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The Sublime

The Sublime

22 August — 4 October 2014

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From award winning actor and writer Brendan Cowell (The Slap, Love My Way) comes a visceral examination of sex, power and footy. The Sublime is fresh new writing that turns sports page headlines into breakneck drama, where characters battle it out to tell their side of the story.

What happens on the footy trip doesn’t always stay on the footy trip. And when things go wrong in Thailand, only three people know the whole story. There’s Liam, an NRL workhorse who’s devoted to his code and his teammates; his older brother Dean, a top pick for the Brownlow, who tries desperately to clean up Liam’s mess; and Amber, a promising young athlete who rests uneasily on the edge of complicity and victimhood.

Cutting through the media-managed clichés of professional football, The Sublime plots an emotionally charged trajectory to expose human faults that go way beyond the sporting field. For this fiery world premiere production, Associate Artistic Director Sam Strong combines forces with actors Josh McConville, Ben O’Toole and Anna Samson.

Image: Jo Duck

Josh McConville

Josh McConville

Ben O'Toole

Ben O'Toole

Sam-Strong.jpg

Sam Strong

Dayna Morrissey

Dayna Morrissey

Dayna is a Melbourne based production designer, who studied for a Postgraduate Diploma in Theatre at the Victorian College of the Arts, and has previously designed The Sublime for MTC. Dayna’s recent designs include Hedda Gabler (Belvoir Theatre); the adaptation of Ingmar Bergman’s Persona (adapted with Adena Jacobs and Danny Pettingill for Fraught Outfit); Hate (Malthouse Theatre); On the Bodily Education of Young Girls (Fraught Outfit/NEON Festival); Speaking in Tongues (Griffin Theatre Company); Beyond the Neck, The City and Faces in the Crowd (Red Stitch Actors Theatre); and The Lost Story of the Magdalen Asylum and i(Peepshow Inc.). Her other company appointments include Monash University Honours Ensemble, St Martins Youth Arts Centre, Little Wing Puppets, and FOG Theatre. Dayna received a 2012 Green Room Award for her design of Persona, and has previously been nominated for her set designs for On the Bodily Education of Young Girls (2013), Devine (2011), The City (2010), and White with Wire Wheels (Union House Theatre, 2007).

Artwork for Danny Pettingill

Danny Pettingill

Steve Francis

Steve Francis

Anna Samson

Anna Samson

Artwork for Tahli Corin

Tahli Corin

Chris Mead

Chris Mead

Chris is Literary Director of Melbourne Theatre Company. He has been the inaugural Artistic Director of PlayWriting Australia; Literary Manager of Company B Belvoir; Curator of the Australian National Playwrights’ Conference; Festival Director of the International Festival for Young Playwrights; and Wharf 2LOUD Producer and Literary Manager of Sydney Theatre Company. His recent directing credits include Ian Wilding’s Rare Earth (NIDA 2011) and Quack (Griffin 2010); and Damien Millar’s The Modern International Dead (Griffin 2008), which won Best New Play at the Sydney Theatre Critics’ Awards and the WA Premier’s Literary Award, as well as being shortlisted for the NSW, Queensland and Victorian Premier’s Literary Award. Chris has a PhD from Sydney University, was awarded an inaugural Dramaturgy Fellowship by the Australia Council for the Arts in 2004 and was selected to attend New Visions New Voices at Washington DC’s Kennedy Center in 2008. His monograph What is an Australian Play? on institutional racism and outreach strategies was published by Currency House in June, 2008; and he has recently written introductions to Currency Press volumes by Lachlan Philpott and Lally Katz.

In 2009, Chris was named as one of Sydney’s 100 Creative Catalysts as part of the Creative Sydney Festival. He sat on the steering committee for the 2011 Australian Theatre Forum and on the Board of Arena Theatre Company from 2008-13, is on the artistic directorate of Hothouse Theatre, and has just joined the Board of Theatre Network Victoria.