmoil Henning faces as a result of his writer's block, as he tries to explain his past to his therapist in order to grasp some understanding of his current situation. It is considered to be at least partially autobiographical. [2]

Characters

Plot summary

Roland Henning has writer's block. When he tries to explain the situation to a therapist, his story begins to tumble back and forth between his childhood in The Shire and his work as a playwright. At the root of it all is that extraordinary day in primary school which shattered his boyhood and plunged him headlong into the dizzy circus of life and art.

Awards

Original Production

Toy Symphony was first produced by Company B, a theatre company based at Belvoir St Theatre in Sydney. The production received rave reviews and won several awards including Best Director and Best Actor.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sydney Theatre Company</span> Arts organisation in Australia

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Roxburgh</span> Australian actor

Richard Roxburgh is an Australian actor, writer, producer, and director. He is the recipient of a number of accolades across film, television, and theatre, including three AACTA Awards, three Logie Awards, and two Helpmann Awards.

Neil Geoffrey Armfield is an Australian director of theatre, film and opera.

Monica Cresswell Maughan was an Australian actor with roles in theatre, radio, television, film and ballet over a career spanning 52 years.

Belvoir is an Australian theatre company based at the Belvoir St Theatre in Sydney, Australia, originally known as Company B. Since 2016 and as of 2022 its artistic director is Eamon Flack.

James David Sharman is an Australian director and writer for film and stage with more than 70 productions to his credit. He is renowned in Australia for his work as a theatre director from the 1960s to the present, and is best known internationally as the director of the 1973 theatrical hit The Rocky Horror Show, its film adaptation The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) and the film's follow-up, Shock Treatment (1981).

Tommy Murphy is an Australian playwright, screenwriter, adaptor and director. He is best known for his stage and screen adaptation of Timothy Conigrave's memoir Holding the Man. His most recent plays are Mark Colvin's Kidney and Packer & Sons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Howett</span>

Western Australian Mark Howett is a director for theatre, dance, opera and film, having started his career initially as a lighting designer. He studied Theatre Design, specialising in Lighting Design at the School of Drama 1981, Yale University. Since 1979, Mark Howett has worked with many international theatre, film, dance, and opera companies. He was a senior creative on productions such as: Sweeney Todd, Royal Opera at Covent Garden, Cabaret at Savoy Theatre West End, Evita at Dominion Theatre West End, A Country Girl at Apollo Theatre West End, Rites Bangarra and Australian Ballet at Paris Opera House, Cloudstreet Co B Belvoir at Brooklyn Academy of Music, and Secret River Sydney Theatre Co to name a few.

Michael Gow is an Australian playwright and director most famed for his 1986 work Away.

Alana Valentine is an Australian playwright, dramatist, librettist and Director working in theatre, film, opera and television. As a playwright, she won the Helpmann Award. Valentine first worked with Vicki Gordon Music Productions to create the First Nations show Barefoot Divas, Walk a Mile in My Shoes. The work premiered at the Sydney Festival in 2012 and the Wellington International Arts Festival in 2013 touring the USA and Canada in 2014 before selling out the Hong Kong International Arts Festival in 2015. In 2016 Gordon commissioned Valentine and Ursula Yovich to co-write the First Nations rock musical Barbara and the Camp Dogs presented on stage in December 2017 at Belvoir in Sydney and touring nationally in 2019. The work was critically acclaimed winning best Original Score and Best Musical in the 2019 Helpmann Awards and four Green Room Awards (2020) for Best Writing, Best Music Composition, Best Production and Best Performance. The screen adaptation is currently in development as a major International feature film.

Kate Champion is an Australian choreographer and artistic director.

Tyler Coppin is an American-Australian actor, playwright and American dialect coach for actors in film, television and theatre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Toby Schmitz</span> Australian actor and playwright

Toby Schmitz is an Australian actor and playwright.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Russell Dykstra</span> Australian actor of screen, stage and TV

Russell Dykstra is an Australian actor of screen, stage and TV.

Rebecca Massey is an Australian film, television and theatre actress. She has been nominated and won numerous awards for her performances including the prestigious Helpmann Award for both Steve Martin's The Underpants (Belvoir) and Steven Sewell's It Just Stopped (Belvoir). Her talent caught the eye of Director Rob Carlton who cast her as Lucy Canon in the award-winning TV series Chandon Pictures (ABC), after which she went on to star in another award-winning TV series playing Beverly in Utopia (ABC).

Ralph Myers is an Australian theatre designer and director, and the former artistic director of Sydney's Belvoir.

Paul Charlier is an Australian composer and sound designer who works primarily in theatre and film. He has also worked in radio and was a founding member of the Sydney post-punk band SoliPsiK. His theatre work includes the Sydney Theatre Company productions of A Streetcar Named Desire and Uncle Vanya, as well as the Company B productions of Faith Healer (Composer) and The Diary of a Madman. His film credits include The Final Quarter (Composer), Looking for Alibrandi, Candy, Paul Kelly - Stories of Me and Last Ride (Composer).

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.

John Sheedy is an Australian theatre director, born in Geelong in 1972. He was educated at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA). Based in Melbourne, he is a director of drama and musicals for the stage as well as opera. He has been described as "a director of bold vision both filmic and theatrical”.

Counting and Cracking is a play by Australian playwright S. Shakthidharan, first staged in 2019.

References

  1. ↑ Gow, Michael (2008). Toy Symphony. Sydney: Currency Press. ISBN   9780868198286.
  2. ↑ "Toy Symphony". 28 November 2007.
  3. ↑ Helpmann Awards Winners 2008 Archived 2008-10-21 at the Wayback Machine
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.